Oh, sometimes God is funny. He will do just a little something to let you know He sees your efforts and applauds them and He never hesitates to give a gentle correction when needed.
That happened to me today.
I volunteer on Tuesdays at our church's food bank. I am not there to help distribute food. I am there to pray. We offer prayer to anyone who walks through the doors. God has done so much for me, I really just wanted to give back...help a soul...help heal a heart....pray for another....take the focus off me and onto someone else. At least every other person will want prayer for some type of physical healing.
Now let me interject here and say that I am fascinated by medical things. I could sit through an operation, watch blood and guts in the ER, witness practically any procedure...even ones done on me. But there are three things that really bother me: skin eruptions, knee injuries, and eyeballs.
I know, it's weird, particularly the knee thing, but I get the heebies when I see anything medically happening with those three things.
The first day I volunteered, I prayed for a woman with eczema. It was on her arms and legs. I had to confess to my prayer partner how difficult it had been for me to look at her rashes. He just smiled and said that everyone has something that gives them the willies. I did not mention that I had other willy-producers.
Today, our first two prayer requests were for knees. One lady's knee had been operated on so much, most of her kneecap was gone. Her scars were impressive. My teeth were clenched. When the second lady came in, 2 weeks out from a knee replacement, tape still over her incision, I really had to swallow hard and pray harder. It was then that I knew God was up to something.
We took a break and were helping bag cherry tomatoes when I told my prayer partner about the trouble I had with knees.....and oh yes, the soft cherry tomatoes that were too ripe reminded me of my third problem area, eyeballs. We all had a good laugh over my three icky things and went back to our next request for prayer. It was a woman and her father. (You know where this is going) When we asked "what do you want Jesus to do for you today?", the father said immediately, "I've got this problem with my left eye." I could have fallen out of my chair. My prayer partner just turned to me with this divine little smirk on his face. We both knew God was in the room, making a point to me, telling me I had to get over it. Every condition is to be prayed for with no discrimination.
Then, to top it off, when we walked back into the waiting area, the lady with the eczema was back. She wanted more prayer. Her skin was visibly better, and you know what? So was I. No heebies. Thanks, God. I got your message.
"And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that you may do all things....." 2 Cor 9:8
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Monday, July 28, 2008
Hope
Can you see it?
The underlying current,
Sneaking its way around beneath our feet
Whether they are standing behind the glass or out on the treatment floor.
Do you feel it?
As you walk in the double glass entryway into a suddenly somber and
muted place waiting your turn.
Does it wind its way into your mind while in the small exam rooms as you listen to the latest news, get the latest numbers, focus on the odds.
Can you sense it?
Even when the toxic meds are being pumped through your body and you are drowsy from your Benedryl, trying to rest in a restless place of lights and alarms and bustling of feet.
It is there, I swear.
Following around every one you see.
All the doctors, nurses, assistants, volunteers have a trail of it like a vapor behind us as we move through the days of your medical nightmare.
The monster that is cancer that crawls through you and around your life cannot
defeat it.
It springs eternal from the hearts and souls of the people who surround you at the office on Asheville Avenue.
I, for one, promise that I will always be covered in it. Blanketed with it even when words are said to make it disappear. Even when it is gone. For I know where it lies.
I have learned, I have seen, heard, felt, and sensed it for seven years. Without it, nothing would matter and life would be meaningless.
I know of this thing, this integral part of what goes on at CCNC Cary, not only because of what I believe spiritually, but because I can recognize it glowing amid the darkness that is the disease we all loathe.
It shines like a beacon in the middle of a terrible storm.
My girls, in particular, practically reek of it at times. I know they could not do what they do without having a boatload of it.
The next time you are in those offices....look for it.
Look for it in a touch, a smile, a tender hand on a hurtful needle.
Look for it among the charts and graphs and percentages and data.
Look for it behind the serious dark eyes telling you a serious diagnosis.
Can you see it?
Please try to find it, because it is there and it will make your journey so much easier.
Reach out and grab it and never, ever, give it up.
I know I, for one, will never let go of hope.
"Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer." Romans 12:12
The underlying current,
Sneaking its way around beneath our feet
Whether they are standing behind the glass or out on the treatment floor.
Do you feel it?
As you walk in the double glass entryway into a suddenly somber and
muted place waiting your turn.
Does it wind its way into your mind while in the small exam rooms as you listen to the latest news, get the latest numbers, focus on the odds.
