Hi, this is Hank Hennigraf, president of the Christian Research Institute and host of the Bible Answer Man broadcast with another Hank unplug short.

Today I want to share something that touched me deeply this morning.

It's a short letter that my sister who is suffering from pancreatic

cancer sends to her praying family and friends. Her chemo treatments are a go despite the fact

that her blood counts are an absolute bare minimum.

The blood counts overall are at their lowest point.

But she's grateful, grateful.

Imagine this, grateful for permission from her oncologist to still go ahead with the chemo.

And she's so appreciative of the encouragement and prayers from family and friends.

She shares a little part of a verse which says, I rejoiced with those who said to me,

Let us go to the house of the Lord.

Joby, my sister, my dear sister, one year older than I, we immigrated the United States together.

She says, and she's such a beautiful writer, she says, in these months of my cancer journey,

my life seems to have gone from many freedoms to many losses and literally, as one pastor said so well,

to planning with a pencil.

Been thinking a lot, she says, about planning with a pencil.

In our ministry, planning with a pencil seem to have ruled out our personal schedules.

Now, the cancer schedule, the doctor's appointments,

the treatments, and the many side effects are dictating what we do with our lives. Our ministry was purely in service to him first, bringing his word to his people and ministering to the many needs of his flock.

Now we find ourselves with a new twist, a twist to design a schedule that fits into his schedule

and being ministered to rather than purely ministering. Being ministered to by the good shepherd personally.

His schedule for me is not planned in pencil, but with permanent ink, with my scheduled birth and death date.

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