Category: Poetry

Packing!

Updates

  • I completed my fourth round of “salvage chemo” this week.
  • We leave next week to fly to Houston, where we plan to stay for three months for my bone marrow transplant. I wanted to share a few more details about the transplant process, as some have asked.
    This will be an autologous transplant, meaning it will use my own stem cells. I will not be receiving cells from a donor. That’s good news—using donor cells comes with the risk of my body rejecting them, which can be life-threatening.
  • Once my stem cells are harvested, I will receive a week of incredibly high-powered chemotherapy, which will (God willing) kill the remaining cancer cells.
    It’s important to note that it’s not the transplant itself that kills the microscopic cancer cells in my blood—it’s the chemo. However, the chemo is so intense that it also destroys my bone marrow. That’s why the transplant is necessary—to “rescue” my bone marrow and restart my immune system.

Prayer Requests and Praises

  • The main prayer request is for the cancer mass to be completely gone. In order for the transplant to proceed, I must be in remission.
  • I’m thankful to have completed all of my scheduled chemo treatments here in Jacksonville. Now, we officially await the next phase of treatment in Houston.
  • Please pray for our family—especially Jenny, who is leading the charge while I’m sick from chemo—as we prepare and pack. It’s still hard to believe this journey is actually happening!

What I’ve Been Learning

  • I’m learning to trust the Lord more fully. There are days when my faith is strong and others when it feels weaker. But the Lord isn’t surprised by that. He promises to “hold me fast” through the storms of trial.
  • Each night we pray with our kids, and last night we focused on Proverbs 3:5–6:

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths.”
(Proverbs 3:5–6)

The Lord invites us to trust Him completely—and suffering, hard as it is, can be a way to deepen that trust.

  • God’s wisdom and plan for my life are best. It’s a very good thing I’m not in charge. I am not—and never have been—the author of my life.
    God is writing each of our stories for His glory and our good. There is peace in surrendering to that, and trusting Him to “bring to completion” the work He has begun.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD.
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
(Isaiah 55:8–9)

“And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you
will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”
(Philippians 1:6)

What Has Been Encouraging

  • As we pack for our trip, we’re bringing along a few essentials—like books!
    I’m not sure how I’ll feel during the hospital stay, but I want to be prepared in case I’m able to read.
    Some of these books have been on my list for a long time, while others seem especially fitting for this season.
  • Many of them are devotionals or have short chapters, to increase the odds I can work through them slowly.
    If you spot one you like below, feel free to pick it up and let me know what you think—maybe it can be part of your summer reading too!

Genesis: One Year Anniversary Poem

rainydaywithjenny

I have heard many couples express angst when they reflect on their first year of marriage. Conflicts, confusion and crying might take place during the first year, but I would never describe my experience this way. In fact, I will trumpet the opposite. I could not be more thrilled since our wedding day. Our marriage is not perfect, but it is full of pleasure. Our joy is rich in God and our hearts are filled with thankfulness. Each morning I awake with my best friend and each eve I kiss her goodnight. I get the privilege of seeking Christ with my precious bride. She has helped me live life in more ways than I imagined. Marriage has hindered nothing.

This anniversary poem attempts to weave events in our lives with the Scripture we have studied devotionally over the past year. I am only a poet by proxy because I am in love. Here is a toast to Jennifer, marriage, and the God of all grace.

A year has past, hard to believe

More memories than moments

My mind couldn’t conceive

How wonderful a year

It surely has been

Rolling and romping

With my best friend

Lilies and lilacs

Mixed in your hair

Holding you closely

Found in His care

Through the garden we ran

Clothed – naked – near

hand and hand

Nothing was mere

We climbed in our ark

Small, full and warm

Hot tea and lightening

Cuddled through storm

Not this year, but down the road

Abraham’s stars,

may become ours

Moving his sand

into our land

Fostering only for now

We hummed with the Sparrows

And researched our Pharaohs

Juggling a proverb here and there

Singing our Psalms, We frolic on

By faith, we embark on this year

What shall entail?

