It is the close of another year. 2007 has come and gone. It is hard to believe and impossible to describe all the ups and downs, high and lows, victories and disappointments. Above all and before anything else, I have to acknowledge that through it all, my Lord and Savior has never
left my side and never let me down. I have been so blessed to have been brought through the fire yet again to see the beginning of another calendar year, another survivor year. We are still fighting the fight, leading the charge, showing the way in the ever-evolving field of metastatic breast cancer treatments. Just when I seemed to run out of options, Ixempra was approved and I am doing well on my third round. Which leads us to the issue of trust.
Twice over the past 7 years, I have clearly heard the Lord say the very same thing in the very same quizzical whisper. Once, in the spring of 2004, I was in my attic, sorting some clothes for the coming summer season and setting aside some clothes for charity. Without thinking, I started putting summer shorts, sleeveless tanks, and a bathing suit or two in the charity pile. I know why I was doing that.....at the time I did not see myself as needing those things again. I was metastatic.....I did not know how my treatments would go or for how long.
I was even thinking that I may not be at the lake again, on a beach, on in a boat or taking walks for exercise. By the simple act of giving those clothes away, a small part of me was giving in. And then I heard the voice...barely a whisper..."Don't you trust me?" I immediately took the clothes out of the charity pile at took them downstairs to my chest of drawers. He was right, I did still need them. I do still wear some of them.
Just after Thanksgiving this year, I heard the same words again. I had just gone through the terrible skin-peeling side effects of too much chemo and my hair was shedding heavily. I decided that this go-around I was going to invest in a human hair wig. Those of you who are familiar with these wigs know that they are very expensive. As I was trying on the wig, which looked so much like my hair from 7 years ago, He said again, "don't you trust me?" For an instant, I almost didn't buy the daggone thing, but my ego got in the way. I liked the way the wig looked, and I didn't want to wait for my hair to fall all the way out. So I bought that wig and a funny thing happened. My hair stopped coming out. In fact, even though my eyebrows have thinned, my hair continues to grow. Amazing. I may end up losing my hair eventually, but that wig sits on my dresser as a reminder of money spent too soon and maybe wasted because I still,
in my weakest moments cannot let go and just TRUST.
2008 is here and I do not know what it will bring. I do know that my resolution, my mantra will be to trust; trust in the Lord with all my heart and lean not on my own understanding. Amen
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Monday, December 17, 2007
The Pursuit
"God will go to great lengths to pursue His lost children, " my friend Deb told me on the phone. "He is not pursuing you because He already has your heart. But he will use you to get to others who do not know that their salvation lies within His Son, Christ Jesus."
Somehow, those were not the comforting words I had hoped for. I was having a little pity party over the fact that I had heard about a divine healing of lung cancer that had happened in Conway, SC. A woman had driven 12 hours from Florida to Conway and sat for 12 more hours during a conference, participated in praise and worship and congregational prayers of healing
and at the end of the weekend, guess what? God had performed a miracle in her body. That very week her scans showed only one small, necrotic (dead) lesion left in one lung. Her doctor told her that she had gone from advanced stages of lung cancer to none. Holy moley! I heard a recording of her voice mail she had left a member of my church who had sat beside her. It was electrifying. What a testimony she will have; what glory she can bring to God!
At first, I was so excited about this news. God had not forgotten those of us who fight this awful disease on a daily basis. Healing of cancer is something that everyone tends to have skepticism about and here it was, documented in the next state over. WOW. Except I didn't feel "wow" for long. I began to feel discouraged, doubtful and resentful. I was still in the midst of a terrible war, suffering daily from various side effects of treatment and I was suddenly questioning God's choices. Why??? Because the woman who received healing was Jewish. Not someone like me, who is faithful, prayerful and a devout believer in the power of the Lord Jesus, but a member of the group who rejected my Lord and crucified Him on a cross. Ouch. Why her...why not me when so many faithful pray for me everyday, constantly and fervently. I took too long of a look inside myself and my circumstances and came out down, depressed and disappointed.
And so, this lead to a phone conversation with my friend, who in her always-wise and gentle way reminded my that God is most concerned about our eternal life, not our human time on earth.
He is constantly pursuing His children to make sure that they come home at the end of their physical existence. He will go to the ends of the earth to find those He loves and use whatever method necessary to give them their place in paradise. On the one hand, He will heal a Jewish woman and then on the other, use a devout woman's continual battle with cancer to convict and convince the stray sheep that their salvation lies with Him.
