From Dad

My Dad wanted to send his own thanks and update to our congregation here and asked that I also share this letter with those reading my blog since so many of you have been praying for him. So, below is that letter. Reading it was very comforting and inspiring for me.

Dear Family…

As you can imagine it has been an interesting week in the Stump household. I was more than a little bummed to get the news last week that I had gone from the always hoped for NED (No Evidence of Disease) on my August scan to multiple new tumors just four weeks later! And one of these is already over 2 inches long!!! These crummy things move faster than several cars I’ve owned over the years.

It is not as if I don’t know what I’m up against with this cancer. I was told from the beginning that GIST is an aggressive cancer and that my particular version of it is especially aggressive; and that while there are treatments that might stabilize its progression there is no cure.

I know all this, yet…for the past month I had been feeling really good again…minimal side-effects, no pain, good energy…and coupled with the excellent clear scan in August I convinced myself that I had a three month window of clear sailing until my next scan in November. When I started feeling badly again and those feelings were confirmed by an emergency scan, I reacted as if I was losing something that was rightfully mine.

Foolishness! God makes us no such promises. We are not guaranteed the next moment, let alone the next three months. What we are guaranteed is His presence with us…and that makes all the difference.

With the elders’ gracious blessings I took several days off last week. Kay and I enjoyed this incredible fall weather camping in Mt Rainier National Park. We’ve camped there a number of times and the Park has become special to me since my sons and I have backpacked together extensively in it.

We used this time to talk through some of our ‘what then’ questions and to speak and listen to our loving Lord. So, here is what I think…

If it should be that my cancer defeats our available treatments and I don’t have all that many days left, then I don’t want to spend my remaining time morose and lamenting my losses. Sadness and disappointment are inevitable, but I don’t have to live there…and I’m determined not to. On the other hand if treatment works—and it may—and I’m granted a longer time here, then I don’t want to look back at these days and see that I lost precious days of sunshine to the blues.

Either way my response is the same: This is the day the Lord has made…I will rejoice and be glad in it! He may not make another one for me…but His grace is sufficient for today. I intend to let His grace lead me into the joy of each day’s gifts. Some days I’ll blow it and be morose anyway…it is, after all, in my nature. But far more often I’m going to celebrate the marvelous gift of life each day it comes.

I have so much to be thankful for…not the least of which is you, my church family. I’m thankful for your prayers…your expressions of love and concern…your acted-on desires to be blessings to Kay and me. We feel truly and wonderfully cared for. Thank you. God willing and with the elders’ consent I will continue to serve you, my Family, however He enables me.

To Life! And to God’s grace that makes joy possible each day!