Can you sense it?
Even when the toxic meds are being pumped through your body and you are drowsy from your Benedryl, trying to rest in a restless place of lights and alarms and bustling of feet.
It is there, I swear.
Following around every one you see.
All the doctors, nurses, assistants, volunteers have a trail of it like a vapor behind us as we move through the days of your medical nightmare.
The monster that is cancer that crawls through you and around your life cannot
defeat it.
It springs eternal from the hearts and souls of the people who surround you at the office on Asheville Avenue.
I, for one, promise that I will always be covered in it. Blanketed with it even when words are said to make it disappear. Even when it is gone. For I know where it lies.
I have learned, I have seen, heard, felt, and sensed it for seven years. Without it, nothing would matter and life would be meaningless.
I know of this thing, this integral part of what goes on at CCNC Cary, not only because of what I believe spiritually, but because I can recognize it glowing amid the darkness that is the disease we all loathe.
It shines like a beacon in the middle of a terrible storm.
My girls, in particular, practically reek of it at times. I know they could not do what they do without having a boatload of it.
The next time you are in those offices....look for it.
Look for it in a touch, a smile, a tender hand on a hurtful needle.
Look for it among the charts and graphs and percentages and data.
Look for it behind the serious dark eyes telling you a serious diagnosis.
Can you see it?
Please try to find it, because it is there and it will make your journey so much easier.
Reach out and grab it and never, ever, give it up.
I know I, for one, will never let go of hope.
"Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer." Romans 12:12
Unbelief
The man said "but if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us." "'If you can?'" the other man said back. "Anything is possible if you believe." You just gotta believe......how simple yet how very hard. "Help me with my unbelief" the first man begged. Turns out it was the right thing to ask for. And the second man healed the first man's son.
Of course, the above is a very loose translation from the book of Mark, the 9th chapter. But I find it so appropriate so many times. So many times, I too, have cried out for help in my unbelief. Unbelief is a word that almost sounds like a mispronunciation. Most people think of the word disbelief, which of course is totally different...no really. Unbelief is the struggle your mind has accepting something you know to be true in your spirit. Like knowing that you know that you know that God has the power to pull you out of anything, but still having times of doubt, fear and depression. That is unbelief. Disbelief is when your mind cannot accept something that is true in the physical. Say, you experience disbelief over a magic trick you see, a test result you receive, words that are said to you about yourself or someone you know. That is disbelief. That is what I can see in the eyes of The New Ones.
Ah, The New Ones. The newly diagnosed. The newly told. Surrounded by friends and family, eyes red-rimmed. Kleenex wads in their hands and at their feet. An expression on their face like no other. How many times have the girls all seen it? The doctor and NP have calmly spelled out what life will be like from here on out to.... when? The nurse has been on the stool, explaining drugs, procedures, side effects. And there they sit.....first time in the chair....first time in the veins....first time when disbelief gets met head-on by cold hard truth and an IV bag, beeping pumps and blankets, pre-meds and red-filled syringes. But it is still there, lingering despite the reality. You can see it in those red-rimmed eyes. Disbelief.
There were two New Ones last Thursday. As I bustled around, the happy new busy-bee volunteer..."clearly in my element", I was told....I kept my eyes on the faces of the New Ones.
I knew they were too stunned, too scared, too devastatingly heartbroken to really have a talk with them. I would have loved to have gotten the chance to say so many things...but that time will come when they are ready. Because the first day, being New in the chair, you are completely overtaken by everything you have been told, everything you feel, everything you see. Afraid and in a state of utter disbelief.
In time, they will let the truth take over. In time The New Ones become old hats in hats, bald and knowing that they can live while all this is going on. In time they may even start to believe they can live a very long time because they are being treated by the best of the best. Their team will work tirelessly to fight their fight with the goal of sending them down the road with hope and health and love. In time, The New Ones will get over their disbelief. In time, they can be like me, left with having to deal with the unbelief.
In November of 2001, Maha sent me a copy of my tumor marker. It was 27. The first normal reading after all my chemo treatments, and right before my stem-cell transplant. The number is circled and there is a hand-written one-word note from her. It says, "Believe!". How right she was...truer words have never been written from her to me. She knows, because she see it all the time, with almost every patient. Our biggest challenge will not be the physical toll that cancer may take, it will be our unbelief that we will ever be normal, cured, healthy, out from under the cloud of doubt and living our lives again to the fullest. So, if I do get to impart any wisdom to The New Ones, it will be simply this: Believe...and when you can't, ask for help....plead like the man in the story at the beginning of this entry. I plead a lot....still, after all this time and all that has happened....Lord, help me with my unbelief.