God loves us SO much, he gave his one and only Son for us. So, if you know me, if we cross paths and you do not know Jesus as your Savior, ponder this: Are you the person that God is pursuing through my living witness?? Are you the lost one that Jesus wants to touch through
my battles? If you think you are, then praise God and Hallelujah! You could receive the greatest gift of you entire life if you listen to those whispers of the Lord and accept what He has done for you. Even though there are times when I would rather not be the method of the pursuit, I am so blessed by the very idea that God would use me to get to you. He thinks that you are so worth the effort and, my beloved lost little lamb, so do I.
"How great is the love Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are..." 1 John 3:1
Somehow, those were not the comforting words I had hoped for. I was having a little pity party over the fact that I had heard about a divine healing of lung cancer that had happened in Conway, SC. A woman had driven 12 hours from Florida to Conway and sat for 12 more hours during a conference, participated in praise and worship and congregational prayers of healing
and at the end of the weekend, guess what? God had performed a miracle in her body. That very week her scans showed only one small, necrotic (dead) lesion left in one lung. Her doctor told her that she had gone from advanced stages of lung cancer to none. Holy moley! I heard a recording of her voice mail she had left a member of my church who had sat beside her. It was electrifying. What a testimony she will have; what glory she can bring to God!
At first, I was so excited about this news. God had not forgotten those of us who fight this awful disease on a daily basis. Healing of cancer is something that everyone tends to have skepticism about and here it was, documented in the next state over. WOW. Except I didn't feel "wow" for long. I began to feel discouraged, doubtful and resentful. I was still in the midst of a terrible war, suffering daily from various side effects of treatment and I was suddenly questioning God's choices. Why??? Because the woman who received healing was Jewish. Not someone like me, who is faithful, prayerful and a devout believer in the power of the Lord Jesus, but a member of the group who rejected my Lord and crucified Him on a cross. Ouch. Why her...why not me when so many faithful pray for me everyday, constantly and fervently. I took too long of a look inside myself and my circumstances and came out down, depressed and disappointed.
And so, this lead to a phone conversation with my friend, who in her always-wise and gentle way reminded my that God is most concerned about our eternal life, not our human time on earth.
He is constantly pursuing His children to make sure that they come home at the end of their physical existence. He will go to the ends of the earth to find those He loves and use whatever method necessary to give them their place in paradise. On the one hand, He will heal a Jewish woman and then on the other, use a devout woman's continual battle with cancer to convict and convince the stray sheep that their salvation lies with Him.
God loves us SO much, he gave his one and only Son for us. So, if you know me, if we cross paths and you do not know Jesus as your Savior, ponder this: Are you the person that God is pursuing through my living witness?? Are you the lost one that Jesus wants to touch through
my battles? If you think you are, then praise God and Hallelujah! You could receive the greatest gift of you entire life if you listen to those whispers of the Lord and accept what He has done for you. Even though there are times when I would rather not be the method of the pursuit, I am so blessed by the very idea that God would use me to get to you. He thinks that you are so worth the effort and, my beloved lost little lamb, so do I.
"How great is the love Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are..." 1 John 3:1
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Ambush
It was truly an ambush. There it sat in the bottom of my overnight bag. How long had it been there, waiting for me to look down and discover it in hiding? How long had I not even thought about it, much less, needed it. But there it was, still packed from a trip I must have taken many months before.
How could such a small and simple object send me into an instant and overwhelming crying jag?
After all I had been through and was about to face, what was it about this one thing that brought such sadness to me, crumbling my hard rock wall of resolve, resistance, faith, and belief? Such a small and simple object.
Those of you who have been where I was at this time of ambush will understand. After months of staying strong, enduring surgery, pain, chemo, worry and fear. After putting on my best face, maintaining that all-important positive attitude and faith in my loving and wonderful God, it took a simple curling iron in the bottom of my luggage to bring me to my knees. It was the end of October and I had not had any reason to use a curling iron since the end of June. I would not need a curling iron for many more months to come. But at that moment of ambush, I missed
the mere need to have to curl my hair, wash my hair, dry my hair......have hair. I wanted to
use gel and mousse and fuss about my bangs. I longed for the smell of shampoo and hairspray.
After months of saying "it's only hair, and it will grow back", it became a lot more than that. It was my beautiful, thick and enviable hair and I wanted it back.
