Behind the Scenes

I don’t like using this page to share my medical progress. Still, I continue to hear from people who are reticent to get in touch with me for fear that I don’t have the strength or time to handle their communication or that they want to give Sara and me the privacy to navigate this without intrusion. While we appreciate the generosity of spirit behind those concerns, we want you to know it is now unnecessary.

Sara and I talked on our walk this morning about the first few weeks after having my spine fused and starting chemo. The pain was horrific, and navigating the simplest need took everything we had.  We are, however, long past those days.  I am nearly as fit today as I was before all this began. I do have a fused spine now, and the first few months of recovering from that were rigorous and painful. I have mostly recovered from that surgery, and only have some limitations as well as minor, annoying pain persisting. I also have multiple myeloma, a form of blood cancer, that is currently being contained by the chemotherapy I have been receiving. My treatments started weekly for four months, then went to bi-weekly. Last Wednesday was the last of those treatments, and now I am on a once-a-month maintenance dose. I have been fortunate; I have not had any significant side effects limiting my activity.

The Physician’s Assistant overseeing my care told me last week, “We wish all of our myeloma patients would respond like your body has. Your numbers are so low that if I did a bone biopsy today, I wouldn’t find any evidence of cancer.  It is still there, but in numbers so low it would be undetectable.” Without healing from Jesus, it is likely to relapse someday, but every breath I take is in his hands anyway. We are going to make use of the time we’ve been given.

This time of recovery has allowed me to make significant headway on my book, It’s Time: Letters to the Bride of Christ at the End of the Age. I published Part 1 a couple of months ago, and I have three chapters left to write to complete the book. I’ve also been working on a new book with Tobie van der Westhuizen of South Africa about participating in God’s justice rather than being preoccupied with personal righteousness. This is an essential piece of our salvation that has been almost ignored following the Reformation. Theologians have been discussing it, but it hasn’t made headway into popular books or seminars. This has revolutionized in my heart what it means to live loved and how the whole of Scripture points us to this incredible freedom.

So, I have resumed a more normal schedule and don’t want people to be reluctant to contact me if they want to. I have begun some travel again, first a test trip to my son’s home in Denver last weekend. Next month, Sara and I are going to Alaska to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary. After that, I plan to visit Boise, ID, in late June to meet some people there. I don’t know how much travel I will do in the future, since we are still attending to Sara’s healing from the trauma that devastated her life, and from which she is in the process of healing.  She’s doing great, but that will always be our priority when contemplating other trips God might invite us on. I’m also doing a lot of Zoom connections with people I can’t travel to now.

We are grateful for all the prayers and support we have received during the last three years, which have had their share of difficulty and heartache but also redemption beyond anything we could imagine. As Sara and I navigate this season and our ever-darkening world, we are excited about what Jesus might still have in store for us. We are not through walking with him and encouraging others, however he opens the door for us to do so.

Looking back over the past seven months, we are grateful for God’s provision every step of the way and for using this challenging season to draw us closer to him and to each other. Jesus wants to be our constant companion in the darkest of times. Nothing can happen to us that Jesus won’t navigate us through and shape our hearts in the process. I love him for that.

While I am sidelined with my recovery from back surgery and some chemo, God seems to be stirring something with my book He Loves Me. In the last week I’ve had numerous emails about this book. Some people are starting book studies with friends or doing podcasts about it. It’s so much in one week that it has made me ponder what Father might be doing in this season with a book that is almost 25 years old.

Also, someone sent me a link to two people who did a deep dive into He Loves Me, but they did it in 21 minutes. I was impressed, though, with their conversation because it covered the significant themes in an engaging and enlightening way. You can listen to it here.

I also recorded a podcast on Tuesday with Discovering God with Tacos. It’s a funny name for it, and I thought I’d have to recuse myself since I’m not too fond of tacos, but they were gracious to let me join them anyway and talk a bit of BBQ while we’re discussing my journey. I can’t wait to share it with you when it airs. I’ll have to let you know when it does.

Finally, I’m getting emails from various places around the world that want to do translations and reprints. This includes Israel, Russia, and Ukraine. That hasn’t been easy to do with Hachette holding the rights to the book; they don’t like people putting up the book for free downloads. However, I’ve always been more concerned about the message getting out than the financial return on this book, so we are entering negotiations with Hachette to have the book returned to us so we can pursue these requests. Please pray we’ll be successful here.

