What a gift it was! We mostly just camped on different beaches, talked, and read. I didn’t take many photos, but here’s a few:

(If you can’t see the slideshow above, click here)

This final surgery has been hard to decide to go forward with. It’s hard to decide to inflect Holly’s body with more scars when the last ones are just now healing. It’s hard to choose to have a surgery that’s not technically necessary, that just finishes the reconstructive process.

That said — we have peace this is what God has for us. I would have thought this surgery would have been easier, that this would be routine by now.

The truth is it’s never easy to step into pain. We are hard-wired to avoid it, and yet Jesus says things like,

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. (Mt 5:3-5)

I keep looking for the verse that says, “Blessed are those that push through,” or “Blessed are those that pretend it doesn’t hurt,” but I can’t find it.  Somehow it is blessed to have our spirits be poor, to mourn and be meek.

These last months we’ve been learning that these places of blessing are not things that happen to us, they are things we choose.  We have to choose to step into — feel — the pain of life and let it crush us a little bit.

It’s in that crushed place where Jesus meets us in new and fresh ways.  It’s there He blesses us with healing from pain, current and old pains all the same.

God has been so very good to us in the pain of cancer and recovery.  He has faithfully met us, healed us, and blessed us.  Please pray we will continue to let the pain break us to continue in the blessing.

I watched this TED video recently and was struck at the simple wisdom it contained about finding balance in life.  It’s a (very entertaining) lecture based on a long study called the Blue Zones of certain groups of people who live to be 100 statistically much more often than average.

They isolated 9 factors that seem to make this possible (genetics seems to play a small part).   I encourage you take 20 minutes to watch it and see if you don’t find some part of your life that could be more in balance.

A few challenging questions for me:

• What does it mean to move naturally throughout my days and weeks?
• What is my “ikigai” or sense of purpose that gets me up everyday?
• Am I purposeful in surrounding myself with community in the daily moments?
• What do I do to maintain the right outlook — one that is relaxed and prayerful?
• What strategies/tricks/habits could I develop to not overeat?

There’s also a book I plan to read.

I hope we haven’t been those people too bad, but frankly most times someone asks me, “How’s Holly doing?” I have no idea how to answer.

Well she’s making some significant progress worth sharing, so I would take the almost-four-week-anniversary-of-her-surgery to update you…

Progress:

• She’s much less tired (went last few days without naps)
• She’s almost completely off medication (just occasional over the counter pain medicine or muscle relaxer )
• She is got her last drain out today! Wahoo!

Still issues:

• She is still under a doctor-imposed ban of lifting more than 8 pounds. (A challenge when taking care of kids that weigh more than 8 pounds)
• She is still tired and “runs out of gas” pretty easily.

We’re about to send Holly’s mom home for the first time since the surgery, so we will have a good idea of how well she really is doing pretty quickly.  She has been a tremendous blessing, and I seriously don’t know what we would have done without help from her and my mom.

So, there’s a quick update for you!  Thanks for all the prayers!

Dr. Lynn Canavan, Holly's Breast Surgeon

The Breast Surgeon

We found Dr Canavan by literally Googling for “plano breast surgeon.”  We had been referred to a different breast surgeon by Holly’s OB/GYN, and only went to Dr Canavan for what we thought was a routine second opinion.

What we found was that our first surgeon had really dropped the ball, and grossly misjudged the extent of the cancer.  When we switched to Dr. Canavan we found that trips to the doctor went from being full of fear and uncertainty to being full of peace and confidence in the next steps.

She truly has the heart of a teacher and was always available for every question.  She went to great lengths to educate us and would always show us, not just tell us, what was going on.

The other great thing about Dr. Canavan’s office is Gaynelle, her scheduler.  Gaynelle schedules every appointment with every doctor, every testing center, every hospital — she just makes it happen magically.  You can’t imagine how much easier that makes the whole process.

The Plastic/Reconstructive Surgeon

Dr. Patty Young, Holly's Reconstructive Surgeon

Once we knew Holly needed a mastectomy we started the process of picking a plastic surgeon.  While you might think that Plano, TX has the highest concentration of Plastic Surgeons per square inch, but it turns out very few do reconstruction.  There’s just not much money in it.