So I had my cry, left the curling iron in my overnight bag, and got on with the battle. I did use that curling iron again. I still have it, although I have not always had enough hair to use it over these past years. It is still a reminder that sometimes the simple little things can trigger the biggest responses. Then you cry, leave it where it is, and get on with life.
I have to believe that everyone who fights this disease has had their own ambush. The trick is how we react to this unplanned attack. We cannot let an ambush put us under or set us back. We certainly cannot let an ambush defeat us. We must pick ourselves up off the floor of despair and put our faith in God's Word which is always greater than any circumstances, symptoms, or ambush. There is always a verse, a scripture or a story in the Book to pull you up and out of the pit. Just remember to "be of good cheer: for I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me." Acts 27:25
How could such a small and simple object send me into an instant and overwhelming crying jag?
After all I had been through and was about to face, what was it about this one thing that brought such sadness to me, crumbling my hard rock wall of resolve, resistance, faith, and belief? Such a small and simple object.
Those of you who have been where I was at this time of ambush will understand. After months of staying strong, enduring surgery, pain, chemo, worry and fear. After putting on my best face, maintaining that all-important positive attitude and faith in my loving and wonderful God, it took a simple curling iron in the bottom of my luggage to bring me to my knees. It was the end of October and I had not had any reason to use a curling iron since the end of June. I would not need a curling iron for many more months to come. But at that moment of ambush, I missed
the mere need to have to curl my hair, wash my hair, dry my hair......have hair. I wanted to
use gel and mousse and fuss about my bangs. I longed for the smell of shampoo and hairspray.
After months of saying "it's only hair, and it will grow back", it became a lot more than that. It was my beautiful, thick and enviable hair and I wanted it back.
So I had my cry, left the curling iron in my overnight bag, and got on with the battle. I did use that curling iron again. I still have it, although I have not always had enough hair to use it over these past years. It is still a reminder that sometimes the simple little things can trigger the biggest responses. Then you cry, leave it where it is, and get on with life.
I have to believe that everyone who fights this disease has had their own ambush. The trick is how we react to this unplanned attack. We cannot let an ambush put us under or set us back. We certainly cannot let an ambush defeat us. We must pick ourselves up off the floor of despair and put our faith in God's Word which is always greater than any circumstances, symptoms, or ambush. There is always a verse, a scripture or a story in the Book to pull you up and out of the pit. Just remember to "be of good cheer: for I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me." Acts 27:25
Monday, December 10, 2007
Happy Birthday to Me
This week marks a couple of milestones for me. Six years ago today, after three days of high-dose radiation and three nights in the hospital, I received my autologous stem-cell transplant.
When those clean little stem-cells were dripping back into my bloodstream, the nurse told me this was my second birthday. This coming Saturday the 15th of December 2007 will be my real birthday and I will be 52.
Somewhere between hoping for a cure and praying for healing, I have managed to be blessed with a wonderful life for the past 6 1/2 years. Don't get me wrong, it hasn't been all a bed of roses. There have been times when I just wanted it to all end because I was so tired of the stress, worry, sickness, hurt, and disappointments. I was tired of feeling 92 instead of 52.
But then, as now, God always found a way, a person, an event, a turn-around of some kind, to teach me a lesson, enrich my life, inspire deeper and greater love for family and friends, give me hope and keep me going. Today, I read a devotion that talks about keeping your eyes on the answer. The scripture that the devotions quotes is from Genesis 22:4 and 5 where Abraham
is looking up to the place where he will willingly sacrifice his son, Isaac, as God has asked.
Abraham, tells his servants to wait at the base of the mountain while "...I and the boy will go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you." (ital. mine) Abraham has no doubt that no matter what is to happen on the sacrificial site, he and his son will both be coming back. God had made a promise to Abraham, and he knew God would keep that promise.
So whether my body feels "normal" and painless, or I am sick or I am tired and hurting, I have to keep my eyes focused on God's healing promises at work in me. When, over the past almost seven years, we have consulted, computed, diagnosed, scanned, infused, ingested, and experimented: underlying any and all battleplans have been the promises. To have come so far
and still be fighting a continual, slow progression of disease with all our strengths and resources, I could easily have given up on the ability of my medical team to try and find another way to keep me going. I could have easily said "enough", particularly after the stem-cell transplant did not prevent the disease from finding its way back into my bones, lungs, and life. But the amazing thing is, no one else...not one doctor, one nurse, one family member or friend or co-worker....NO ONE as ever told me they thought it was enough. God has surrounded me with warriors that when I am at my weakest, they are at their best. No matter how grim and how discouraging some days have been, we are all standing firm on the promises that God has made to me. And whether they know it or believe it, God constantly performs in my life.
