Not Waiting

Yesterday I wrote about waiting—waiting on God, waiting for him to bring growth and understanding through suffering and perplexities, waiting for dawn to break after a long, dark night. Then our Sunday school teacher Tom showed us from Haggai 1, verses 2 & 8, that sometimes God tells us to quit waiting and do something. “This is what the Lord Almighty says: The people are saying, ‘The time has not yet come to rebuild the Lord’s house—the temple.’” . . . “Now go up into the hill, bring down timber, and rebuild my house. Then I will take pleasure in it and be honored, says the Lord.” Don't wait to do “kingdom business,” Tom said, which could be visiting a sick friend, sending a needed note of encouragement, forgiving an offense, or sharing with the poor. If we want to give God pleasure, we should quit waiting (saying “the time has not yet come”) and get doing the thing(s) that we’ve known for quite some time that God wants us to do.

I’ll tell you what’s been on my mind: the fact that there are at least 27 million people around the world living in slavery—more than all the slaves during the 400-year trans-Atlantic slave trade. They are everywhere—including an estimated 200,000 in the U.S. Some of today’s slaves work in factories, others on farms, while some are sex workers. Two-thirds are women and children. I know I can’t be a William Wilberforce. I can’t even go to Sudan as Baroness Caroline Cox has famously done to buy and release slaves. The question is, what can I do (in addition to boycotting chocolate)? This week, I aim to find out at least one action I can take for positive change.

I’m definitely feeling better. Yesterday I so enjoyed Sunday school and the worship service. After lunch and some personal correspondence, I put away the laundered linens from last week’s guests. Then I decided things might start to grow on the kitchen floor so I washed it. I was still finishing that when friends called to invite us to join them at the ice cream shop (don’t worry; I ordered healthy). While we were there, our cousin’s daughter, who lives a couple of hours away, called to say she and 3 friends were in town and could they come to our house? Of course. The visit was sweet, and we persuaded them to eat supper with us. Even after cleaning that up, I was not exhausted. I’m thinking my blood counts will likely be in the healthy range by Tuesday so we can proceed with chemo. We’ve been praying for that. (There won’t be another blood test for the cancer until a month from now, to give the next round of chemo time to work.)

Did I tell you our friend in dialysis learned that the lesion on her pancreas is NOT cancer. So she’s now officially on the transplant list for a kidney. We thank God.

We’re continually thankful for you who so faithfully pray for God to heal me. Thank you so much.

Love,
Carol