That’s why finding Dr. Young was such a God-send.  Like Dr. Canavan, she actually took the time to teach us all the reconstructive options.  The first time we left her office, we knew we had found the right reconstructive surgeon, we just had to pick the right procedure for us.

Once we decided on the DIEP flap, her scheduler worked to clear a whole day for Dr Young to do the procedure.  That morning we got to pray with and for her, and afterward she told us it was prayer that sustained her through the 13.5 hour surgery.  Where she gets the endurance to push through such a long surgery, I have no idea.

She was always sensitive to Holly and us as her family.  She had the nurse call out every hour or two to give us an update, so we didn’t get too worried.  She did a great job helping to control the pain afterward, including inserting a local pain pump to numb the area.

Oh, did I mention she did b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l job with the reconstruction!  She has a gift (and amazing staff like Dr. Canavan).

The Nurses at Baylor Plano

Baylor Plano, our home for five days

If you look on US News and World Report or National Cancer Institute there doesn’t seem to be a clear hospital leader for cancer care the Dallas area.  However, I will tell you from our experience, Baylor Plano is the place to be for breast cancer care in Dallas.

First off they have the most advanced diagnostic equipment, and the two rockstar doctors above prefer to do surgery there. That should be enough.  But they never ceased to amaze us at going above and beyond in caring for the patients and their families.

When we showed up for surgery at 5:00 am the most friendly woman named Robin met us at the front door to escort us the surgery floor.  Who does that?

Even the food was pretty good — they call it room service and it’s pretty much whatever you wanted delivered when you wanted it.  They even had free wifi throughout so Holly could make a Skype video call to her brother in Hawaii.

Those are little things, but really nice touches.  The big thing was the staff — specifically the nurses.  We didn’t have one nurse who was not full of compassion, attentive, and just generally great to be around.  They always did there best to control Holly’s pain, teach us to take care of her, and make our stay the best it could be.

Thank you to Dr. Canavan, Dr. Young and all the nurses at Baylor Plano.  God used you to heal my wife and do it better than we ever could have hoped for.

I hope this helps you if you are ever in need of Breast Cancer Care in Dallas.  Of course, feel free to contact us if you have any questions or if we can help in any way.

Emotionally, she’s doing amazing. She has never stopped being in good spirits, very thankful for all the love and support being poured her way.

Practically, lots of help is helping keep the wheels on the bus. Our moms are still in town, and amazing meals are coming every day.

Physically, she’s doing pretty good. She’s still in some pain, but that is largely controlled by muscle relaxers. She has to take some pain medicine once or twice a day, but muscle relaxers keep it all largely in check. Of the 8 medicines she was taking when she first got home, she’s down to about 3 and that’s definitely a step in the right direction.

She still has 2 of the 4 drains installed during surgery to prevent swelling from excess fluids. Those are an annoyance and sometimes uncomfortable, but not too bad. They should be out by the end of this week or beginning of next.

Mostly, she’s just tired — very tired. (She woke up this morning and declared she was ready for her first nap.) She’s made it out of the house a few times, like to church on Sunday, but that is about all she has for the day. Her body is working very hard to heal itself and just doesn’t have much energy for much else.

On the cancer front, we got good news yesterday. The pathology report came back with “clean margins” which means not only did they get all the cancer, but also 1cm around it all.

They also found cancer in the same breast in a previously undetected area. This just confirms that taking it all was the right choice. Neither of us realized how much we were holding our breath so-to-speak waiting to hear the news. There were a few tears of joy shed yesterday.

So, can I hear a collective “Woohoo!” for being officially cancer-free?

Thanks for all the prayers and for stepping into our pain. We are blessed!

Grace (n): the free and unmerited favor of God

It may seem strange to be talking about the favor of God at a time when we have just gone through radical surgery to remove cancer from Holly’s 33-year old body. But God’s favor is exactly what has been upon us lately.

Grace is not the absence of pain — it’s not an easy life. Grace is God stepping into your pain and showing His goodness by making a way out. Ephesians 2 says it like this:

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved.

You see, without the death there would be no grace. Without cancer, we would have missed out on so many ways to see His unmerited favor in our lives.

