The Year

"For I know the plans I have for you," says the Lord. "Plans for good and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope." Jeremiah 29:11

This scripture sits on my dresser at home. Given to me last Christmas by my sister-in-law, Jackie, for my birthday on December 15, 2008. I received it during a time when I was not sure about that future. I had started on Ixempra in hopes of stopping a potentially future-ending progression of the enemy. All we knew is that on October 31, 2007.....one year from this coming Friday.....scans had been run and my doctor had had to call me with very, very bad news. There was no place for the cancer to go that it had not made it to. I had BB shots of metastatic disease in all four major sites of recurrence. It was quite devastating.

It was around that time that I started putting my journal on this blog site. It was around that time that I wondered what the holidays would be like...knowing this new development....knowing what the scans said and the tumor marker levels were. It was around that time that I met with Maha and Janet and learned of the new drug.....the new hope for me. And by the time I got the framed scripture, even though we knew nothing of what success lay ahead, I believed in what the Lord had promised me in Jeremiah. I had felt all along, even after that bad, bad phone call,
that He still had plans for me. Turns out I was right.

In the year that has followed, I cannot possibly list all of the divine and spiritual things that have happened to me. This blog site documents some of the highlights, but cannot possibly convey
how God has woven such a beautiful fabric out of the threads of my life with cancer and all of the people who surround me in this fight....this destiny. The love, support, revelations, declarations,
and prayer....so much prayer.....can never be measured.

Maha and I talked briefly about this on my latest visit with her. What a year it has been, we both acknowledged. What a very different path we have walked than the one we first prepared ourselves for back on November 1, 2007. God did have plans for me, for all of us....a future and a hope. I now find myself a volunteer, a comforter and example for others in the fight. I always knew God would use me in some way to offer care, compassion, and empathy, I just never imagined that I had to stare at the end of my rope, turn my back on the facts, step out in faith and know that some how, one year later, I would be living life even fuller than before.

What a year it has been. Makes you wonder what the next year will be like. God has blessed me with the knowledge that I will have the chance to live it and I cannot put into words my gratitude. Nor could I possibly say all I want to say to the people who lived this year with me.
You know who you are. You encouraged me, prayed for me, treated me, loved me, supported me, comforted me...believed in me. You all saved me. All of you and my ever-faithful God worked in perfect, life-giving harmony to ensure my survival for another year.

I ask you all....are you ready for another great year? I am. I am far from done here. We have work to do. We know it won't be easy....but I guarantee you one thing: it will be fun, inspiring, emotional, spiritual and divinely woven...just like the past twelve months. So let's take a breath and get ready. Another year of life is waiting...maybe two or three or fourteen. Let me just say here, before I forget and even though it is not going to fully express what I feel, thank you all, oh so very much, for living my life with me. You and the Lord, giving me plans for the future.