11/10/2010
Author: John Powell
“But Daniel decided beforehand not to defile himself with the kings food…” Daniel 1:8
When I met my wife Mary Lou it became clear right away that she had had lung problems. She had lost jobs due to pneumonia and experienced other limitations. Before we were engaged and married in 1976 she had surgery to remove a portion of her left lung.
God made it clear to me that marriage was for sanctification and that I should marry Mary Lou. I decided beforehand that I would accept the limitations her lungs brought, including the distinct possibility that she may not live beyond her 40’s. That decision has kept me moving ahead through challenges that would otherwise have affected our relationship.
I of course highly recommend making decisions beforehand and accepting the consequences as part of the original decision. You won’t have to keep rehashing issues that you settle like Daniel settled his issue – by deciding beforehand. Anything we leave up to a spur of the moment decision will plague us over and over.
Mary Lou’s (and my) endurance and character development that has come from this tribulation has been the joy of my life. I am privileged to benefit from this process.
We were expecting that lung problems would be the only major health issue she’d face. What could be worse than a chronic life threatening issue like bronchiectasis? So when she was diagnosed with breast cancer and recently went through the challenging surgery, needless to say, we began walking on new ground. We had not expected to deal with a double challenge like this. These two conditions present unique challenges from a medical perspective, but equally importantly, from an emotional and spiritual perspective.
Our oncologist summed it up well when she said that with such lungs, every year of life Mary Lou has is a blessing. So cancer treatment has to take second place to lung health. That means no chemotherapy or radiation. Estrogen blockers don’t seem to be in the picture either.
The upside of this is that she won’t be living through the side effects of these treatments. That will make the present more enjoyable for us.
All that said, I must say that I am brought back to the place I was in 1976--having to wrestle with a new situation I would not have chosen on my own. God has the big picture like He did back then. So I ask Him to show me enough of the picture like he did back then that we can decide beforehand the things that must be decided beforehand and leave to the moment the things that can only be faced in the moment.
So this new ground can be covered with some of the same principles I learned before, but in other ways it is totally new. The steadfast love of the Lord is new every morning as Jeremiah tells us in Lamentations 3:23.
So if you think of praying for me, these are some of the things that I have been thinking of as we face this new phase of our life.
