Getting Off The Hamster Wheel

November 2023

Our lives are so fragile, yet when we live them on what some people call the hamster wheel, that fragility is not even noticed. The wheel turns. Since my last post, Christmas, trips, moves, more trips, fireworks, and school ending and beginning. How can that much time go by so quickly? When I first got married, an older lady in our church said that once you have children the time seems to speed up. I guess the developmental stages that children go through make time move forward more quickly than when we are just living a life for ourselves or newly married? I can see how that might be. But I wonder if time really is just moving forward differently because the hamster wheel has added responsibilities and added activities, and it is hard to stop time or slow down when that happens. Along with the added children are everything as parents we add to the wheel, as well.

Then…

Have we ever been driving, and up ahead we see a sequence of traffic lights, like maybe the ones that are getting us ready to meet up with an interstate or highway? There always seems to be at least one on our side of the interstate to help those turning left onto the on ramp and coming off the interstate, and then one after we pass under the overpass for us to turn left onto the on ramp going the opposite direction and help those coming off. These lights are much needed with a busy traffic interchange. As we approach, many times the lights tend to blend together. We see the one right in front of us, and also, we see the one ahead. Maybe it is just me, but a couple of times I have looked too far ahead and miss the one right in front of me change to red, and hitting those brakes comes out of nowhere; a sudden stop that throws everyone in the vehicle in a “woah” moment. Like coming off the hamster wheel. Moving forward looking ahead, maybe far ahead, then stopped.

A sudden stop; each are different. Yours is, or will be, different than mine. Listen, I am not a doomsday person, and I do not want to say that we should live our lives under the fact that we had that stop or will have that stop. But, a hamster wheel stop can be life changing and life altering, yet has the potential for us to live life afterward. I am a pure example of this. One day I was a go-get them, bossy, active thirteen-year-old and the next day, I was a cancer patient. And not just a cancer patient. I was physically sick, hurting, and dying; mentally, I was angry, unnerved, and discouraged. Plus, add any and all other physical and mental attributes of this situation. Life as we all knew it suddenly stopped, and a new life suddenly started.

Although most of us do not see day in and day out as fragile; they really are. They are the most important gifts we are given. I do not care that the hamster wheel is turning, we must be able to slow that down. Once we hit the sudden stop, like when the light turns red, then nothing is in our control. So, what next.

Let us put into place the hamster wheel slow down plan.

Realization: We may say that has already been done, but the next step is insurmountable. You know, like when you are hiking that trail that takes you up the switchbacks. There are always those steps that are like two-in-one and to us short-legged people, those type of step ups, puts me in a place of unbelief that anyone would actually make steps so tall. I have done my fair share of stopping and looking up to see the steps and switchbacks as overwhelming. So, we go to the next step.
Evaluation: Getting past the realization step is the one step that many times never is seen in the rear-view mirror. Many times, we won’t go past it. Hamster wheel stays turning. But if we can slow it down slightly and start on evaluating, the situation comes into focus. The giant two-steppers show up as doable, maybe at least until the next switchback. Each person and their evaluation looks different. A few years ago, mine looked like anxiety, crazy wife and mom, and I saw myself in total disarray. I was living in constant back pain, constant stress which in turn I put on myself severe anxiety. Yes, I put it on myself. We have a choice here on how the stress and anxiety affects us. My evaluation was that I could not change the circumstances.
Slow down: I needed to slow the hamster wheel ever so slightly. I found ways to self-care and combat the bodily aches and pains, then remove a couple of things off the wheel, and then in turn a happier wife, mother, daughter, and friend.
Move forward: a tad slower and the steps may still be just as tall but the next switchback is closer to the top, the goal. Within the evaluation, move forward with the changes. We cannot stop with evaluation; take a step. I saw changes in my health that were desperately needed; physically and mentally.
Evaluate: Is this working? Are there a couple more tweaks needed? We must not think that our life has to stay where we find ourselves. God’s Word gives us insight.

Colossians 1:9-10 ” For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and understanding; That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.”

How many “change” verbs do we see? Filled, Walk, Being fruitful, Increasing. All moving forward ideas.

Matthew 5:6 “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.”