Mary Ida as one of our team members tended to her wounds.

The second thing was visiting a clinic for HIV+ kids. The pediatrician explained that they advised the HIV+ moms to breastfeed their kids, knowing it would almost certainly lead to them contracting HIV as well. They did this because the alternative was the kids dying of malnutrition.

So to me, Grace is…

…living where the community cares if my wife lives or dies.

…having to make choices between reconstruction options, not HIV vs death by malnutrition.

…a free trip to Africa.

…world-class surgeons who work for 13 hours to not just get rid of all the cancer, but go to extremes to make you look the way you did before they started.

…God providing money to pay for it all.

…people we don’t even know bringing us amazing food everyday.

…family who drops everything to be by your side in a time of need.

…an endless stream of friends almost begging to be able to do something for us.

…God providing the strength to fly 25 hours back from Africa and have minimal jetlag so I can be there to care for my wife.

…two amazing kids who are excited Mommy is cancer free so we can start adopting.

…God stepping into our pain, and being more real to us than He ever has before.

There is nothing in me that merits me getting any of these things more than Mary Ida or the kids at the HIV clinic. I have no idea why Jesus would show us such favor — but thank you Jesus.

Friday, September 18 is the big day.

We did decide on a reconstruction option, the DIEP Flap.   You can read the details of this surgery, and the truly brave of heart can watch a 1 hour video with play-by-play of it being done (warning: parts are hard to watch).

It will take 8-10 hours at Baylor Regional Medical Center of Plano.  Then she will spend 4-5 days in the hospital.

There’s not a lot to do before then, but Holly is working out hard to do her best to get her body ready for surgery.  School has started and life is busy with welcome distractions from cancer-world for now.

Jamie will be leaving for Uganda Monday and getting back the day before her surgery.  More about that later though…

We have found a great plastic surgeon out of one of the ones our breast surgeon recommended. We’ve met with her twice, and she has taken a total of two hours to teach us about all the options and answer all our questions.

The problem is there are a lot of options. I won’t try to summarize them here, but this website does a great job of describing them all in detail.

We are currently in the process of narrowing down the options, then adding in new ones, then narrowing, etc, etc. The doctor graciously offered to contact patients who had the procedures we are considering to find out if we could call them with questions. So far, Holly has talked to three of them, including one who was in the office when we were there last.

What we do know (as much as we know anything):

• The mastectomy and reconstruction will happen in one big surgery that will take place at Baylor Regional Medical Center of Plano.  It will take from 4-10 hours depending on the option we choose.
• The surgery will not happen this week or next (plastic surgeon is out of town), at the earliest it will probably be the week after Labor Day.
• The recovery time will be something like 6 weeks to get Holly back to something resembling 100%.

Here’s how you can pray for us:

• With thanks that God has given us excellent, compassionate surgeons.
• That we would be able to see through various kinds of fear and find God’s best in this.  (fear of pain, of foreign implants, of not being available be available for our kids during long recovery, of having to redo things later — lots of scary stuff in each option)
• That our faith would deepen to in new and fresh ways we would know that God is actively working for our good in all this.

Thanks to all of you for how loved you’ve made us feel us feel through this all.

And… none of the three lymph nodes the surgeon removed showed any signs of cancer. Obviously, this is great news and it means we are as sure as we can be that the cancer is confined to her breast.

So, the next step is picking a plastic surgeon to do the reconstruction. The pool is limited as many plastic surgeons don’t do reconstruction, but the breast surgeon has recommended three.

We met with the first one today and were a little disappointed. We are seeing the next one tomorrow morning, and hoping it’s a better fit.

Based on schedules of all the doctors, it’s currently looking like the mastectomy/reconstruction surgery won’t take place until early- to mid-September. We wish it could be sooner, but don’t have much control over it. Plus, we are trying to work around not missing Grady’s first day of Kindergarten which it coming up in a couple of weeks.

Thanks for following along and for all the prayers. Tomorrow marks the two month anniversary of her diagnosis, and while we are more used to being here, it hasn’t gotten any easier.

The good news is that the sample behind was not cancerous. This lessens the chances that cancer has spread to the lymph nodes.

