Some Day He's Coming, O Glorious Day

I received a more encouraging email from Nan and Cee tonight.  They are getting over the shock of his diagnosis, getting some good information about his upcoming chemo treatments that will begin a week from now and are starting to get their feet back on the ground as they adjust to what will be the new normal in their lives over the next few months of chemo IV's, pills, trips the the cancer clinic, etc.  The more I read about his particular and rare condition, the more encouraged I am that he will survive this treatment programme, regain some strength and be able to live a more normal life soon than he has lived for a couple of years now.  They are so very grateful for your prayers.  Nan even got herself to church choir this morning with minimal tears flowing during the service.  Praising God for that!  It is encouraging for them to know there is a praying community surrounding them.

It was delightful having my husband sitting beside me in church again this morning.  Hopefully he will be there again next week before his own busy preaching and teaching schedule takes over for this autumn season.  There is a big BBQ after church next Sunday so he can have some more fellowship with our new friends after the service.  Then the incredible busyness of the rest of September will overtake him.

The final sermon from the series on Revelation we have been hearing this summer was this morning.  It was a real encouragement to be more spiritually active and not just float along assuming God will take care of things with no participation from his people. There is so much stress in the world and in our lives that it is easy to become lackadaisical about our spiritual condition and drift along going through the motions of church attendance without putting any work into exercising our spiritual muscles outside of that weekly service.  The thrust of Revelation is that it points to the eventual return of Christ, the destruction of evil in our world and the rebuilding of a god-ruled society.  Justice is coming....

This fall we will be hearing a series of sermons on the women in the Bible.  I am looking forward to that.  We will be talking about Ruth and Esther and Deborah and others that were used of God in big ways.  

My husband and I shared a wonderful lunch today: Famoso's caesar salad, a Mediterranean style mini pizza and an arugula salad.  Love the fact that you can get half sized salads and teensy pizzas there. The food was so fresh, great service....yup, a really nice relaxing time.  My husband had a bellini for dessert for a treat to celebrate surviving another week of extreme stress at work. His latest Vitamin B12 injection kicked into high gear today and he was feeling better than he has in weeks.  Knowing he FINALLY had the full day off work...mostly...certainly encouraged him.

This afternoon we worked on getting his time sheets caught up from the past few busy weeks so he can hand them in at Finance Committee meetings next weekend.  It was fun to work together on it.  Between us we were able to scan emails and phone call records, Google calendar notes and hard copy calendars to figure out which details had not been recorded this summer.  It was a good way for me to see exactly why his weekly schedule is so intensely crazy, all the time, every day.  No wonder he is exhausted!! He has been so busy he hasn't even been able to complete his time sheets in detail!  Yikes!

Had a good chat with my parents today. They are doing quite well at the moment and have signed up for two different bus trips around the city this month.  I am delighted they have some exciting treks out of their facility and in this case both of the excursions involve lunch out at new places they have not been to before.  

Talked to our son as well.  His trip to Italy has evolved into a massive expedition!  He is going to Paris to up with meet his sponsors and the other two Canadian artists involved in the project. They will spend a few days there together. Then they will all fly to Milan and take the train out into the Italian countryside to an old mansion that has been restored and repurposed as an arts centre.  The three artists and one sponsor will spend a week creating new paintings for an exhibition in Milan, then they are going to head to Florence with the sponsor's family, then to Rome to view the old catherals my son is so enamoured of.  Florence and Rome were not originally on the agenda, so he is thrilled to be going to both places for some touring.  Then they will all return to Paris for a few days before flying back to their homes in the USA and Canada. His sponsor speaks French and Italian, among other languages, so it will be a breeze for him this trip having an interpreter. He expects this will be his last overseas trip for a very long time, so plans to enjoy every single second of it.  We are very excited for him!  His art projects have taken him to various locations over the years in Germany, France, the Netherlands, Japan, Florida, Los Angeles, all across Canada and now Italy.  What a wonderfully crazy life he is living.  We admit to being somewhat envious, but we are SO happy for all his adventures. At least we have made it as far away as New York and Japan and the US west coast, so better than no travelling at all!

Tomorrow I will be cleaning and cooking and baking in preparation for our dinner company in the evening.  Really looking forward to having an excuse to cook a decent dinner. It has been so long....too long since we have felt well enough and brave enough to invite new friends to our sadly humble abode....have to change that now that we are finally inspired to start reaching out to people again. 

Onward and upward!!  See basic Christian theology written up in one verse of a favourite old hymn below:

One day when heaven was filled with His praises,   One day when sin was as black as could be, Jesus came forth to be born of a virgin—   Dwelt among men, my example is He!
	Living, He loved me; dying, He saved me;   Buried, He carried my sins far away; Rising, He justified freely forever:     One day He’s coming—O glorious day!