II Peter 1:5-8 “And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

The last verse is fantastic about not staying in one spot, but it is also so overwhelming because the list is so long. Well, start with ONE of these things. Evaluate where we are and implement a change in kindness or patience. We cannot expect anything in our lives to be different if we don’t do something about it, and God tells us to change the things that are not in line with His word. It is a doable task, or He would not be saying it. Time to slow the hamster wheel before it hits a complete stop.

Y2K

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5/31/2020

2000

For those of us old enough to remember this fateful New Year’s Eve and what they were doing when the clock struck midnight on January 1, 2000, will also remember not much came of all the hype. Year 2000 will go down in history as a memory of “nothing happened.” It was a relief when we realized that the computer did not crash and the food pantry would stay stocked and the gas prices stayed the same. Most of us were relieved, right? In recent weeks, we have, in a way, seen what we did not see that fateful night.

For me the year 2000 was a new beginning. The world had recently come crashing down a few months before this with a second cancer scare in a matter of a couple of years. It made me wonder if the rest of my life would be lived in fear that cancer is just a doctor’s visit away. That because the word cancer passed a doctor’s lips, traveled as sound waves through the air, and entered my ears one other time, that too, might be a side effect. Might possibly happen again. Well, it had been too close for comfort. But I could not live like that. The recent hype was subsided and my life consisted of teaching and enjoying time with friends. I was truly grateful for feelings of relief, a constant calmness with everyday life, and a reminded reflection on how good God was to me. My career was in its second year, and my placement was fulfilling and enlightening on a day to day basis. I knew God was guiding my steps in a direction with end results that He knew. Y2K-Yield 2 the King.

Back to my teaching experiences. The only door that was not open was that one that led to my spouse. God had not opened the door and at twenty four, it seemed the best way was let God handle it. There were many things that had come my way up to this point in my life, and I had made it my mantra-Y2K. The percentage is pretty high where I did this, but that small percentage where there was not a yield to the King, I tried things my own way and was disappointed. Yet, God does bring those times in our lives. Proverbs 16:9 says, “A man’s heart deviseth his way; but the Lord directeth his steps.” He is still there to direct our paths yet gives us a choice.

Choice to choose Him as our Savior. Matthew 7:13 “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat.”
Choice to confess our sins. I John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Choice to serve God. I Corinthians 15:58 “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.”
Choice to make the right choice. I Corinthians 10:13 “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.”

During this famous year, I continued teaching, going on field trips, spending time with friends and family, and serving God in my church. My summer consisted of a single’s camp in Colorado, and I realized my prayers for my future husband were extremely important. I knew my choice for a spouse was the biggest thing in my life at the time next to my relationship with the Lord. He was to guide me if I would just choose to Y2K, and at that point my lack of yielding was the only thing going to stop Him from showing me the one to spend the rest of my life with. Why, though, had God chosen me to wait this long?

My third year of teaching began, and I felt more ready for this year than ever before. The class consisted of fantastic students and parents, and the familiarity of the curriculum helped things go smoothly. We had a wonderful year and a great time together. The 2001 summer began with another single’s camp where I dedicated my future spouse and marriage to God. I knew that if He wanted me to serve Him as a single young lady than that is what I would do. The test on that decision came shortly after that fateful week when my younger brother got married to my best friend. Boy, really? Y2K!!! Yield to the King. So that is what I did, and then my future husband, who was a friend and an acquaintance, walked into my life as something more. We both knew that we were the one we had both been waiting 25 years.

Choices, they are ours. How we decide which choice is easier or somewhat easier when we yield our lives and those choices to a God who directs us as His children. Matthew 6:33, “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” Yielding to God each and every step of the way, gets us to a place where God can use us, and then we can make more right choices. A circle in progress.

Cancerversary

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3/15/2020

Seasons are times of change in temperature, weather, and clothing. They bring to us new schedules like a school year to a summer break and transitions from one sport to the next. Any one person would give their honest opinion of their favorite season because just about every person has a favorite. My top season would be spring with a close second season, fall. I love spring because the chill is not constantly keeping me in a coat, and I can get away with a sweater or light jacket.

When a person ponders the seasons, there can be so many lessons to learn. Spring gives us the saying for March, “In like a lion, out like a lamb,” meaning the first of the month tends to keep winter around and the last part of the month sees a tad warmer temperature and the beginnings of spring. I begin to put a plan in place for the tiny garden in the back yard. I am not much of a green thumb, but I keep trying. I can grow jalapenos well, but we do not eat them so I have not figured out why I keep planting them. Because they always do well, and I feel like I am growing something? Whatever. Spring is a picture of new growth, turning over a new leaf, doing things new; oh, and cleaning out the dreaded closets!

