I love the look of peace and contentment in John's eyes... how often I marveled on our cancer journey, and I saw that exact look and attitude time and time again as we faced the worse! I called him David in the face of Goliath, and that truly is how he was, surrounded by so many prayers, and given the strength to take his rock into his slingshot and kill the Giant - Cancer!
This summer selling insurance... he dressed up for work each day, yet this was nothing new either... with his years of speech... he owned suits, ties, dress shirts and dress shoes... many of them he still wore this summer. The glasses... are a reminder of the crazy week 2 summers ago that he went to 2 eye doctors and got glasses and contacts for double vision... which turned out to be brain cancer! We laughed as he came down looking "studious" for work with the reminder of our cancer/healing journey! Now we can laugh, and continue to trust! 
How it lifts me up each and every day... to remember the joy of prayer and the peace that it provided us so that we could say with each new day..."Jesus, I trust in you!" John has discovered renewed faith and knowledge of the miracles of a life of prayer! He now wants to give to those around him that he sees need to have a loving faithfilled influence. He asks the Lord to direct him in his future narrow path, with his loving and forgiving Lord within the True Church! 
I had mentioned yesterday... "the storm" and Jesus being in control. Last night as we shared evening prayer in our prayer book... see http://www.magnificat.com/ ... I could tell from the opening hymn that this would be the exact reading of that Father's day, and it was...Mark 4: 37-41
Mark 4:37-41 New International Version (NIV)
37 A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. 38 Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” 39 He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.
40 He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”
41 They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”
John able to find peace and joy in the midst of the storm as he was surrounded by prayer and family! We will be returning to Rochester on December 1st for his 3 month check up... it was on this date 2 years ago that a week of prayer began.. for all 168 hours from Dec 1- Dec 7... there were people praying around the clock at some points there were many people in each block of time. So powerful and that was when the cancer left John for the final time! He was totally without cancer! 
He needed his family to hold him upright in bed... "he ain't heavy... he's my brother." Psalm 107
"He stilled the storm to a whisper:
all the waves of the sea were hushed.
They rejoiced because of the calm
and he led them to the haven they desired.
Let them thank the Lord for his love,
the wonders he does for men,
Let them exalt him in the gathering of the people
and praise him in the meeting of the elders."
Sweet Lord... yet one with so much power and wisdom and might... You fill me with such awe! I am yours and I want to hold nothing back... "Who then is this whom even wind and sea obey?" It is GOD! I fall on my knees before you with hands upraised in joyful PRAISE! I am weak and you are strong! I am Yours! Thank you for wanting to share every part of my life with you, and I am sorry that I only think of you when the going gets hard. That is why the cross is so important in my life... it brings me to you in the midst of the storms of life, and you command - "Quiet! Be still!" Jesus, I trust in you! Amen and Halleluia!
Bless-bless, Barb
"Christian prayer is nothing other than being present to God so that God can give to us. The only thing that matters is that we believe this and stay there with him, regardless of how we feel or don't feel. I suggest that the most profound expression we can give to faith is to set aside an inviolable time each day, no matter how short, when we deliberately affirm God's, Jesus' absolute love for me here and now and that we stay there in blind trusting faith, receiving it. This will mean learning the precious lesson that, in fact, we have no inner resources of our own; it will mean learning to live happily (with praise ever in our hearts) without any assurances from within ourselves but casting our whole weight on to infinite love. This is to glorify God for it glorifies God's true nature, which is love." Sr Ruth Burrows... a Carmelite nun, who is an author of a number of best-selling books.
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