So, when I go about this week, Christmas shopping, finishing up the decorations, sending out cards and going out to dinner on Saturday night, it is all "Happy Birthday to Me". Happy birthday to me from all the ones who have been living my life with me to the fullest. I am so very, very grateful to all of you. God knew what He was doing when He put you in my life, my circumstances and I can't thank Him enough. I want you to all know that you help me every day to keep my eyes on the Answer...Jesus and the Word...filled with the promise and hope of many more birthdays to come and life everlasting. Amen
When those clean little stem-cells were dripping back into my bloodstream, the nurse told me this was my second birthday. This coming Saturday the 15th of December 2007 will be my real birthday and I will be 52.
Somewhere between hoping for a cure and praying for healing, I have managed to be blessed with a wonderful life for the past 6 1/2 years. Don't get me wrong, it hasn't been all a bed of roses. There have been times when I just wanted it to all end because I was so tired of the stress, worry, sickness, hurt, and disappointments. I was tired of feeling 92 instead of 52.
But then, as now, God always found a way, a person, an event, a turn-around of some kind, to teach me a lesson, enrich my life, inspire deeper and greater love for family and friends, give me hope and keep me going. Today, I read a devotion that talks about keeping your eyes on the answer. The scripture that the devotions quotes is from Genesis 22:4 and 5 where Abraham
is looking up to the place where he will willingly sacrifice his son, Isaac, as God has asked.
Abraham, tells his servants to wait at the base of the mountain while "...I and the boy will go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you." (ital. mine) Abraham has no doubt that no matter what is to happen on the sacrificial site, he and his son will both be coming back. God had made a promise to Abraham, and he knew God would keep that promise.
So whether my body feels "normal" and painless, or I am sick or I am tired and hurting, I have to keep my eyes focused on God's healing promises at work in me. When, over the past almost seven years, we have consulted, computed, diagnosed, scanned, infused, ingested, and experimented: underlying any and all battleplans have been the promises. To have come so far
and still be fighting a continual, slow progression of disease with all our strengths and resources, I could easily have given up on the ability of my medical team to try and find another way to keep me going. I could have easily said "enough", particularly after the stem-cell transplant did not prevent the disease from finding its way back into my bones, lungs, and life. But the amazing thing is, no one else...not one doctor, one nurse, one family member or friend or co-worker....NO ONE as ever told me they thought it was enough. God has surrounded me with warriors that when I am at my weakest, they are at their best. No matter how grim and how discouraging some days have been, we are all standing firm on the promises that God has made to me. And whether they know it or believe it, God constantly performs in my life.
So, when I go about this week, Christmas shopping, finishing up the decorations, sending out cards and going out to dinner on Saturday night, it is all "Happy Birthday to Me". Happy birthday to me from all the ones who have been living my life with me to the fullest. I am so very, very grateful to all of you. God knew what He was doing when He put you in my life, my circumstances and I can't thank Him enough. I want you to all know that you help me every day to keep my eyes on the Answer...Jesus and the Word...filled with the promise and hope of many more birthdays to come and life everlasting. Amen
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Skin for Skin
Do you ever feel like Job??? When you think you have it bad...when your hair is falling out, when your are nauseous, have mouth sores...when diarrhea won't let you leave your house,
when your side effects threaten to cover you up and kill your spirit, pull out your Bible and read the book of Job.
Now Job was a good and righteous man who lost everything during a battle between Satan and God over whether Job was a "blameless and upright man who fears God and shuns evil." (Job 1:8) Job faced many tests, lost his entire family, and suffered great physical afflictions and he refused, despite urgings from his wife and his friends, to "curse God and die" (2:9) Here is a man who God acknowledges as His most faithful, and yet is allowed to be put through years of torment by Satan and countless arguements from his friends. It is a hard book to read and harder yet to understand why.