Summer has been mentioned in a previous post and helps me evaluate what is most important with extra time spent with family on our annual vacation. It is a picture of slowing down. There are so many new hours to fill without school and longer evenings. Barbeques and visiting with friends and family. Summers can be really busy for some, but still has a connotation of “let us take a minute to… ?” Fall, now that is a season that a large majority of people love. Whether it is Pumpkin Spice Lattes or hayrides or the changing leaves. It is definitely at the top of the “Favorite Season” list. Winter comes in dead last. Sorry, winter lovers, but I am not a fan of the cold or snow.

As I ponder the changing seasons, today marks a huge ‘VERSARY for me. March 15, 1990, thirty years ago, was a day I went into surgery to remove a mass in my stomach, but came out eight hours later with a cancer diagnosis, an eighteen inch long scar, an ovary removed, a broviac for chemotherapy, and a laundry list of other things. This day changed my life forever, no question about that. I have tried to express those changes on the blog throughout the last year and half by telling others what we went through; me personally with my family that stood by my side. But when doctors said “you are good,” I thought for sure those changes were done as well. Obviously, that was not going to be the last I time I would spend with doctors concerning this disease. The long term effects have “haunted” me ever since.

1999/2000

In my cancer journey, I finished my first year of teaching in 1999 and had a great summer working for a chiropractor. I made sure I never worked another summer; my contract was year round and starting school again was hard after working all summer. Starting my second teaching year, I was excited because I was moved to a much larger classroom with a new setup and new decorations. But a couple of months into the school year, I knew I had a problem. I noticed a place in my lower abdomen that did not feel normal. I had been down this road before and the outcome was devastating. “Fear washed over me” is an understatement. I do not know how I kept it together, but after a discussion with my mom on how to go about this (remember I did not have insurance), we decided to go into our family doctor and plan on the worst. Doctor appointments, CT scan, whatever it took for me to go down this road again. Insurance bare.

I would need to go to my principal and give her a heads up, at least take off a day to get the tests done, and ask for prayer. I could not hold it together when I met with her. Most people who know me realize I am not much of a crier. Come on, I had two brothers and no sisters, and I have two sons and no daughters. Crying does not come at the drop of a hat. I think I have cried in front of my husband less than ten times in seventeen years. Nothing wrong with crying, please understand me, but I am not a crier. So that fateful day in early fall 1999, crying was at the top of the list while I explained my dilemma. My principal was thoughtful, caring, and we discussed what should happen next. First, we needed answers and in the process she would also put in place a plan if the end result was not what we wanted.

We scheduled the doctor’s appointment, and with my history, he in turn got me right in for the CT scan. Barium, again! Oh, the most awful drink on this earth. Why, can they not figure out another way to do a full CT scan on a belly a different way? Time might have changed this process, but twenty years ago, it was the same barium and the exact same smell that made me want to puke. I did return to school the next day and waited anxiously for the results. When the phone rang, a wave of anxiety about took me to the ground, and I have wondered if I was white as a ghost. “Nothing to worry about,” the doctor said. “It looks like scar tissue.” Have you ever took in a long, deep breath that seemed to last for a minimum of a full minute? Of course, they do not last that long, but it feels like it when the relief from the anxiety is literally traveling out of our body through each finger and toe. The saying, “weight of the world on my shoulders,” was so real during that time, and now it felt like God had lifted it off. He said, “Trust me. I healed you from the beginning. This may be a part of the side effects, but you are in my hands.”

Pretty crazy, that my cancer journey timeline and blog article today happens to have a cancer scare in it, on the day that the cancer scare came to fruition thirty years ago. I am so grateful for every step on my journey, every step. Not only the good ones, because I really rejoice in those, but the hard ones; the ones that make a person feel the weight of the world on their shoulders. God tells us in I Peter 5:7, “Casting all your care upon him for he careth for you.” He says in Psalm 37:23, “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord; and he delighteth in his way.” He has us taken care of. I am so grateful.

What Happens When God Chooses Us To…?

