Perserverance

Today's forecast promises 106 degree weather so I'm going back into My Father's Vineyard where it's always cool and pleasant.

It's almost eerie how the chapters I'm reading in this beautiful book parallel the seasons I'm going through on this journey, but nothing happens without a reason so I read on in amazement, learning so much along the way.

Wayne Jacobsen continues to recall the seasons spent as a child in his earthly father's vineyard in California's San Joaquin Valley. He has brought me through Winter and Spring, and now it's Summer, the time for the maturing of the grapes.  The beauty of the Spring's exploding beauty has passed and the keeper of the vineyard is working hard at maintaining the grapes in this season between promise and harvest.

Mr. Jacobsen suggests that this season between promise and harvest exists in my life as well.  

First came the dormant season of Winter, a season of deadness that might describe the time around my diagnosis.  Nothing looked promising.  Everything looked lifeless, blanketed in coldness.  But after a period of deadness followed the promise of Spring as the decisions for treatment began that would hold the possibility of life and new growth.  The weeds of cancer would be destroyed and the new growth of healthy cells could begin.  This would be a season of beauty, of hope.

It's now Summer, both both physically and spiritually.  The treatment has ended but the routines of irrigation and cultivation that the farmer must maintain in the summer vineyard must be continued in my body as well.  I must persevere in attention to it and how it speaks to me of its needs.  This is not the time to drop the tools of cultivation as I look forward to the season of harvest, the season of enjoying a body that is healthy once again.  The Father of my vineyard never fails to provide the tools I need in order to realize the abundant harvest that I fully expect, and I thank Him constantly.

I also thank BFF Pat every time I enter My Father's Vineyard. It speaks to me every time.

"I went past the field of the sluggard, past the vineyard of the man who lacks judgment; thorns had come up everywhere, the ground was covered with weeds, and the stone wall was in ruins.  I applied my heart to what I observed and learned a lesson from what I saw:  A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest-and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man."-Proverbs 24:30-34 (NIV).

On the health front:

A phone call from the oncologist's office yesterday revealed that my white blood cell count is low but not of major concern, so no more Neupogen for this week, at least.  Yay!  The areas of concern are my hemoglobin and platelet counts.  The oncology nurse said that as long as I am asymptomatic (no symptoms) I will not require a blood transfusion.  My main goal is to remain asymptomatic😊