Relapse?

‘Has His unfailing love vanished forever? Has His promise failed for all time? Has God forgotten to be merciful…..I will remember the deeds of the LORD; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago……’ (Psalm 77:8,9,11)

I collected my CT scan report from my medical oncologist on Wednesday. It confirmed the reason why I feel ‘something’ inside my left abdomen.  It turned out to be an alarming gastric node developed there about 1.4 cm in size. The growth of node is always a serious concern for any cancer patient.

My surgeon thinks that at this juncture, surgery is not essential as the size is still considered small. I will need to go for another scan and blood tests to see any changes taking place.

My past life experiences have strengthened and equipped me to face storms in life. May God grant me new strength to steer through these storms.

Selfism

‘Do nothing from factional motives [through contentiousness, strife, selfishness, or for unworthy ends or prompted by conceit and empty arrogance. Instead, in the true spirit of humility (lowliness of mind) let each regard the others as better than and superior to himself. (Philippians 2:3)

Living in a society where much emphasis is placed on status, money, pleasure and comfort, it is easy for us to be squeezed into its mold if we are not alerted. We can become increasingly self-centred and arrogant.

Recently I read a letter a guy who already owned three properties wrote to the Straits Times forum column, complains about the recent property cooling measures. In his letter, he used ‘I’ several times: “……. I studied hard. ….I worked hard….. I pay annual taxes…. I must be penalized ..I invested my hard-earned rewards in more than one property…..”

This guy is clearly exalting himself and engaging in ‘selfism’. We can form so many words with ‘self’: self-serving, self-glorification, self-righteousness, self-indulgence or self-worth. They sound so familiar to us because we can identify with them ourselves and those around us. While it is perfectly alright to recognize one’s success but one has to be on guard against arrogance and pride which come with wealth and success.

CT- Scan

‘Praise be to God, who has not rejected my prayer or withheld his love from me.’ (Psalm 66:20)

Last one or two weeks I have been experiencing ‘lump’ kind of feeling around the left-side of my waist. This is especially so when I walk fast ‘it’ vibrates. When I am at rest, I don’t get that kind of feeling.

I decided to bring forward my medical appointment which is supposed to be around end of next month. I had my cancer marker blood test done on 9th March and saw my oncologist subsequently on 14th. My blood test is OK and stable with the marker readings hovered around 11 points each. This gave me momentarily relief at least, and I am grateful to God’s graciousness towards me.

My doctor however would not want to conclude that everything is alright without seeing a CT-scan report. So she advised me to go for that so that she can discern whether there is any other health issue involved. I will be going for scan this coming Monday afternoon, 19th March. The cost has gone up a lot. When I did in May last year it was about $500+, now the estimated cost is $750+ for a private patient.
I will see my oncologist again on 28th March.

The Incredible Wisdom of God

God has caused the flowers to blossom at certain specified times during the day, so that if one has a conservatory containing the right kind of soil, moisture and temperature, he could tell the time of day or night by the flowers that were open and those that were closed!

God's accuracy may be observed in the hatching of eggs. For example:

-the eggs of the potato bug hatch in 7 days;
-those of the canary in 14 days;
-those of the barnyard hen in 21 days;
-The eggs of ducks and geese hatch in 28 days;
-those of the mallard in 35 days;
-The eggs of the parrot and the ostrich hatch in 42 days.
(Notice, they are all divisible by seven,
the number of days in a week!)

God's wisdom is seen in the making of an elephant:

-The four legs of this great beast all bend forward in the same direction. No other quadruped is so made. God planned that this animal would have a huge body, too large to live on two legs. For this reason, He gave it four fulcrums so that it can rise from the ground easily.
-The horse rises from the ground on its two front legs first. A cow rises from the ground with its two hind legs first.

God's wisdom is revealed in His arrangement of sections and segments, as well as in the number of grains:

-Each watermelon has an even number of stripes on the rind.
-Each orange has an even number of segments.
-Each ear of corn has an even number of rows.
-Each stalk of wheat has an even number of grains.
-Every bunch of bananas has on its lowest row an even number of bananas, and each row decreases by one, so that one row has an even number and the next row an odd number.
-The waves of the sea roll in on shore twenty-six to the minute in all kinds of weather.
-All grains are found in even numbers on the stalks.

(shared by Fiona)

'Linsanity'

‘For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other so that you do not do what you want.'(Galatians 5:17-18)

"You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred towards God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.' (James 4:4)

The ‘Linsanity’ is on. The basketball fans are so caught with the sensation rise of Jeremy Lin, a 23 year- old Asian-American who is 2.29m in height ,and an Ivy League graduate (Harvard). This is especially among the Asian Americans who always feel being overlooked. They are perceived to be weak, quiet, servile, out of place. There have been complaints even against the top American universities that these institutions have been punishing Asian Americans in the college admissions process. For example, it was said that Princeton University needs Asian-Americans’ Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) scores 140 points higher than white students, everything else is equal, to have the same chance of getting into it. Lin is said, helps to overcome such ethnic stereotype.

Lin is a devoted Christian. He made public that he wants to play selflessly for God and that his audience is God. Notwithstanding that, he acknowledges that he has been struggling to do so. There is always tension between the moral ethos of sport and the moral ethos of faith. This tension arises from the different values each set is exhorting. In the arena of world professional sports, supremacy, glory, fame, competitive, ambitious, assertive, and intimidating are attributes one must have. In fact, his identity is built around them. The religious ethos, on the other hand, is more about humility (shepherds often becoming great men in the Bible), God’s redemption, self-denial (lose yourself in order to find yourself), surrender to God (willing to give up everything), gain strength by acknowledging one’s weaknesses. Truly these two sets of moral ethos are irreconcilable. One is God’s standards and the other is human standards. We have to decide which standards we want to adopt and excel. It is better to choose which way one wants to commit than be indecisive and live with inner conflicts. For Lin, I hope the choice is obvious.