Of course, the above is a very loose translation from the book of Mark, the 9th chapter. But I find it so appropriate so many times. So many times, I too, have cried out for help in my unbelief. Unbelief is a word that almost sounds like a mispronunciation. Most people think of the word disbelief, which of course is totally different...no really. Unbelief is the struggle your mind has accepting something you know to be true in your spirit. Like knowing that you know that you know that God has the power to pull you out of anything, but still having times of doubt, fear and depression. That is unbelief. Disbelief is when your mind cannot accept something that is true in the physical. Say, you experience disbelief over a magic trick you see, a test result you receive, words that are said to you about yourself or someone you know. That is disbelief. That is what I can see in the eyes of The New Ones.
Ah, The New Ones. The newly diagnosed. The newly told. Surrounded by friends and family, eyes red-rimmed. Kleenex wads in their hands and at their feet. An expression on their face like no other. How many times have the girls all seen it? The doctor and NP have calmly spelled out what life will be like from here on out to.... when? The nurse has been on the stool, explaining drugs, procedures, side effects. And there they sit.....first time in the chair....first time in the veins....first time when disbelief gets met head-on by cold hard truth and an IV bag, beeping pumps and blankets, pre-meds and red-filled syringes. But it is still there, lingering despite the reality. You can see it in those red-rimmed eyes. Disbelief.
There were two New Ones last Thursday. As I bustled around, the happy new busy-bee volunteer..."clearly in my element", I was told....I kept my eyes on the faces of the New Ones.
I knew they were too stunned, too scared, too devastatingly heartbroken to really have a talk with them. I would have loved to have gotten the chance to say so many things...but that time will come when they are ready. Because the first day, being New in the chair, you are completely overtaken by everything you have been told, everything you feel, everything you see. Afraid and in a state of utter disbelief.
In time, they will let the truth take over. In time The New Ones become old hats in hats, bald and knowing that they can live while all this is going on. In time they may even start to believe they can live a very long time because they are being treated by the best of the best. Their team will work tirelessly to fight their fight with the goal of sending them down the road with hope and health and love. In time, The New Ones will get over their disbelief. In time, they can be like me, left with having to deal with the unbelief.
In November of 2001, Maha sent me a copy of my tumor marker. It was 27. The first normal reading after all my chemo treatments, and right before my stem-cell transplant. The number is circled and there is a hand-written one-word note from her. It says, "Believe!". How right she was...truer words have never been written from her to me. She knows, because she see it all the time, with almost every patient. Our biggest challenge will not be the physical toll that cancer may take, it will be our unbelief that we will ever be normal, cured, healthy, out from under the cloud of doubt and living our lives again to the fullest. So, if I do get to impart any wisdom to The New Ones, it will be simply this: Believe...and when you can't, ask for help....plead like the man in the story at the beginning of this entry. I plead a lot....still, after all this time and all that has happened....Lord, help me with my unbelief.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Living with the Knowing.
Randy Pausch died on Friday. You know, the "Last Lecture" guy. The guy who found out he had terminal pancreatic cancer, then delivered the most unbelievable lecture at Carnegie-Mellon, wrote a best-selling book on "The Last Lecture", then was featured on Primetime with Diane Sawyer. When most of us found out about this man this past spring, he had already been told he had less than six months to live. He lived for almost a year and packed in the most inspiring and heart-wrenching story of the year. Everyone should be required to read his book while they are still healthy....taking life and their health for granted. I knew I would hear of his passing one day, but it still seemed so sudden and sad when it happened last Friday. For all that Randy Pausch was, he was definitely a man who knew how to live with the knowing.
I never wanted to live with the knowing. I used to say in my young and naive days, long before cancer ever entered my picture, that when I died, I wanted to go quick. A wreck, a heart attack, or even to be so old that I would not know what was happening to me. I wanted the easy way out....quick....painless....unaware. The last thing I ever wanted...ever...was to be told that my life
was going to be condensed, cut short, put into Cliff Note form. To me, that was a fate worse than death itself. And now that I live in the knowing, I have to admit that some days, it is. It is so hard to wake up from a good night's sleep and go, "oh I still have no breasts". Or be dreaming during a nap....dreaming as a normal woman with a normal life and awake in a car headed home to pain, sleeplessness, and the knowing.