What to make of all of this? I’m not sure. But it seems God is letting a whole new audience discover that book and its message. I’ve often said it is the most important book I’ll ever write because there’s nothing more critical than moving from an appeasement-based view of God to an affection-based relationship with him. He loves each of us more than anyone ever has or ever will, and when we come to discover that we’ll find ourselves on the journey of a lifetime, not only coming to rest in his goodness but also learning how that love begins to untwist sin, shame, and religious effort in us so that we can truly live as his people on the earth.

You can buy it in case lots at deep discounts here if you want to start a study on it or make it a Christmas gift to your friends.

As for me, my recovery continues to progress. I don’t have much back pain these days from surgery, so almost all recovered there, and I can manage a lot more things for myself. However, that also means we can ramp up the chemo drugs to higher doses, so we’ll have to see how that goes. I’ve felt pretty good the last couple of weeks, though, and have been able to get back to some writing and thinking that God is inviting me into. I’m grateful for that, though my endurance is somewhat limited. I do hope I can maintain that with these new drugs. Sara and I are thankful for all the love and support from so many of you at this time. God is at work, though not in the same way I would have hoped early on. That’s often true for all of us. He does know best, however, and when we trust him more than we trust our perceptions, the road gets less strenuous.

For all our best laid hopes and plans, it’s the things you don’t see coming that have the most profound impact in how life unfolds

Sara and I have a few detours thrown our way over our lifetimes, which has helped us to live feely in the present and not too dismayed when times turn a bit darker. Over the past few weeks, we have been caught in an ever-declining health situation that came on rapidly and will leaves it imprint for some time to come. I know most people don’t read this blog to hear about my health situation, and I don’t want to share all the details hear for the world to read. At the same time, I have a world of friendships and I just can’t keep up with all inquiries more personally.

I woke up on September 14th with severe pain in my back. I have had some back trouble from time to time, so that wasn’t a huge surprise, but as we prayed and sought treatment, the pain only increased to excruciating levels. Nothing seemed to slow it down, not an epidural, targeted injection, or physical. The scans we had didn’t unveil a cause worthy of the pain.

Nearly passing out from pain one day, Sara finally took me to the ER, early last week. During their rigorous tests they found a suspicious lesion on one of my vertebrae in the middle of my back. It was decomposing. The next day, I was on the operating table to remove the vertebrae for a biopsy, rebuild that part of my back and then fuse it to hold together.

The larger issue is what caused the deteriorating vertebrae. The biopsy has indicated multiple myeloma which is which is a cancer in the white blood cells. Fortunately, it is treatable, and the prognosis is good to manage this condition in the future. We’ll begin that today and hope that in the next two to three months we find the right combination of drugs to restrain this disease while my back heals from the very brutal surgery it just has endured.

So, quite quickly we entered a new season of our journey, learning to embrace Jesus’s love, light, and healing in these new challenges. He has been part of all of this from the beginning, leading us by his goodness and putting together the medical team we needed. We have no idea how long this stretch of our journey might demand all of us, whether it will be a few weeks, months, or longer. That’s not in our hands. It could also just go away tomorrow. We are not looking forward any of it, but we’re not afraid of it either. God works some of his special triumphs out of desperate situations.

We managed to return home Wednesday after my eight-day hospital stay. What’s evident now is that this medical battle ahead of us is going to take significant time and energy. It takes almost all we have each day just to get work though my treatment demands and navigate the pain. Recovery has already been arduous with pain and complications. Who’s to say what the next days and weeks will contain?

It is obvious now that this medical need is going to take almost all our time, energy, and resource for the foreseeable future. Thus, I’m going to be taking a leave of absence from writing, email, and podcasting as I give my full attention to what my body needs. We’ve tossed all our plans into the wind and we trust that God will show us the way forward.

How are our hearts through all of these? They’re great, well-covered by Jesus and his love for us. We are both so glad we have each other to lean on at a time like this. Our faith in the Lord stands resolute, confident that in his ability to work good out of tragic circumstances, and that pain is only another lens to see his beauty in the word.

We appreciate your prayers, concerns, and friendship. We will also appreciate your patience as we need to expend our resources closer to home these days. I know most people don’t read this blog for updates on our personal needs, but it is also true that Sara and I have a family that covers the whole world. So, we will provide some updates here in general terms. Our internet/messaging load is already greater than we can keep up with.

