2008

It is so interesting to look back on 7 years of journaling. Sometime, I was faithful and wrote in my journals everyday. Sometime I was so lax and didn't write anything for months. I last journaled with any regularity (until now) toward the end of 2006. I found my entry for the New Year of 2007. I was surprised to see what an obviously dark time that was for me. My entry went something like this:

"2007 is here. What a victory it represents. So why am I so down? It is another year to fight. It is another year of mental toughness....no rest in my heart...constant reminders. It reminds me that even though it is a blessing to see, it is not the 2007 I thought I would see when I was 44 years old, had two breasts, and weighed 142 lbs with long, thick hair. It is not the place I thought, the house I thought, or the circumstances I could have ever imagined. What to do with this never-ending black curtain I have walked through so many times.....?"

Now, as I read that entry from one year ago I wonder what was I thinking to put me in such a funk? I still only had metastatic disease is two places. I was in a fairly tolerable and seeming effective treatment regimen. I was off prednisone and losing weight. Where was my resolve, my attitude, my FAITH when I was writing that? I don't know.

Maybe I knew that the year would hold many bad phone calls from bad tests and bad scans.
Maybe I knew somewhere in the back of my head that the year would bring no break from constant treatment and side effects. Maybe I felt like my working full time was coming to an end. Maybe I had a sense of foreboding and somehow knew I would lose my father, lose a beloved pet, lose the ability to say "well, at least it isn't in my liver or my brain". Maybe I was really afraid of the possibility of having to come to a point when I had nothing I could trust except the Lord.

Now it is 2008 and I should have more reason to feel the way I did when I wrote the entry from the beginning of 2007. But this year does represent such victory! Victory that I recognize with such clarity that I cannot be in a dark place. I have faced so many things from 2007 and still come out with all the faith and hope and belief in the world. Despite awful loses, awful news,
awful symptoms, I can stand strong and know that I can weather the storm. I have the love of God, family and friends that grows and strengthens with every situation, circumstance, and development. How many people can say that? How many people can feel the calm and peace of knowing that no matter what, they (I) will be taken care of. I have such an unbelievable group of humans working with the Divine to make my life as full and long and happy as possible.
How great is that?

So, my friends, take a long look around you now that it is 2008. If you don't feel secure in who is standing up for you, who is loving you, and who would fight for you......find a way to do so!!!!!
Make this year the year you find security in your salvation, your help, your loves, your life.
Pull back your own "dark curtains" and spend as much time in the light, living your life, as possible. You owe it to your self, your loved ones, and most importantly, to God. He alone is sufficient. Happy 2008!

"O Lord my God, I called to you for help and you healed me. O Lord, you brought me up from the grave, you spared me from going down into the pit." Psalm 30:2,3