Starfish and pail

How will the wind

blow through our sail?

A year has past,

better we believe

More faith than before

Our minds couldn’t conceive

How wonderful a year

It surely has been

Serving,

Flourishing

With my best friend

God give us grace for more.

Photo from Perron Wedding by Jessica Rai Photography

Waiting With Simeon

My name is Simeon, and I have been refined through the furnace of forbearance.  I had a promise stored away in the confines of my heart for many years.  A confidence; an assurance; a hope; a revelation.  All of this from the very Spirit of Yahweh.  You see, I had the great promise of looking incarnate salvation straight in the face.  Israel’s consolation.  The Messiah.  The Lord had promised that I would not see death until this promise had been fulfilled before my eyes.  And, oh, how it’s fulfillment was so sweet.

Yet, between the birth of the promise and its consummation, there were great days of angst.  You know the feeling, don’t you?  The promise is received.  The fire of faith is white-hot in your soul.  Then a week goes by, and then a month, and a year; your hair starts to grey.  Your skin starts to wrinkle.  Your bones begin to ache.  And things grow dark.  Do you know what I mean, friend?  Do you know this feeling?  Do you know the feeling of a promise received from our great God, but then the tides of time beat on your shore, grating away at the foundation of your hope?  I knew this feeling.

You see, friend, rarely do we hear of the between days.  Those twenty-four hour cycles of waiting.  When all one can do is cling to what one knows is true about the promise-making God while his promise remains unfulfilled.  This is my story.

How did I wait on this promise-making, delaying God?  By constant reminder.  How David’s songs soothed my soul!  It seemed as though David’s song voiced the words that were in my heart that I could not speak.  I can’t begin to number the times that I reminded myself of this great confidence he had:  “I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living!  Wait for the Lord; be strong and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!” (Psalm 27:13-14)  This was my song.  Because it seemed that all I had was a promise. And yet, I believed that I would see that promise.  My stumbling, weak hope was set steadfast on the sovereign God of Israel.

And so, in the weary days when the promise had no vigor, I reminded myself.  In the temple, in the Spirit, my faith was refined through hope deferred.  Do you know this, friend?  Have you felt the tender hand of our Father who is never slack on his promises, but also never premature on his delivery?  This is our great God.  The one who gave our people 430 years of silence until the cries of John in the wilderness.  All of this according to plan; all of this by great orchestration.  No promise unfulfilled; and no child of his unpurified by patience.

But, friend, when I held the promise in my arms for the first time – when my heart sighed in great relief while holding the Messiah of the nations – I knew that I could die.  For I had looked upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.  I had tasted and seen that the Lord is good.  Yet, I did not just see and taste his goodness in the moment the was promise fulfilled.  I had seen it in the waiting.  The Spirit of God was upon me, giving me faith in his promises during the weary days of lost hope.  When my faith was gone, I knew that my God held my right hand and was the one who helped me (Isaiah 41:13).  I have seen Israel’s hope with my own two eyes.  And I have seen Israel’s hope with my heart, as well.

So, friend, take advice from an old man who will soon die.  Wait on the Lord.  He is never slack, yet never premature in his fulfillment of his promises.  Yet, be sure of this, he will keep the promise he has made.  For his promises are always “Yes” and “Amen” in that child that I held in my arms.  If you ever doubt God’s promise to you that he has made in his word, think of me.  Think of my days of waiting.  Even more, think of that child.  The Messiah.  Who grew, and lived the life of obedience that I could never live (no matter how hard I tried!), and then died for all my moments of weak, silly unbelief.  And his resurrection speaks to you and I.  It is the great, “Yes!” to the promise.  Believe, believe, believe!  You shall see salvation, perhaps at a distance for now.  But soon, face to face.

“Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen you salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel” -Luke 2:29-32

Spencer Harmon