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1/4/20

When we live our lives with God’s direction as priority, the above question shines bright. What happens when God chooses us to…? Chooses us to lose a baby before birth. Chooses us to hear the doctor’s words that take your breath away. Chooses us to say goodbye for the last time to your loved one as they walk out the door or breathe their last breath. What happens when He says that it is our turn to face this? Every day life can be monotonous; school, sports, work and even church attendance. Our schedule Monday through Friday each week stays the same except for the occasional party or get together. Our weekends can consist of sporting events, get togethers, and church. It is what we do and where we go to the point that our car is on auto pilot. But God has a plan for each of our lives, and when we choose Him, He will lead us and guide us through that plan.

As a Christian, God directs us in His word to be a LIGHT:

I John 1:7 “But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.”

Matthew 5:16 “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven.”

To share the GOSPEL:

I Peter 3:15 “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear;”

Matthew 9:37, 38 “Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.”

To follow His STEPS He has for us:

Proverbs 3:5, 6 “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”

Psalm 32:8 “I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye.”

Hold on though. What if those steps are devastating? Here are some of His promises:

Isaiah 33:3 “Call unto me and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.”

Proverbs 18:10 “The name of the Lord is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe.”

John 10:29 “My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all: and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.”

Isaiah 43:2 “When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee; when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.”

His word is written for those devastations! It is our written guide. So amazing the promises that are given to us; it gives me goose bumps. How comforting and overwhelming at the same time.

Our family travels each summer to places we think everyone will enjoy. Every other year or so it is a place we have not explored as a family; possibly my husband or I have been there, but not with the family. I enjoy the concept of a new place and appreciate the vast amount of information that can be gathered at my fingertips. What to do and how long to be there often starts off the process, and with that comes reading websites and reviews from others that have tread the ground we will be covering. There are many decisions made based on what we find out. After the timeline is in place, the accommodations are a priority, then back to websites and reviews. On more than one occasion, if the location is a tourist spot, we will buy a guide book from the local bookstore or check them out from the library. We enjoy taking them on the trip. We also have this amazing book someone gave us that has each state in the U. S. which lists spots that are not necessarily high volume tourist places. “Off the beaten path.” A road less traveled by the multitudes which means not a major highway or two lanes; sometimes even a dirt road. We have seen more cool places using this guide book than we can remember. Many times we do not have time to take the detour, but at least once on each trip made Google maps and “make a U-turn” go crazy.

God has His word telling us of the path many have trod. It is our guide and gives us encouragement to hear of those that have traveled our same road. We turn to prayer and God’s word to see what those before us did and maybe how they handled it, whether right or wrong. But “off the beaten path” becomes those times none of us want to go through. God chooses us to make those trips. When God Said Cancer to my family, we had no idea what was going on. Every doctor visit, needle, medicine was a new road to travel down with the large street sign named Cancer. The detour went forever and ever, and the bumpy road was a killer to the back and neck all the way up to the head. I was not happy about this detour; in fact, I was angry. At 13, I could not wrap my brain around the fact that God was asking this of me. But, I learned eventually. In previous posts, I wrote of finding God and His goodness in my situation. I knew I would not have survived this beast if it had not been for God’s healing shortly after diagnosis, and because of that and the possibility of death, I found Jesus’ redemption and salvation.

Two steps forward: good scans. One step back: 24 hour headaches. Two steps forward: got an A on my science test. Three steps back: hair falling out in the bathroom. God is choosing me for this? He is sending me on this detour and actually guiding me this direction? Why!!! Answers after answers including the back and forth steps mentioned above came my way. As an adult, He has shown me 10-fold the answers, and they are pretty amazing. But it does not change the fact that God could still choose me for ….? And God is choosing each of us for…? What will we do with that choosing? Our response is not going to be love, peace, thank you, God. There is too much hurt in the moment and moments to follow, but He is there watching and guiding and as long as we remember that, I hope we can eventually say, God Has Chosen This For Me.

Hope Deferred; Stuck in the Roundabout

Magic-Roundabout3

12-10-19

Summer 1998

Hope deferred can really make our heart sick, exactly how God puts it in Proverbs. We look forward to many things in our lives. I remember when I was a little girl, my dad pastored in a couple of churches in Texas. Along with being a pastor’s kid came the privilege of going to church camp with my parents when they would visit the youth while they were at camp. Depending on the church size, my parents were the chaperones so we spent all week at camp. I loved it so much, but I really enjoyed hanging out with the “big kids.” They put up with me; humored me. The best day ever was when I was going to be just like them, and that day could not come fast enough. Hope deferred… In junior high, getting into high school was going to be the best day ever. In high school, nothing could take the place of getting my driver’s license! After the driver’s license came looking forward to graduating from high school and “getting out of Dodge” on my way to college. Should I keep going? We get the picture.