Having a chronic, catastrophic disease is really not about the symptoms. I have learned that my
wonderful medical team can and will take care of every skin eruption, headache, nausea, reflux,
neuralgia, bone pain, arthralgia, mouth sores, shortness of breath, fever.....well, you get the picture. They can and will treat all the nastiness the disease and its treatment manifests in my
body. What they cannot do is tell me how...HOW do I....day after day, live with the knowing.
There is so much irony in life and there is no doubt that God had his own path for me to walk on.
For some hard to-understand-reason, God thought it better that I live with the knowing. He knew it was the only way for me to live my life with depth and love and meaning. He has chosen to allow me to walk this path of living and walking in the knowledge of just how precious this life is. That this road I am on is full of bumps and twists and dangerous turns, but it is also a road that takes me to such beautiful, unexpected places. Places that I see with such appreciation and clarity. I see people on this road who are now so precious to me, so loved by me, and I know for certain that I would never have them so close to my heart had I not had to live with the knowing. My experiences are richer, my days are fuller, my focus off the material and on the spiritual.
I would have loved to have learned these things I know without the diagnosis I was given. But we are so sinful and flawed as humans, that sometimes, the only way we can learn the true and great lessons of life is to have to think that life will be taken away from us sooner than we had planned. Randy Pausch knew this well and left us all a great little lesson book for living. I pray that everyone who reads this will read about him and learn to live.... and learn to live without the burden of knowing that your life could be done before you really learn what living is all about.
"The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me." Galatians 2:20
I never wanted to live with the knowing. I used to say in my young and naive days, long before cancer ever entered my picture, that when I died, I wanted to go quick. A wreck, a heart attack, or even to be so old that I would not know what was happening to me. I wanted the easy way out....quick....painless....unaware. The last thing I ever wanted...ever...was to be told that my life
was going to be condensed, cut short, put into Cliff Note form. To me, that was a fate worse than death itself. And now that I live in the knowing, I have to admit that some days, it is. It is so hard to wake up from a good night's sleep and go, "oh I still have no breasts". Or be dreaming during a nap....dreaming as a normal woman with a normal life and awake in a car headed home to pain, sleeplessness, and the knowing.
Having a chronic, catastrophic disease is really not about the symptoms. I have learned that my
wonderful medical team can and will take care of every skin eruption, headache, nausea, reflux,
neuralgia, bone pain, arthralgia, mouth sores, shortness of breath, fever.....well, you get the picture. They can and will treat all the nastiness the disease and its treatment manifests in my
body. What they cannot do is tell me how...HOW do I....day after day, live with the knowing.
There is so much irony in life and there is no doubt that God had his own path for me to walk on.
For some hard to-understand-reason, God thought it better that I live with the knowing. He knew it was the only way for me to live my life with depth and love and meaning. He has chosen to allow me to walk this path of living and walking in the knowledge of just how precious this life is. That this road I am on is full of bumps and twists and dangerous turns, but it is also a road that takes me to such beautiful, unexpected places. Places that I see with such appreciation and clarity. I see people on this road who are now so precious to me, so loved by me, and I know for certain that I would never have them so close to my heart had I not had to live with the knowing. My experiences are richer, my days are fuller, my focus off the material and on the spiritual.
I would have loved to have learned these things I know without the diagnosis I was given. But we are so sinful and flawed as humans, that sometimes, the only way we can learn the true and great lessons of life is to have to think that life will be taken away from us sooner than we had planned. Randy Pausch knew this well and left us all a great little lesson book for living. I pray that everyone who reads this will read about him and learn to live.... and learn to live without the burden of knowing that your life could be done before you really learn what living is all about.
"The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me." Galatians 2:20
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
What was I looking at?
Old woman in the wheelchair, too weak to sit up straight for a blood draw.
Bandanna on her head, defeat in her shoulders.
Old man who almost fell, weak at the knees, equilibrium lost in a sea of infusions.
Old friend from many chemos, so small in his chair and oh so thin. A once robust man being helped out of his chair.
Old friend from chemo at the front check-out. No treatment today and she is yellow, her skin the color of dried pasta.
