The Sixty-Fifth Time

Today was Treatment Tuesday. My 65th round of Keytruda. Every 20 days for the last three and a half years, I sit in the same chair, see the same nurses, and let the same drug do its work.

Sixty-five times.

I'm not going to lie to you. There have been plenty of days I asked God to make this go away. To heal me clean, in one shot, and let me walk out and never come back. I bet most of you have prayed something like that about whatever your version of the chair is.

Paul did too. He had something he called a "thorn in the flesh." We don't know exactly what it was, but it bothered him enough that he asked God three times to take it away. And God said no.

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"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."

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2 Corinthians 12:9

Read that again. God's power doesn't show up in spite of our weakness. It shows up in it. That changed how Paul saw the whole thing. He wrote, "When I am weak, then I am strong."

So here's where I've landed after 65 treatments. Maybe the chair isn't a delay in my healing. Maybe the chair is where the healing is happening, on God's timeline, not mine. Maybe every time I walk in there, I'm walking deeper into His grace, not further from it.

If you're in your own valley today, hear this. He didn't always remove the thorn. But He never once left the person carrying it.

Be Nice. Grace Wins.

FMJ