We are taking this one day at a time. We could wake up tomorrow completely healed and that may allow us to get back to those things God has asked of us. Or, that my happen over a few months. At this point and we are making no assumptions. We wake up each morning seeing what he has before us and what we need to do that day to deal with our circumstances and still find ways to put his love in the world. Sara has been a rock through this season in caring for me as well as sorting through all the medical information. She will need continued strength, rest, and joy to hold her. Please pray for her.

In the end, nothing has changed. Every day, every breath is in his hands, no more today than it was before all this began. We are confident that he has a way through this and that we will be here to accomplish his purpose for us in the earth. So, I guess we’re on a new journey together not just Sara and me but the Lifestream and God Journey families. So, buckle up. Let’s see how God glorifies himself here and anticipate with gratitude his power to do all things well.

I am really embarrassed to say that the God Journey After-Show we had scheduled with Tobie van der Westhuizen from South Africa next weekend has had to be delayed another week. He informed me yesterday that he had an irresolvable scheduling conflict that would prevent him from joining us that day. He was profoundly sorry and asked if we could move the session to September 28.

I know. That does seem a long way off, but it will give you three more podcasts exploring my conversation with him.

Tobie is our current guest at The God Journey in a series of podcasts exploring the idea that a mistranslation in our English Bibles replaced the word for justice with the word righteousness and, by doing so, has obscured the nature of a love-based Gospel and how the kingdom of God becomes visible in the world.  If you’re not up-to-date on this conversation, please see my blog on September 5 and the podcast series that began on September 5.  We had planned to meet with Tobie in a live Zoom chat next Saturday, September 21.

So, now the After-Show with Tobie will be held on September 28, 2024. It will stream live on The God Journey Facebook page at 11:00 am Pacific Daylight Time and be available afterward for those who want to hear it. If you’d like to participate in the Zoom room conversation, please email Wayne in advance to get the link. I’ve sent an updated link for those who have already emailed me, but the one previously sent will work as well.

I’m sorry to do this to you, but perhaps such things remind us all that flexibility is a helpful tool to navigate the shifting circumstances that affect our lives. I’m looking forward to seeing many of you on the 28th.

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As to Kenya, we sent another $10,250.00 to complete work on rescuing the orphanage buildings and grounds and need an additional $6,000.00. Every little bit helps us get to our goal.  If you can help us, please see our Donation Page at Lifestream. As always, every dollar you send goes directly to Kenya. We do not take out any administration or transfer fees for Lifestream. Just designate “Kenya” in the options or email us and let us know your gift is for Kenya. You can also Venmo contributions to “@LifestreamMinistries” or mail a check to Lifestream Ministries • 1560 Newbury Rd Ste 1  •  Newbury Park, CA 91320. Or, if you prefer, we can take your donation over the phone at (805) 498-7774.

I’ve got two quick things to update you on.

First, we are so grateful for those who have responded to the need in Kenya to rescue the orphanage we built fifteen years ago. Torrential rains have caused the land to shift, and without your help, the government would have shut it down. In just a week, we received $25,02500 of the $41,430.00 we needed and have sent it on so they could get started. We are still looking for the remaining $16,405.00.

If you can help us raise the remaining $31,430.00, please see our Donation Page at Lifestream. As always, every dollar you send goes directly to Kenya. We do not take out any administration or transfer fees for Lifestream. Just designate “Kenya” in the options or email us and let us know your gift is for Kenya. You can also Venmo contributions to “@LifestreamMinistries” or mail a check to Lifestream Ministries • 1560 Newbury Rd Ste 1  •  Newbury Park, CA 91320. Or, if you prefer, we can take your donation over the phone at (805) 498-7774.

The work begins…

And now the oops!

The email notification for the blog last week had a typo. I gave out the wrong date for our God Journey After-Show regarding my last blog and the current podcast about a mistranslation of the Greek that may have significantly altered our understanding of the Gospel Jesus preached. We continue that discussion in upcoming podcasts as well. Unfortunately, the email notification announced the date as September 14 when it should have said September 21. I apologize for the error and any inconvenience it caused. In any case, the After-Show will be held on September 21, 2024, and Tobie will join us from South Africa. It will stream live on The God Journey Facebook page at 11:00 am Pacific Daylight Time and be available afterward for those who want to hear it. If you’d like to participate in the Zoom room conversation, please email Wayne in advance to get the link.