11th May

Without the Lord our life would be completely impossible and quite miserable. With him as our focus all things are possible and that’s the challenge… focus, keeping our eyes upon him.

The physical challenges Jane faces every minute of the day are immense. The reality to be faced with on-going disease progression doesn’t bear thinking about… although we have to. Today we were visited by the district nurse and then the Macmillan nurses to put in place the help needed for palliative care at home. We’ve already got oxygen piped around the home and made wheelchair access as best we can… but there’s so much more practically we need now to put in place if Jane is to remain at all comfortable. Admission to the Macmillan Unit is the other option. And tomorrow we need to get our GP to visit and talk through the prescription side of things. In the meantime Jane’s just eaten a small plate of my pasta and is happily guzzling her second glass of organic blueberry juice kindly donated by my sister!

So, many times previously we’ve realised how pervasive a negative diagnosis and prognosis relating to health can be. It spreads to fill the whole of one’s life so easily and it’s as if that’s all there is to consider. And added to that we now have to deal with the horror of advanced cancer management. It’s so easy to fall into the trap of seeing this physical world as being all there is to see. Of course as Christians we know there is a spiritual reality but the western mind-set is quite persuasive and presupposes it to be as unknowable as it is invisible, as unreachable as the unbridgeable gap between life and death. Nonsense, I believe a Biblical and Hebrew perspective suggests a more holistic truth. There is no separation between spiritual and physical realities, they are one. Indeed God is as close as our next prayer. Maybe the Lord’s Prayer? On earth as it is in heaven? Is there any sickness in heaven?

Matthew 6:9-13 ‘Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. May your Kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us today the food we need, and forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us. And don’t let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one.^’ (NLT)