The bad news is that the sample in front of was cancerous. It’s still DCIS (non-invasive), but it means that a mastectomy is the only reasonable option from here.

The next step is to start meeting with plastic surgeons, to find someone good to do the reconstruction (that will happen at the same time as the mastectomy).

Then after that she will probably have a sentinel-node biopsy.  How many biopsies can she have?  Evidently, she can have one more.   This one will be a little harder ( she’ll be under general anesthesia) and they will check to see if it has spread to the lymph nodes behind the breast.  There’s only about a 5% chance of this, but it seems better to rule it out as a possibility before the surgery.

On the home front, we are kidless.   Holly is very tired but getting lots of rest.  The kids are at Grammy and Paw-Paw’s ranch this week, and we will go join them this weekend.  It will be good to get away for a little bit.

That’s about all we know for now.  Thanks for all the continued prayers.

On Tuesday, we went to see another breast surgeon for what we thought would be a routine second opinion on Holly’s cancer diagnosis.  It was anything but routine.

From the start, something about this new doctor was different.  First, she put all our test results up and taught us what they meant.  It was during this process we collectively realized something was wrong.

You see, when we first got our MRI results we were told the suspicious area it was confined to just one small area, about 4.5cm long. That was not what we are all looking at on the screen at the MRI results.

It looked pretty obvious to the new surgeon and us that the suspicious area was essentially the length of the whole breast.  This is not good news.

The next step is to have a MRI-Guided Double Biopsy.  That’s a fancy way to say they will use the MRI to guide the needle to take more tissue samples above and below where the cancer was already found.

If the biopsy comes back positive like we are expecting, a mastectomy will be needed to remove all the cancer.

Unfortunately, right now it’s looking like we won’t be able to get this test done until July 29, almost 2 weeks away.  We would obviously want to get it over with quicker, but maybe this will be a nice calm in the midst of the cancer storm.

In the mean time, we have switched to this new doctor.  You see the old surgeon never even looked at the MRI results herself (or any other test results for that matter), she just trusted the radiologist’s report.  It would be kind of hard to trust her after that.

Thanks for all the support and prayers.  Please pray we would has wisdom in the midst of this trial – and with that wisdom the kind of faith that would keep us from being tossed like waves like James 1:2-6 says:

Count it all joy, my brothers,  when you meet trials of various kinds,  for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.

Yes, we have way blown past our mental and emotional budget for “Life Happening.”  It’s a good thing God’s grace is endless.

Fighting other types of cancer with a large easy to identify tumor is like fighting a traditional war.  The enemy is easy to find, it’s just a matter of picking the right weapon to kill them.

In contrast, fighting DCIS is like fighting terrorists.  The operate in small (ironically named) cells that are hard to identify, and therefore kill.

What does that mean for how we go forward?  It means that even if the alternative medicine methods we are trying work, there’s no way to definitively know it.  The test simply aren’t that sensitive.  The mammogram can detect calcium deposits which sometimes, but not always, hang out with cancer.  The MRI can detect increased blood flow to an area, but by no means detect it at cellular level.

Besides knowing the nature better of what we are fighting, we also learned more details out of the pathology report.  It turns out that the DCIS Holly has is “High Nuclear Grade.”

Here’s how one website explains what that may mean:

There are three grades of DCIS: low, intermediate, and high. The grade relates to how the cells look under the microscope, and gives an idea of how quickly the cells may develop into an invasive cancer (or how likely it is that the DCIS will come back after surgery). Low-grade DCIS has the lowest risk of developing into an invasive cancer, and high-grade carries the greatest risk.

Here’s another one says (it also gives a much more technical explanation of how they determine the grades):

Cancers with a high grade, necrosis, cancers close to the surrounding margin of breast tissue of a lumpectomy sample, or large areas of DCIS are more likely to recur after breast cancer treatment than other breast cancers.

So, obviously neither of these pieces of information are good news.  Stack on the fact that just getting breast cancer so young increase the chances of recurrence substantially.  So, Holly still has the best kind of breast cancer to have — it’s just the worst kind of the best kind.

