Finishing Week Seven and Angels

James is finishing up week seven of chemotherapy-- the last full week. For the next two weeks, he'll just have the Tuesday treatment, and then he'll be done! We got his blood test with the cancer markers back today, and they look great. All the numbers are within normal range now. They'll still do a CT scan in a few weeks to make sure it's all gone, but everything should be wiped out. We are glad. He'll still have at least a month or two of recuperation, but it's nice to have the actual treatments almost behind him. The chemo did the job, but its side-effects have really wiped him out. Thanks again to everyone for your love and support through this-- it's meant more than you can know.

We've had James's wonderful sister, Rachel, with us this week. And my mom for part of last week. We couldn't have managed without them-- we are so blessed to have these angels in our lives. Angels from our family, our ward, our dear friends, the nurses that have helped us, and even complete strangers. The Lord has been true to his word: “I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, … my Spirit shall be in your [heart], and mine angels round about you, to bear you up.”

In the last few weeks, I have often been reminded of the Elder Holland's recent talk on angels in conference:

My beloved brothers and sisters, I testify of angels, both the heavenly and the mortal kind. In doing so I am testifying that God never leaves us alone, never leaves us unaided in the challenges that we face. “[N]or will he, so long as time shall last, or the earth shall stand, or there shall be one man [or woman or child] upon the face thereof to be saved.”13 On occasions, global or personal, we may feel we are distanced from God, shut out from heaven, lost, alone in dark and dreary places. Often enough that distress can be of our own making, but even then the Father of us all is watching and assisting. And always there are those angels who come and go all around us, seen and unseen, known and unknown, mortal and immortal.

I love this idea, and I loved it when I first heard this talk, but I can now also bear testimony that it is true. We have been helped by angels from God-- there is no other explanation.