Focusing on Trust...Again

   I just returned from a visit with the stem-cell transplant people an hour ago.  This is not going to be a simple process and why I ever held out hope in my simple-minded way that it ever would be simple, I have no idea.  While there is still a possibility that I can ride out the school year with my students and get this thing done during the summer months, there will also be a myriad of blood draws, consults, tests, and scans between now and then, causing my schedule to suddenly look very busy.  How busy?  We still don't know.  A lot of that has to be determined.  One doctor will now talk with another doctor and they will get back to me.  Meanwhile I have a few hoops to jump through myself.
   Whatever happened to "simple?" That might have left with childhood or certainly by college-aged.  I feel like up until now my life has been stress-free when it comes to health issues.  My first 56 years on earth were relatively free from any major health concerns.  Oh sure, a bum knee here, some weird seizures there, and that one bout with poison ivy was crazy, but nothing this ugly.  While that care-free state of mind is something I once again yearn for, I also realize what a blessing my own personal health status has been up until now. Then again, even now, I am fine (but frustrated), content (with a tinge of anxiety), and joyful (even though happiness comes and goes).  Now it is all somehow tainted, and yet I cannot be overwhelmed by the tarnish.  I need to be fully focused on the good.  It is time to allow the refining of God to take place so that the real truth of God's goodness can be evident.  Job 23:10 says, "But he knows the way I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold."  It is my time to be tested and therefore my time to shine as gold.  I might as well start now -- after all, my last chemo round is on Thursday.
   But none of this is simple.  I should never think that anything on this journey ought to be.  My typical naive way of looking at this world and my place in it gets in the way.  Wishes and nostalgia are nice pastimes, but they can easily mask reality.  Trust in more important than simple anyway.  It's time for this simple-minded soul to trust.