But the Bible is always there for God to teach us, mold us, encourage us, change us. Recently,
I had a little taste of being Job. Through a series of chemotherapies that were given to me, perhaps a little too close together, perhaps a little too strongly, I developed one whopper of a side effect. My skin, on most of my thighs, buttocks, back and underarms became "burned"
and peeled off, leaving painful and large, open sores on some of the areas. It was perhaps one of the worst things I had experienced in my seven years of treatment. It was hard to take and harder yet to understand.
But then I remembered Job and his affliction of his second test. (Chapter 2) If you look at verse
4, Satan says, "Skin for skin!" Satan was convinced that if he were to strike a man's flesh that the man would surely curse God. So Job was afflicted with "painful sores from the soles of his feet to the top of his head." (2:7) And what does Job do? He says "Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?" and he continues to defend God, praise God, remain faithful and patient
for 40 more chapters of challenges, questions and torment. Wow.
I know without a doubt that neither cancer nor its ugly off-shooting treatment afflictions come from God. I know that He intends for us to be healthy and healed and live a long life. Our true test of faith is when Satan and circumstance put us in a position to either curse or praise, give up or go on, go under or live above it. Can we be like Job and not blame God for wrongdoings?
Can we say "the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised"? (1:21)
When you are suffering through your own "skin for skin", take heart in two things:
First, the ending for Job was spectacular. The Lord rewarded his faithfulness by "blessing the latter part of Job's life more than the first",(42:12) and he "lived a hundred and forty years". (42:16) Secondly, because of the the wonderful mercy of this same God, we now have someone who hung on the cross and took our Job-like tests for us. He passed with flying colors. He offers our ultimate healing, redemption and life everlasting. He knew what my side effect felt like and was there every painful second. I will never go anywhere in all this that He hasn't already been.
Christ is our true hope, our rock and our redeemer. With Him on our side, what can man (or Satan) do to us?? So above all PRAISE HIM. No matter what your affliction is right now, God is still as worthy today as He was back in the day of Job.
when your side effects threaten to cover you up and kill your spirit, pull out your Bible and read the book of Job.
Now Job was a good and righteous man who lost everything during a battle between Satan and God over whether Job was a "blameless and upright man who fears God and shuns evil." (Job 1:8) Job faced many tests, lost his entire family, and suffered great physical afflictions and he refused, despite urgings from his wife and his friends, to "curse God and die" (2:9) Here is a man who God acknowledges as His most faithful, and yet is allowed to be put through years of torment by Satan and countless arguements from his friends. It is a hard book to read and harder yet to understand why.
But the Bible is always there for God to teach us, mold us, encourage us, change us. Recently,
I had a little taste of being Job. Through a series of chemotherapies that were given to me, perhaps a little too close together, perhaps a little too strongly, I developed one whopper of a side effect. My skin, on most of my thighs, buttocks, back and underarms became "burned"
and peeled off, leaving painful and large, open sores on some of the areas. It was perhaps one of the worst things I had experienced in my seven years of treatment. It was hard to take and harder yet to understand.
But then I remembered Job and his affliction of his second test. (Chapter 2) If you look at verse
4, Satan says, "Skin for skin!" Satan was convinced that if he were to strike a man's flesh that the man would surely curse God. So Job was afflicted with "painful sores from the soles of his feet to the top of his head." (2:7) And what does Job do? He says "Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?" and he continues to defend God, praise God, remain faithful and patient
for 40 more chapters of challenges, questions and torment. Wow.
I know without a doubt that neither cancer nor its ugly off-shooting treatment afflictions come from God. I know that He intends for us to be healthy and healed and live a long life. Our true test of faith is when Satan and circumstance put us in a position to either curse or praise, give up or go on, go under or live above it. Can we be like Job and not blame God for wrongdoings?
Can we say "the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised"? (1:21)
When you are suffering through your own "skin for skin", take heart in two things:
First, the ending for Job was spectacular. The Lord rewarded his faithfulness by "blessing the latter part of Job's life more than the first",(42:12) and he "lived a hundred and forty years". (42:16) Secondly, because of the the wonderful mercy of this same God, we now have someone who hung on the cross and took our Job-like tests for us. He passed with flying colors. He offers our ultimate healing, redemption and life everlasting. He knew what my side effect felt like and was there every painful second. I will never go anywhere in all this that He hasn't already been.
Christ is our true hope, our rock and our redeemer. With Him on our side, what can man (or Satan) do to us?? So above all PRAISE HIM. No matter what your affliction is right now, God is still as worthy today as He was back in the day of Job.
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