The Jelly Belly Journal  12/12/07

I've never felt so good about rejection.  On Monday (10th) I went to the local Assistance Office with my stack of forms and information in order to see if I qualified for Medical Assistance.  This is part of the necessary red tape I must go through in order to qualify for assistance from UPMC.  According to Linda, the social worker in Pittsburgh, if I qualify for local medical assistance, they cannot provide any discounts for my surgery, et al. 

So my hopes were that I would not qualify for medical assistance, and I was not disappointed.  Tanya, the social worker here in State College, was very pleasant, and a Christian.  I decided to just tell her what was going on.  "I belong to an organization called Samaritan Ministries that will help me with hospitalization costs, . . . UPMC has their own benevolence program, . . . I need to flunk this application so the hospital can give me serious discounts, . . . I want to pay for this procedure myself, if at all possible, without medical assistance."  Something like that.  She thanked me for my honesty, and it caused things to move rather quickly from that point on. 

Consequently, I am now an official reject.  It's a wonderful thing!  Tanya will be sending me my "letter of rejection" in the mail.  I will forward it to Linda's office at UPMC and then, undoubtedly, I will receive yet another stack of paperwork to fill out for UPMC.  I love paperwork.  It is my life.  (This is to be read as sarcasm.)  However, it is a small price to pay in order to get a smaller price to pay.

At this point, my date for surgery is totally dependent upon how fast I can fill in all the sundry blanks and get this stuff in the mail.  In passing, when I was talking to my doctor in Pittsburgh, he said, upon finding out that I didn't have insurance, "Let's plan for surgery after the holidays, sometime in January."  That is why I have been thinking I would have surgery in January.  But that may or may not happen depending on whether I have to have surgery for carpal tunnel syndrome in the meantime. (Yet more sarcasm.)

I am often asked how I am feeling.  A pastor friend from upstate NY asked today, and I wrote the following:

"Reid, I feel great.  In fact, I feel so great that I told Sharon not to wake me this morning, even for a cup of coffee (which is a very serious request). It has been a long time since I was able to sleep comfortably, and this morning it just felt good to be in bed, warm, and not in pain.  I cherished it as long as I could."

"Before my surgery (in October), I could not sleep comfortably on my right or left side, or on my stomach.  But I didn't know why, and I never bothered to try to get it checked out.  In prior years, I had a pretty serious bout of acid reflux, but that seems to have gone away, thank the Lord!  It was awful!  So not being able to sleep comfortably just became a way of life and I had to accept it.  After the reflux eventually and slowly went away, I still could not sleep comfortably."

"Now, with all the 'jelly' removed, I am experiencing physical comfort I have not had for probably 15 years. Maybe longer.  I don't know how much of my prior discomfort was due to the cancer/tumor/jelly/etc. but it sure feels good now to curl up and sleep uninterrupted.  How would I know what a wonderful blessing sleep is if it hadn't been taken away?  We take SO much for granted.  I thank the Lord for this kindness to me.  Now the task before me is to avoid laziness!  The battle never ends, eh?"

The battle never does end until we go home.  That is because God is continually dealing with us through the various circumstances He brings, in order to fit us for glory.  Two days ago, I received an EXCELLENT book from Solid Ground Christian Books entitled, The Bow in the Cloud: Springs of Comfort in Times of Deep Affliction.  Just the title is enough to bring a tear to your eye!  This morning I read chapter 3, "The Stones of the Heavenly Temple Prepared Here on Earth."  This chapter was written based upon 1 Kings 6:7.   "When the house was built, it was with stone prepared at the quarry, so that neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron was heard in the house while it was being built." 

The author uses this verse to illustrate the work God does in us, the spiritual Temple of God.  He chooses us, and fashions us much like the mason chose and fashioned crude rocks, or carpenters shaped primitive logs into strong, stately and beautiful members of the physical Temple which Solomon built.  But none of that work took place at the construction site.  The finished members were perfected "off site" and brought to the Temple mount when they were finished, in order to be placed in their pre-ordained places.

"Our earth is the place where this is to be done; for, as there was no noise of any axe or hammer, or tool of iron heard on Mount Moriah while the Temple was building, so in the New Jerusalem above there will be heard no crushing strokes of conviction, no sharp hewings of an awakened conscience, no sound of preparatory discipline.  Heaven is not the place to prepare men for glory -- but to receive them when prepared.  Earth, then, is the preparing place for Heaven, and the preparation is effected by the axe, the hammer, and the tools of iron of God's wise dispensations. All God's dealings with us have respect to our future existence; and these are so wisely adapted to the peculiarities of each case that no two persons pass through the same course, and no two result in the same development.  . . . Each individual in the whole training of his moral nature is as much under the eye and care of God as if there was no other being in the universe; and there is not a peculiarity of mind or heart or body -- not a changing phase of life from the cradle to the coffin -- that is not expressly met by infinite wisdom in the arrangement of His Providence and Grace." (p. 67).

Certainly cancer and surgery and even the endless filling out of forms and such, are the axes and hammers and chisels of God which contribute to this off-site preparation of people like you and me.  Then, finally, the day will come when the work is finished, the final product is ready, and we're taken from the forest or the quarry of this life to be placed in that glorious heavenly home, in the exact place for which we were chosen and fashioned.  Nothing happens to us apart from God's premeditated purpose of transforming us from dead  shapeless "rocks" and useless unfeeling "trees," into the individual members of His Body, His Temple.

Get the book.  It is wonderful!  Thank you, Michael Gaydosh, for reprinting this and making it available to me and to countless others who will no doubt benefit greatly from the wonderful words of encouragement found in it. 

Once again, many thanks for your prayers and your continued interest in my/our situation.  As things progress, I'll add more info to this page.  Stay tuned.  There are unbelievably wonderful things yet to come!

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God,  20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone,  21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.  22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. - Ephesians 2:19-22 (ESV)

Grace and peace, and Merry Incarnation Day!

Keith and Sharon

Jelly Belly Journal--previous entry--11/15/07 

Jelly Belly Journal -- next entry -- 01/08