We’ve been discouraged about this this weekend.  While we have been praying and wondering what this means about how we move forward we have found great comfort in Psalm 147:3-5:

He heals the brokenhearted
and binds up their wounds.
He determines the number of the stars;
he gives to all of them their names.
Great is our Lord, and abundant in power;
his understanding is beyond measure.

Thanks for sticking through a long post.  Continued prayers for wisdom are appreciated.

It’s the wonderful testimony of a Rachel Barkley — a 38-year-old mom of 2 — gave in March after finding out she had terminal cancer. Rachel died Monday.

From deathisnotdying.com:

But for Rachel the essence of life is found in her relationship with God through Jesus. And that’s why Rachel is convinced that death is not dying.

On March 4, 2009, what started out as a small talk to a women’s group at her church grew into an event attended by 600 women from around Vancouver, giving Rachel an opportunity to share about her hope in the midst of terminal cancer.

Rachel’s honest and thought-provoking talk touched women of all ages and left a hunger for discovering more about Rachel’s journey and the faith that has so deeply affected her life.

It’s long — almost an hour. But it’s the best hour I’ve spent this week. I encourage you to take the time to watch it if at all possible: Death is not Dying by Rachel Barkley on Vimeo (wouldn’t let me embed it).

First, in case you didn’t here it anywhere else, the BRCA genetic test came back negative.  This is huge!  It means she has an average chance of the breast cancer recurring (about 1%/year), not a virutal certainity.   That said, there’s still the cancer that’s there that we have to deal with.

The surgeon is ready to cut it out now, then send Holly on to radiation.  While there’s a good chance that’s still in our immediate future, we wanted to take a breath and look at all options.  After talking with our pediatrician who had had some success treating her breast cancer with alternative methods, we decided to give it a try.

So, last week Holly started a series of treatments at Chalmers Wellness.  It involves some detoxification and mineral supplements designed to make the body less hospitable to cancer.   The idea is to let her body kill it off so that maybe we don’t have to cut it out.

We are going to give this a six week try, then have the MRI done again to see if there are any changes. 

Even if it doesn’t eliminate the cancer, this regimen and her workout schedule will allow her body the best chance to bounce back from surgery and radiation.  So, frankly, it just seems prudent to do everything we can before decide to have pieces of her body cut out.

On the home front, one or both of our mothers has been in town helping us deal with everyday life as we figure out what’s next.  They just left after being here more than two weeks and it was great help, not just in the everyday, but in helping get us more organized.  Who could do life without Mommas?

Thanks to all for the continued prayers for healing and wisdom.  These are very uncharted waters for us, and we need lots of both every step of the way.

The cancer seems to be confined to the area where they originally biopsied. These results probably rule out option 2 below, and now we wait for the genetic test, which we may know results from by Friday.

There’s so little in this process that’s certain. Waiting on test results seems to stretch our faith more that even finding them out. The biggest fear seems to be uncertainty.

This whole process is tearing down our pride that thought we knew what tomorrow would look like. James 4:13-16 puts it this way:

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

So today, we don’t boast in what tomorrow will hold. We do fight to do what it is “the right thing to do.” Today, that is celebrate Abbey’s 4th birthday.

Love you all and thanks for your prayers.

We already knew that the next steps are to get the breast MRI (again) next week.  She also had them draw blood for the BRCA genetic screening.  This tests for a specific gene mutation that makes it much more likely that the cancer will recur in the future.

We will have results from both test by the end of next week. Those results will drive one of three basic paths we will take from here:

1. Lumpectomy + Radiation: If the genetic test comes back negative, and the MRI does not find any other suspicious spots, then the prudent course of action seems to be a lumpectomy. 

   This surgery removes the cancerous tissue and the surrounding tissue.  The cells on the edge are tested, and if there’s more then that have to do another surgery to remove more.

   It would be followed by a 6 week course of localized radiation.  She would visit 5 days a week for a 10 minute treatment.

2. Single Mastectomy: If the genetic test comes back negative, but the MRI shows other suspect areas, those would have to be biopsied.  If they are cancerous also, there’s a high chance the whole breast would have to be removed.  Specifically, the doctor is worried about the rest of the duct that was producing the blood that started this whole charade. 

