He produces a weekly devotional email at http://www.internationalhealthservices.com/pages/ihs_llj The last two issues have spoken directly to our situation. One follows, so applicable to winning a battle against cancer:
"Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing." These words from the famous Green Bay Packer football coach, Vince Lombardi, express the ultimate preoccupation with results. While playing college soccer, focusing only on winning resulted in my failure to enjoy any part of the practice process.
At times in my spiritual life I focus only on results and fail to enjoy the lessons to be learned on the way to the end point. Since the journey to the results can take time and occasionally the result can be fleeting, finding joy in the results alone leaves much joylessness on the journey. Spiritually, joy on the journey can be as important as the results.
The apostle Paul told us to Rejoice in the Lord always (Philippians 4: 4-6) - implying that the journey to God-ordained results can come with joy. How?
 | By replacing worry with prayer |
| By replacing complaining with thanksgiving |
Results are important but the journey is important as well. Enjoying the journey can be harder for me than enjoying the outcome.
This makes an interesting challenge for us as we so worry about results of Jan's treatment.
I found a useful NHS web site for anyone in my position. It has a booklet produced by the NHS, so I had ignored it for the first five weeks. On looking it is a useful tool to help spouses of cancer sufferers or probably any other major illness such as stroke or heart attack. The whole NHS site is good, the booklet is available as PDF download or free booklet from this link
http://www.breastcancercare.org.uk/content.php?page_id=3067
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