Life Is Good

9/13/19

Fall 1996

Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. I am very much aware of this because my dear friend lost her little girl this year, and she is sharing her story. I am also a Childhood Cancer Survivor so of course I think about it this month. But what does this really mean to me? I have basically sat back and been a statistic: at thirteen, I was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, had eighteen months of chemotherapy and spinal taps, was told cancer free and cured at seventeen. Survivor. Made it! Done.

But cancer has never left my life; it just left my body. Sure, I have not walked around telling every person I meet, “I am a cancer survivor!” Why not? I am not quite sure how to answer that, but I do know that God has placed on my heart about a year ago to tell my story. Again, the audience is small, but someone I know, let us make that, many someones I know have been or are being affected by cancer. And if any one of the someones need another step forward, maybe hearing my story will help their brain tell the nervous system to move down to the muscles in the leg and make that foot take the next step to fight this horrendous disease. Because most days, it does not feel like it is worth the fight; cancer takes so much from a person.

Childhood Cancer Awareness Month is a great time to become aware of children with cancer, and the research to fight those cancers is critical. As with most cancer patients, the family will be involved with the fight, but with a child who has their whole life ahead of them, their family is their only way of making it through. How important is family? Very. In previous posts I have shared about my family and their fight along with me to conquer this disease, and then about two of my family member’s same fight in the years that followed my diagnosis. I pretty much hate cancer. And then on the other hand I am grateful for the story I get to tell. God has done some AMAZING things in my life through Childhood Cancer.

In my cancer story timeline, I have completed eight weeks at a summer camp listening to God and seeing Him work in my life. I met a super fantastic, over the top friend who was my roommate at camp, and we quickly decided to request to be roommates in college since she was headed there for her first year and me my junior year. We were granted that request and parted ways after camp excited about being roomies again in a few weeks. I spent a couple of weeks at home and my brother, who was also planning to join me at college, and I packed up our cars and parents and headed to So. Cal. I will mention here that So. Cal. is a great place to go to college! For one, the weather is wonderful! Living in Wyoming for nine years where they say we have nine months of winter and three months where the snow is not as bad, is a bit of an overstatement, but we have shot off many a firework with snowflakes falling. That means: it snowed on the Fourth of July at least twice! Back to So. Cal. There was Six Flags, Disneyland, Knotts Berry Farm all within 30 minutes to an hour and every beach about an hour. Anyway, I enjoyed living there.

My brother and I were very excited for the new school year, and we were ready for it to begin. I was assigned a new dorm as assistant RA and my new roommate and I settled in to the college schedule. We also had fun times with a group of friends that was quickly growing. She had come down with some from her church, and I had also reconnected with my friends from the previous year. Life Was Good! I remember being on a spiritual high from the summer and anxious for the chapel services and guest speakers visiting the campus.

I had an easy life, far from my four years of cancer life. Who needs cancer? It was extremely easy to leave that all behind and enjoy what I had to the nth degree. But why is it, we go through something, and because it does not have place in our lives at the time, we push it aside and focus on other things? For me, I was moving on; I did my time and wiped my hands clean of all the ugliness of cancer. Is that bad? No, probably not. But other people are going through trials, and I should care. When Life Is Good, it is someone else’s trial. True, but I would NEVER have been able to recover, first without the Lord, and second without family and friends. Sure, I was determined to beat it myself, which is crucial, but my family and friends were my ROCK, no doubt about it. Those that prayed for me, yes, God heard those prayers. He tells where two or three are gathered in His name, He is there Matthew 18:20. Prayer is essential, but so are actions.

Raising my hand, I would be the first to admit, my cancer advocacy is non-existent, but my husband and I have invested ourselves into where we feel most compelled and that is our church and the precious people that attend with us. I applaud those organizations and groups and research for what they are doing because those people helped me fight the fight. Thank you. But many times I get complacent and sit back and say, Life is Good. Those around me are doing well, too.

Let us make sure that those trials around us stay fresh in our minds. When the diagnosis is a few months removed, are we still praying for them? When that friend who was critically injured in a car wreck, they are home and their car is crushed at the salvage yard, are we still praying or calling them up and asking if they need anything today? When that special friend lost her little one, how is she doing? Pray today for them, and then act. Not sure what actions should be taken because I feel inferior in this area, but there has to be something out there we can do. Others are worth it, right? We have our own families to care for and those around us to invest in, I understand, but let us not forget about others where the Life is NOT so Good. They will remember us when it is our turn.

James 5:13-15, “Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms. Is any sick among you?…  ….And the prayer of the faith shall save the sick”… Galatians 5:13, “For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.”