Last Sunday morning I woke up thinking, "I can't believe I'm not going to church today." I felt a real sense of loss, not because I wasn't going to be on stage in front of people (God broke me of that in the 80's!), but because there was going to be a party, and I wasn't going to be there.
I was raised in a small, old-fashioned Baptist church, but there was one element of each worship service that the pastor hit right on the head. As a young boy, I remember that at the beginning of worship each week this larger-than-life hero of mine (in reality, he was pretty large) in a black suit would step to the pulpit and call us to worship with his beautiful booming baritone voice. Unlike so many modern pastors and worship leaders who begin worship with chit-chat or a stand-up comic routine (as if we've gathered to spend time with them), Pastor Floyd would intone the words of scripture,
"I was glad when they said to me, 'Let us go up to the house of the Lord.'"
So last Sunday, I awoke rather "un-glad" because I wasn't going to the house of the Lord. Now the doctors have been telling me, "Mr. Price, this is a time when you have to listen to your body." They're all right, but I'm getting kinda tired of listening to my currently uncooperative body! So around 9:30 I told my body to get dressed; we were going to church. Charlene and I arrived at the last minute, parked in the rear lot and sneaked into the back for the 10:30 service. While my body was in pain and protested a bit, my spirit was fed by the worship, prayers, reading of scripture and John's sermon.
I'm still not 100% and unable to lead this weekend (Aug 1), but I attended worship tonight and plan to return tomorrow morning. Again, I was moved and strengthened by being there with other worshipers. As I drove to church, I didn't have the normal pressures of an upcoming "performance" (you understand my use of the word. There are hundreds of "performance elements" that comprise each service; logistics that the worship leader, media team, ushers and others have to pay attention to for things to go smoothly), so I was able to prepare myself mentally for meeting with God. Following the Hebrew pattern for worship, I asked myself, "What am I coming to give in worship, and what do I want to receive?" Coming to worship to give something to God (at least beyond the normal offering) isn't the way we often approach the weekly gathering. But if I want to be a blessing to God and bring him joy, it's appropriate for me to think of giving something to him. Of course, I should surrender him the things that I shouldn't have in the first place; self-sufficiency, worry, sin, etc., but beyond this I should approach worship to give him thanks, praise and service.
Pastor Bill,
ReplyDeleteYes, it is always good to be in the house of the Lord, our wonderful caring God.
Your blog today was a message for me. It gives me a different perspective. I always think of giving God our cares, troubles and concerns, but just thinking about the positive things we can give God, our love, our adoration, our deep respect for His sacrifices and His laws, our thanksgiving for friends that He has given us to help us through tough times. We continue to pray for you, for your returning strength, and courage as you gain strength for your upcoming surgery on Sept. 9. God bless you and keep you safe in His loving hands.
Thank you for sharing the story of Dad. You are in our prayers every day, and we love you and the family so much. It is amazing you still remember as a young boy the words of Dad on Sunday mornings. You are a very special man, and God will bless you through this trial. He certainly is using you to speak to others including myself. May He keep you in Healing Hands.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your transparency and sense of humor during this time. I feel quite a sense of pride for you. You and your family will remain in my prayers. DR
ReplyDeleteDear Pastor Bill:
ReplyDeleteIt always amazes me when I read your posts that the energy you've always had still shines through, despite your body's current weakness and fatigue! The humor you share makes all of us smile. Our God is so great! Thank you for all of your posts so that we can pray for the specific needs you have as well as for God's strength and healing. I continue to pray for you and your family, for strength and courage as September 9th approaches. You are in God's loving arms -- there is no better place to be!
Thanks for persisting with the thoughtful blog entries.
ReplyDeleteI finally looked up the chemotherapeutic drug you took, capecitabine (generic name). You cand google the image, because, like many drugs, it is a lovely molecule.
I thought you might be interested in the biology of this drug. The interesting take-home message is that the drug is a newer variation (that you can take by mouth) of a very old drug, originally created in 1957.
The actual pill you take doesn't do anything, so is called a "pro-drug." Only after you take the drug, it spreads through the body and then is disassembled and broken down especially by liver enzymes, and it is one of the small pieces of the resulting digestion of the drug (5-fluorouracil) that is a cancer drug. 5-Fluorouracil (5FU) was created because it looks a lot like one of the rungs of the DNA and RNA ladders in cells. Heidelberger who made it didn't have any specific idea in mind, he was just making molecules that looked similar to natural things in case they would confuse and poison cells.
5FU does this, and has been used against cancer for the following 53 years. It is among the oldest anti-cancer drugs. Here is the kicker- we don't know how it works (!) There is good evidence that it works in several different ways. When I was in grad school, my lab (though not my specific project) worked on this problem, since the presumed mechanism of 5FU cell killing turned out to be totally wrong. 5FU was shown to kill a particular enzyme needed for building rungs of the DNA ladder, so that was supposed to be the issue. However, cells still died even when those rungs were supplied in the growth medium, so it wasn't the shortage of rungs that was the problem. It may be that 5FU (since it looks like one of the rungs of the DNA and RNA ladder) gets mistakenly used as a rung, and this causes problems because of the Fluorine atom in the drug,
I even got interested in that mechanism and back in 1996 we published a paper studying how the substitution of 5FU into a particular RNA changed its functional properties:
Fisher, T, and Maher, LJ. Reverse transcription of 5-fluorouracil-substituted RNA. Nucleosides and Nucleotides, 15:1423-1432, 1996.
So anyway, the important message here is that you were treated with a new version of a "classic" anti-cancer drug. If doctors ever convey arrogance about how much they know, you can point out that we still don't understand how this ancient anti-cancer drug works! I'm just thankful that it does. In fact, we don't understand the mechanism of action for many of the drugs we take every day.
When I had chemo back in 1974, I got to sample a cocktail of other classic drugs, all of which caused intense nausea for weeks. 5FU is better, especially the new version :)