A Holy, Hole-y Tunnel

"Give thanks to the Lord, call on His name. Make known among the nations what He has done. Sing to Him, sing praise to Him. Tell of all His wonderful acts. Rejoice in His holy name. Let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice. Look to the Lord and His strength; seek His face always." Psalm 105: 1-4

When I taught second grade, we memorized a verse every week. As the weeks went by, we added a verse to our collection and would review them every morning. By the end of the year, we were reviewing up to 33 verses each morning. The verses above are the ones we learned the first two weeks of school, and we reviewed them every single day until the end of the year. Now, on top of that I taught second grade for five years. After reciting this passage roughly 180 days out of the last five years, you can imagine how it is embedded in my heart. Never have I had a direct application for these verses like I did last night. Matt called with the news of the second bone marrow biopsy. Here's a summary of where Jen is at this point in the treatment, in Matt's words:

"In the first bone marrow biopsy, 70% of the cells were cancerous (or blasts). At day 14 (this past Thursday), a second bone marrow biopsy was conducted and the total bone marrow cells that are cancerous is at 7%. Sounds like great news, doesn't it? It is! But, it comes as a little mixed. We were hoping for 0% blast count but in reality expected some. The good news is the blast count is down so low. The bad news is some cancer is still lingering. This mixed news (how fitting for mixed-lineage leukemia to have mixed news!) portends a good outcome but she is still very much in the thick of this. Ideally, we are looking for Jen to be cancer-free. The docs will meet on Monday to discuss the chemo regimen and make decisions on dosage adjustments, if any are needed. We are continuing along hopeful but understand we are still years from a cure."

Right now, from a worldy perspective, there is not even a light at the end of the tunnel yet. But thankfully, God is puncturing holes in this dark tunnel Jen is traveling down and pouring His light and love in from above. Friday night's news was another hole ushering Light into this proverbial tunnel.

Prayerful Ponderings:
Praise the Lord for a significantly reduced blast count. Please pray for wisdom for the doctors in their meeting on Monday. Please prayerfully consider joining the bone marrow registry on-line at http://www.marrow.org/. Lift up Jennifer's donor in prayer that he/she may be prepared and willing for what will be asked of him/her. Continue to pray for Matt. He went back to work on Wednesday but is still spending a lot of his time during the day and all of his nights with Jen. He is setting a great example for all of us as he is daily on an active lookout for answered prayer.

Vandy Verse:
...They called to the Lord, and He answered them. Psalm 99:6