   The surgery would also involve a Plastic Surgeon immediately reconstructing the affected breast. 

3. Double Mastectomy: This is obviously the most radical option.  If the MRI showed it in both breasts (unlikely), or the genetic test came back positive, we would have seriously consider a double mastectomy.

   While this is common surgery now, it has serious implications that weigh heavy on us.  We may be meeting with a Plastic Surgeon soon to talk about what this would look like.

Q&A:

Some things you may be thinking…

• If it’s not invasive why do anything? 
  Because it can grow, and has a 50% chance of turning invasive.
• Are you considering holistic/natural/alternative alternatives?
  Yes!  We are looking for a natropath/nutritionist in DFW to work with to compliment the traditional therapies.  If you know if someone email us.
• How long will the surgeries take to recover from?
  The lumpectomy is outpatient surgery that takes 2-5 days fully bounce back from.  The mastectomy takes 1-2 weeks to fully recover from.
• What are the side affects of radiation?
  Not much since it’s it’s local.
• What about chemotherapy?
  There’s only one drug, Tamoxifen, that can help with this type of Stage 0 cancer.  Based on the tests so far, it doesn’t seem to be a fit, so we probably won’t need any.
• Will Holly loose her hair?
  Hair loss is usually cause by some of the chemotherapy drugs.  Since that seems very unlikely at this point, she should not loose any of her luscious locks.
• What’s the timeframe on all this?
  The surgeon said she would like to see the surgery happen in the next 30 days.

Thanks for all the sweet notes and prayers.  We feel every one, and there are times that’s all that seems to sustain. 

First — the bad news. The MRI was inconclusive. Because of hormones related to her menstrual cycle, the radiologists couldn’t read the results of the MRI. So, we’ll have to redo it in a week or so.

The good news is very good. To put it as the doctor did, “Holly, you are going to be okay. We are going to get this all out — you are going to raise your kids and go shopping again.”

The type of cancer she has is Carcinoma in situ. Some call it more of a pre-cancer than cancer. It is non-invasive, meaning it won’t spread to another part of her body. This is HUGE — it spreading was Holly’s biggest fear.

The doctor also described it as at it’s earliest stages, and very treatable. We’ll know after the next MRI how extensive it is within her breasts.

We’ll meet with the doctor again on Monday, which we are looking forward to. She’s an amazing Christian, and reminded us, “for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.” — 2 Tim 1:7

So we enter the weekend, full of hope — not in doctors or medicine — but in a God that has given us His spirit of power and love inside of us.

Thanks to all for the prayers. We feel every one.

It was the third time we had been at the Sue A. de Mille Women’s Diagnostic Center at Plano Presbyterian Hospital. Holly has has every test run that they offer there (except a bone density which she shouldn’t need for a long time). The staff has been amazing — a true blessing have been sent there by our doctor.

That said, the test was pretty scary. This MRI is louder than normal — lots of pounding, popping — all while you are facing face down. At least nothing needed cut open, and there were no big needles for this test.

We didn’t get any results from the MRI. Since it’s so specialized, only a few radiologists can read it. Also, it takes a lot more pictures than a normal MRI, so it takes a while to analyze. The end result is, we won’t know any more until Monday or Tuesday.

Emotionally, we are pretty raw. We find the grief comes in waves, caused by the most random things. It might be looking at the beautiful faces of our kids, or even trying to make the smallest plan for the future. we’re trying to take it one day (sometimes one hour, or one minute) at a time.

We’ve had great support from family, friends, and church. We don’t know what’s next but we do know God is good and that He has a great purpose in all this. A friend sent this, and it has been great comfort:

There is nothing—absolutely no circumstance, no trouble, no testing that can ever touch me until, first of all, it has gone past God and past Christ right through to me. If it has come that far, it has come with a great purpose which I may not understand at the moment. But as I refuse to become panicky, as I lift up my eyes to Him, and I accept it as coming from the throne of God for some great purpose of blessing to my own heart, no sorrow will ever disturb me, no trial will ever disarm me, no circumstance will cause me to fret, and I shall rest in the joy of what my Lord is. That is the rest of victory. –Dr. Alan Redpath