Does God Still Speak Today? (and unexpected CT scan results)

For many of us, it doesn’t feel like God is speaking to us all that often. And frankly, there are times when the world we are in feels like hell, and God doesn’t say much of anything. Sometimes his silence is deafening; and if we were honest, remarkably disheartening. But that isn’t always the case. There are other times when God does speak in the most beautiful ways. It’s often in our darkest hours; in our times of deepest pain that God lets us feel nearest to him. We deeply crave comfort and we work our whole lives to build stability and predictability, but it’s in the instability and chaos that heaven and earth come close that we can hear God just a bit more clearly.

It’s as if, God is most present when we are most weak.

A picture from God

When Kristin was told she probably had cancer (the first time, when we thought it was lymphoma), it was a bit to swallow as you can imagine. That night she was in bed, covered in hives (that was one of her early symptoms), unable to sleep late into the night. She got up and went to the living room and began to journal, pleading with God. She was totally overwhelmed with fear and found herself literally crying to God asking him to speak to her. She grabbed a Bible off the shelf and just opened it. The first thing to meet her eyes was 2 Chronicles 18:18:

I saw God enthroned,
and all the Angel Armies of heaven
standing at attention,
ranged on his right and his left.

That was it! Yes, the truth of the situation was that regardless of our circumstances in the battle on this earth, there is a good God who reigns and has armies of angels ranged on his right and his left. My wife is former navy and military images are easy for her to take a hold of. I think it’s pretty wonderful how God pointed her to that image. He may have not given her audible directions, but in a very real way he spoke to her through an image in the Bible.

In her weakest hour, his strength was most real.

Scan results

In a way, this image of God fighting in the heavens became even more real this week as we got her CT scan results. This was the scan of her chest that initially showed a golf ball sized mass in the bottom of her lung. In addition to the mass infiltrating her lung, the scan also showed that the lymph nodes in her chest were huge. The doctors told us that the hope was that the mass would go away, but that we should not expect the lymph nodes to go back to normal.

With her aggressive treatment since Thanksgiving, the mass is actually completely gone from her lung and her lymph nodes are back to normal! This is great news that we are very thankful for.
Unfortunately, while things inside seem to be straightening out, she really is not much better. Over these many weeks her physical condition has not changed much at all. She needs full-time care, using a wheel chair to get to get her to the bathroom, and spending the rest of her time on the couch. Sitting up very long is hard, and even texting is challenging for her lately.

We saw the doctor who probably sees more sarcoidosis patients than anyone in this state and he said he has never seen a case with such debilitating fatigue. BUT…he also said he is confident that she will get better. It could be a year…or more…but he thinks she will get better. The last few days have been very hopeful. Good reports on the scan, finally getting to a doctor who specializes in this, some new medications…and while it’s too early to tell, it does seem like the last few days have been some small improvements.

We are hopeful; exhausted, but hopeful.