What was I looking at? So much of the end of the road in the room yesterday. Gray, dull skin, emaciated bodies....resignation radiated. They watched me with interest, wanting to know where I fit into the whole equation. Happy woman, hugging woman, getting stuck and laughing woman. They probably have no idea that when I see them like yesterday, when they are all around and impossible to deny, for an instance I wonder if I am looking at me in the future. For just a fleeting moment, I wonder if the girls think that I will look like that one day, need their help to get out of a chair, slump over with lack of hope, turn yellowish-gray and whither away.
And then the moment is gone, and we are back laughing with one another, catching up, cheering up and loving each other. Because I know that the moments we have together...when Jan comes in on her days off to see me, when Gail and Jennifer and Jan and I laugh loud and long to turn heads and get some glowers (horse and a Coach bag?).....those moments are the true moments.
They are the moments to remember, keep close...those are the ones I'll be looking at for a long time. These shall stay in the forefront of my mind's eye.
In one of the most poignant moments of my life, my daughter turned to me in the middle of more that 20,000 people during Race for the Cure and asked, "Since this new drug has made you so much better, is it considered a cure?" Oh, my sweet little girl, if only I could have said yes. My heart split in half right there on the campus of Meredith college. I know what she was thinking. She just saw me walk a 5k race when nine months earlier, I couldn't walk across the parking lot at Carter-Finley stadium. She sees a stronger mom, a happier mom, a mom who kayaks and bikes and walks. She does not see slumped shoulders, dull eyes, hope diminished.
My prayers are many and fervent. We pray for many things. We are always praying for healing, hoping for a cure. But after yesterday, after seeing the end stage in multiples,
I pray my daughter, my girls...everyone I love...will never have to see me looking like death.
So let's get to it! I am strong, I am ready, and I am full of hope and faith. I want to always walk into the back room and have people wonder about me......how does she do it??? Why is she so cheerful???? How can she look and act so well? And just maybe...maybe somewhere between all this loving and laughing and hoping and trying to figure it out...we will get what we pray for.
"And so I say to you, whatsoever you desire, when you pray, believe that you have received them, and you shall have them." Mark 11:24
Bandanna on her head, defeat in her shoulders.
Old man who almost fell, weak at the knees, equilibrium lost in a sea of infusions.
Old friend from many chemos, so small in his chair and oh so thin. A once robust man being helped out of his chair.
Old friend from chemo at the front check-out. No treatment today and she is yellow, her skin the color of dried pasta.
What was I looking at? So much of the end of the road in the room yesterday. Gray, dull skin, emaciated bodies....resignation radiated. They watched me with interest, wanting to know where I fit into the whole equation. Happy woman, hugging woman, getting stuck and laughing woman. They probably have no idea that when I see them like yesterday, when they are all around and impossible to deny, for an instance I wonder if I am looking at me in the future. For just a fleeting moment, I wonder if the girls think that I will look like that one day, need their help to get out of a chair, slump over with lack of hope, turn yellowish-gray and whither away.
And then the moment is gone, and we are back laughing with one another, catching up, cheering up and loving each other. Because I know that the moments we have together...when Jan comes in on her days off to see me, when Gail and Jennifer and Jan and I laugh loud and long to turn heads and get some glowers (horse and a Coach bag?).....those moments are the true moments.
They are the moments to remember, keep close...those are the ones I'll be looking at for a long time. These shall stay in the forefront of my mind's eye.
In one of the most poignant moments of my life, my daughter turned to me in the middle of more that 20,000 people during Race for the Cure and asked, "Since this new drug has made you so much better, is it considered a cure?" Oh, my sweet little girl, if only I could have said yes. My heart split in half right there on the campus of Meredith college. I know what she was thinking. She just saw me walk a 5k race when nine months earlier, I couldn't walk across the parking lot at Carter-Finley stadium. She sees a stronger mom, a happier mom, a mom who kayaks and bikes and walks. She does not see slumped shoulders, dull eyes, hope diminished.
My prayers are many and fervent. We pray for many things. We are always praying for healing, hoping for a cure. But after yesterday, after seeing the end stage in multiples,
I pray my daughter, my girls...everyone I love...will never have to see me looking like death.
So let's get to it! I am strong, I am ready, and I am full of hope and faith. I want to always walk into the back room and have people wonder about me......how does she do it??? Why is she so cheerful???? How can she look and act so well? And just maybe...maybe somewhere between all this loving and laughing and hoping and trying to figure it out...we will get what we pray for.
