… into the unknown …

August 30, 2021

Friends,

I write to you today to keep you informed about our current health scare. We are solidly in the in-between between preliminary scans and diagnosis. For those unaware, an MRI for shoulder pain yielded the unanticipated (by us, at least) news of a tumor in my shoulder. A large one that my primary care doctor is very concerned about.

So here are the next steps. We had anticipated a biopsy last Thursday, but due to some bureaucratic clunkiness ... it is actually THIS Thursday. Thank you to those who have been praying. 

The date scheduled for going over results remains Wednesday, September 1. 

This past Saturday, I woke up early to go for a walk and pray. Our new church plant Christ Our Hope was meeting mid-morning to worship and continue our plans for beginning this October. While Sioux Falls is still giving warm summer weather hugs, this was the first time I could sense fall on the horizon. A song from a long ago friend came whispering that morning: Fall is meant for falling to the ground. A season when death beckons and we get low before our Father and Creator...and, in these parts, we brace for the coming days. For as long as I can remember, I have loved this time. It has for years been for me a crisp and clarifying breath across my heart. A time to let die those things that must and to look to the days ahead in faith. I’ve never greeted the fall from the space between discovery and diagnosis yet the crisp breath blows still...

And so we wait. Will you wait with us? There is firm ground under our feet. We have come crashing into our Father with all our need and dependency and unknowns, and he has put firm ground under our feet. These are sweet days, if ... tender.

There’ll be nothing to tell until after our diagnosis, so I’ll write again September 2nd. (Unless, it’s in my heart to write again!) Please keep Amy and I in your prayers and send along anything that you are praying for us. Also, our boys. Charles and Owen. Our lightning and thunder. I praise my Heavenly Father that he moves toward and relates to children, upholds them, ministers to them whether they know or not. Please intercede for them.

Standing firm,

Dave (for Amy, Charles, and Owen)
 
He lives. He reigns. He loves.