Baby steps back to the light

The new drug in my regimen, Abilify, is going a long way toward improving my moods. It's also making me incredibly sick to my stomach on a nearly constant basis.

At my psychiatrist's behest, I've dialed back down to half the dose, taking it with the evening meal; we'll see how that goes. Not taking it this morning, for the first time since I started taking it last weekend, I feel much improved in the GI area.

Regardless of all the pain, I am confident that God has His purposes in this, just as He does in the worst of human behavior and the most awful of cataclysms. His preserving hand has held me up, above the pit of death, in a clear demonstration of His sovereignty and His loving mercy, even to one as sin-ravaged as I am. Only God could do this. And I know He is doing so ultimately to advance His Kingdom, to glorify His own deeds in my small corner of the earth.

I'm by no means out of the woods. I'm in a high-risk cancer category (for recurrence and fatality), so I'm likely to face that battle again sooner, rather than later. And ultimately we die; God is good to preserve, but ultimately He lets death do its work (which is just one reason why I detest the health-and-wealth "gospel" that promises both if one's "faith" is strong enough; absurd, unbiblical, and dangerous is that entire movement). No matter one's health at any given point, the appointment awaits. And that's just one more reason to cry out to our Lord of salvation, to the Man of Sorrows Himself. What we suffer each day, He knows all too well; He withstood it in His own flesh. What we suffer collectively each day makes all the more urgent the need to share the good news to a dying, ravaged world.

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