I've had trouble

I've had some trouble. I've had trouble sleeping well. I've had trouble waking up feeling icky, I've had trouble with pain after exercise. I've had trouble logging on my blog account. (hence the long absence) I've had trouble getting to church and remembering a meeting. I've had trouble with my car, trouble with my life insurance company, trouble over a disability check, trouble with a few of my dogs, and periodic trouble with my stomach. I have had a slightly troubling trend in my marker numbers. You know what I say? SO WHAT?

My personal troubles over the last few weeks were at one point a major focus in my head...a source of angst, or fear or frustration. I was feeling myself drifting away. Away to a bad place of self-doubt, self-pity, less faith.....growing despair. Questions of the future, the past, the present, the constant mind-swirling of a person like me....a patient like me.
Then two things happened:

1) I had a phone call from a 41 year old woman who was in treatment at MD Anderson (big time)
for metastatic disease with a similar history to me. As we exchanged stories I began to realize that I was getting great medical care, just as many chances, just as many successes, and even more breaks than someone who was flying to Houston TX every three months. Affirmation of something I had always suspected.....there is no better place than with Maha, Janet, and the
girls.

2) I went to the beach. My great husband saw the blues heading my way and put me in the car for an overnight to Wrightsville. Sitting in chairs, where the water just rushes under your feet, we talked and swam and reveled in the beauty of it all for three hours. We had dinner looking out over the intracoastal waterway, walked the docks looking at ridiculously expensive yachts,
slept in late and drove back home. It was so therapeutic. My troubles faded into the background and life, wonderful life came back into focus.

My troubles, in the great big scheme of life, are no different than anyone else's. They are just like anyone's , but they have different names and one has a relentless mission to slowly take over my body. If there is one thing that I have learned over the last two weeks, especially through volunteering, is that everyone has troubles....and God always has a way of showing me that mine are small and meaningless because He will take care of me. This time, when I was about to sink under the weight of all my troubles, God saved me yet again. Through a long, affirming phone call and a chair on the beach in the sun.

"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you......Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." John 14:27