Seven

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?
O my God, I cry in the day time, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent.
- from Psalm 22 "Deer of the Dawn"

Seven years of blogging.  Seven years of cancer.  Seven years of waiting.  Of feeling like life has been put on hold.  Of deciding if we should make plans or cancel them.  Of wondering whether or not I should press the "Publish" button.

A friend was telling us the other day how grateful he was to have friends that put such a "human face" on cancer.  He expressed that it made a very difficult subject easier to understand, especially for the person who hasn't experienced it themselves.

Hearing comments like that is very helpful for a guy who's grown rather tired of his own story.  Talking about cancer and the difficulties it brings was easy the first year, but now that it's encroached on nearly 25% of our current lifespan, it's become exasperating, played out and even a bit trite.

In fact, this is the third version of this post that I've written.  One version was too cynical; the other too sentimental.  This post will likely take on another negatively-charged adjective as soon as I post it.  (Ask my wife who gets weekly requests to "proofread this underwhelming and incredibly disappointing blog post.")

In all of this I believe we still have a story that needs to be told.  In fact, if that's all the good that comes out of this whole journey, I('m trying to) believe that God will make it our redemption.

The reason why I can hope for this is because of the book of Psalms.  Have you ever read it?  The majority of it is a songwriter lamenting over their current circumstances and begging God to hear their prayer.

There's been a lot of lamenting here as well and--hesitant as we may be to share--we're still telling the story just as the story of our lives is still being written.

I'm glad that the psalmists didn't hold back or refuse to tell the story.  We both need that to give us the courage to tell ours.

For he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; neither hath he hid his face from him; but when he cried unto him, he heard.  Psalm 22:24

He didn't fix it.  He didn't remove the problem.  He didn't promise that seven years wouldn't turn into eight.  He heard.  But now I'm preachin'.

Publish.