"And so I say to you, whatsoever you desire, when you pray, believe that you have received them, and you shall have them." Mark 11:24
Monday, July 7, 2008
Empathy
"This is not who you are," Maha once told me. It May of 2003. I wasn't going to be back for 6 months. Life was getting back to normal. Cancer, I thought, had been defeated. Even then, back in the days before "metastatic" was applicable, I wanted to see about volunteering, helping other patients in some way. I wasn't sure why......why was I drawn to a place I had so desperately never wanted to be in the first place? My ever-wise doctor suggested that I needed to step back from the whole intensity of surviving the previous two years, take my Tamoxifen, live my life. I tried. I gave it my best shot.
My best shot wasn't good enough and it turned out Maha was wrong. We spoke of this just our last visit. I am now the face of chronic breast cancer. It is who I am. Part of who I am, anyway. Kathy, the faithful Christian, the wife and mother, the one who has been fighting for over seven years....the metastatic odds-beater. If you know me , you know cancer is part of my story. And the feeling of needing to speak to those who are in the fight, the need to be among those in the battle, has only intensified with the more I have experienced and seen. I am so drawn to the cancer patient......to want to tell them stories......to want to hold their hand....to want to say "I know, I know."
And that's what this is all about.....I do know. I want to sit next to them and comfort them all because I know. I know their fear, anxiety, pain, sickness, horror, disbelief, heartache, heartbreak, and depression. I know the feeling that life is spinning away, out of control, with no way to stop....no way to get off the bus that is about to careen over the cliff. I know that nothing is more valuable than someone who can give you hope, cheer you up, and buck you up. To sum it up....I have empathy. True-blue, I have walked in your shoes empathy.
Because of cancer, because of the grace and mercy of God, I have been given empathy. So strong is my empathy, that when they told the congregation just yesterday that the church secretary's daughter had just been diagnosed with kidney cancer, it immediately brought me to tears and to my knees. The scans, biopsies, pathology and protocol are just beginning and knowing what I know, it made my heart hurt. She and I talked at length when church was over.
She thanked me for my advice, my wisdom (me?) and my encouragement. It was what God
intends for me to do. He has given me empathy.
The girls at the office know. They know that if I see someone who might need a drink, a blanket, a word, a touch...I will leave my chair and pull up a stool. I don't think twice...it is who I am.
The real kicker to all this??? Empathy was never in my vocabulary before cancer came along.
Neither was compassion. Now, I am dripping with both, but strangely, really only for those like me. Fighting the fight. I never liked the "cancer is a gift" saying. Makes me want to punch someone in the nose and it is always said by someone who has never been told they have it.
But with the disease, God does some great things and unexpected gifts do come. God turned me around and made a malignant narcissus into one with empathy for malignancies. Ha! How cool is that? If you had known me before cancer, you would find this empathy quite amazing. The gifts from God always are.
"Be kind and compassionate to one another..." Ephesians 4:32
My best shot wasn't good enough and it turned out Maha was wrong. We spoke of this just our last visit. I am now the face of chronic breast cancer. It is who I am. Part of who I am, anyway. Kathy, the faithful Christian, the wife and mother, the one who has been fighting for over seven years....the metastatic odds-beater. If you know me , you know cancer is part of my story. And the feeling of needing to speak to those who are in the fight, the need to be among those in the battle, has only intensified with the more I have experienced and seen. I am so drawn to the cancer patient......to want to tell them stories......to want to hold their hand....to want to say "I know, I know."
And that's what this is all about.....I do know. I want to sit next to them and comfort them all because I know. I know their fear, anxiety, pain, sickness, horror, disbelief, heartache, heartbreak, and depression. I know the feeling that life is spinning away, out of control, with no way to stop....no way to get off the bus that is about to careen over the cliff. I know that nothing is more valuable than someone who can give you hope, cheer you up, and buck you up. To sum it up....I have empathy. True-blue, I have walked in your shoes empathy.
Because of cancer, because of the grace and mercy of God, I have been given empathy. So strong is my empathy, that when they told the congregation just yesterday that the church secretary's daughter had just been diagnosed with kidney cancer, it immediately brought me to tears and to my knees. The scans, biopsies, pathology and protocol are just beginning and knowing what I know, it made my heart hurt. She and I talked at length when church was over.
She thanked me for my advice, my wisdom (me?) and my encouragement. It was what God
intends for me to do. He has given me empathy.
The girls at the office know. They know that if I see someone who might need a drink, a blanket, a word, a touch...I will leave my chair and pull up a stool. I don't think twice...it is who I am.
The real kicker to all this??? Empathy was never in my vocabulary before cancer came along.
Neither was compassion. Now, I am dripping with both, but strangely, really only for those like me. Fighting the fight. I never liked the "cancer is a gift" saying. Makes me want to punch someone in the nose and it is always said by someone who has never been told they have it.
But with the disease, God does some great things and unexpected gifts do come. God turned me around and made a malignant narcissus into one with empathy for malignancies. Ha! How cool is that? If you had known me before cancer, you would find this empathy quite amazing. The gifts from God always are.
"Be kind and compassionate to one another..." Ephesians 4:32
My heart
Someone sang a worship song for me at church last week. Of course, there were others in the sanctuary, but the song was sung directly for my benefit...the words, oh so appropriate. I am sure most of you know what I am talking about. Where you feel the song had to have been written with you, your circumstances, your situation in mind. The song was a slower, more "love song to God" kind of song. The words that were mine?:
"Though the enemy thinks he can take everything away, my heart is yours God, my heart is yours. You are my strong tower...."
There have been so many times that I have felt that the enemy will never get enough of me. That the running talley on things I have lost will never end. That since Satan cannot defeat my spirit and he will never have my heart, he works so very hard on taking away things from my body, bit by bit, little by little. Some of the things I will get back, some, I will never recover. I now have eyelashes and eye brows, and a covering of very short hair on my head. I have to shave my legs and under my arms and slowly my nails are recovering. But I will never have breasts or nipples, my feet will never be the same, my right hand still has partial feeling, and don't get me started on my knees......or my scars.....or my port. The enemy definitely thinks he has dominion over my physical appearance and he chips away at my facade and messes with my mind every chance he has.
And while Satan may think he is taking away everything from me, he has no idea how strong he is making me. Every time I want to feel sorry for myself, every time the pain tries to push me under, every time some report comes back scary......every time he tries to take.....he pushes me right into the arms of God. I know where my help lies. I know who my healer is. I know who has my heart and who has dominion over every part of me. God owns me. Satan is just a trespasser who showed up in 2001 in the form of cancer. And cancer is the unwanted houseguest who eats all your food, zaps you of your energy, and stays way, way too long. He does not belong here.
He may think he can take everything and, Lord knows he will try. But in the end, he will never win. I will get back all he has taken in one form or another. This I know. This I have been promised, as a daughter of Christ, seed from Abraham. (Galations 3:29) I will be set free from bondage. Freedom is mine to claim, mine to inherit. Even with all Satan has taken, he will not get to keep any of it. Victory is promised to me! Everything I am belongs to the Lord and only He can make me whole again.
"My heart is yours, God. My heart is yours." You bet it is.
"Though the enemy thinks he can take everything away, my heart is yours God, my heart is yours. You are my strong tower...."
There have been so many times that I have felt that the enemy will never get enough of me. That the running talley on things I have lost will never end. That since Satan cannot defeat my spirit and he will never have my heart, he works so very hard on taking away things from my body, bit by bit, little by little. Some of the things I will get back, some, I will never recover. I now have eyelashes and eye brows, and a covering of very short hair on my head. I have to shave my legs and under my arms and slowly my nails are recovering. But I will never have breasts or nipples, my feet will never be the same, my right hand still has partial feeling, and don't get me started on my knees......or my scars.....or my port. The enemy definitely thinks he has dominion over my physical appearance and he chips away at my facade and messes with my mind every chance he has.
And while Satan may think he is taking away everything from me, he has no idea how strong he is making me. Every time I want to feel sorry for myself, every time the pain tries to push me under, every time some report comes back scary......every time he tries to take.....he pushes me right into the arms of God. I know where my help lies. I know who my healer is. I know who has my heart and who has dominion over every part of me. God owns me. Satan is just a trespasser who showed up in 2001 in the form of cancer. And cancer is the unwanted houseguest who eats all your food, zaps you of your energy, and stays way, way too long. He does not belong here.
He may think he can take everything and, Lord knows he will try. But in the end, he will never win. I will get back all he has taken in one form or another. This I know. This I have been promised, as a daughter of Christ, seed from Abraham. (Galations 3:29) I will be set free from bondage. Freedom is mine to claim, mine to inherit. Even with all Satan has taken, he will not get to keep any of it. Victory is promised to me! Everything I am belongs to the Lord and only He can make me whole again.
"My heart is yours, God. My heart is yours." You bet it is.
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