Hope deferred was constant in my life, and I have to admit, I find myself in that state of mind every now and then. But currently, it does not seem to make my “heart sick” near as often. In my life’s journey in 1998, I had completed four years of college with no future plans, spouse, address (TBD in Oklahoma), job… Pretty much depending on God for every step of the way, because “the way” looked a little like a London roundabout. My husband and I visited London a few years ago, and he wanted to drive which means renting a vehicle. Unbeknownst to us, driving in England means there are many intersections that have multiple streets coming into one point. These roundabouts have six, seven streets that spur off and a person has to know which one to get off at AND, for us Americans, make sure when we pick that street, we are on the correct side (which did not happen once!) On more than one occasion, we ended up in a roundabout, and after a few revolutions figured out the correct street and were able to exit.

Kind of like hope. Deferred; so we take another go at it. This way, God? Nope, here we go again. In life, I was definitely in a roundabout and headed to Colorado to work yet another summer at a church camp. I was not discouraged, but excited because I loved summer camp, and this was an opportunity to live and breathe camp for eight weeks. It was hard work, and we spent many a night falling into bed for a short night of sleep to repeat the jobs the next day. I spent much time praying about my future and asking God what He would have for me. There were big decisions that were made that summer.

One of those decisions came in the way of a job opportunity. My parents had already arrived in Oklahoma and were attending church. They met a principal of a school and decided to give me a call; in their mind they knew who I was while I was in denial. I love the parental role; it is amazing! They sent me an application to that school. Not interested! But, I prayed and looked through the application. It was what I was created to do, created to be, created to give on this earth. Be a teacher. I knew from the beginning of time, teaching was my future. I had an interview over the phone and received my first teaching job, sight unseen for both sides. Hope had been deferred which was not known until I jumped out of the roundabout with my eyes closed, no turn signal, praying it was the right side of the road. What a crazy step of faith! My summer ended in Colorado, and I headed to my future address in Oklahoma with a brand new job at a school I had never seen or a principal and school employees I had never met. Nervous to say the least, but super excited because of the unknown. God had been faithful to me and gracious to guide me out of the roundabout down a new street.

During this time, since I was a college graduate my health insurance was no longer available through my parents, and I needed to get insurance because of my health history. I started with the most obvious insurance company in the city I was living in, and within a few weeks, received my first “rejected” letter. My application had been rejected because of a “pre-existing condition.” CANCER had once again denied me; hope deferred and now I was in the cancer roundabout again. Why was this happening? I did not have cancer, I was cancer free for almost ten years, medically noted as cured for almost five years. What was their problem? On to the next insurance company. Denied! Then the next, Denied. Five insurance companies later and still no insurance. No one told me that cancer would do that; that this would be another long term side effect! I guess I had to find out the hard way about the insurance and now needed to plan for any medical problems that may raise their ugly head. One more thing to be anxious about in my cancer journey.

Along with the insurance conundrum, two weeks before school started, I walked into my new school and classroom with an incredible amount of butterflies. The principal, team teachers, fellow teachers, and the faculty were all amazing and taught me everything I needed to know to receive a precious group of fourth graders on the first day of school. Two weeks flew by, and it was time.

The roundabout. Many roads headed into one circle that once someone gets into, there may be times where they will stay for a while, yet fewer times that they take the next road. It is a picture of our hope deferred. It makes a heart sick, but when the desire comes it is a tree of life. It is fantastic, breath taking, breath exhaling, whatever we classify the tree of life. We can be so grateful that our God gives us the abilities to get in the roundabout and wait on Him to show us the next road. Thank you, God, for Hope Deferred in the Roundabouts.

Plans Change Constantly

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11/6/19

Fall 1997/Spring 1998

Is there really anything more to say when the cancer has been cured, and a person is going on with life? Just because chemotherapy, constant trips to the doctor, IV tubes, CT scans, throwing up, and hair loss is not my life now, cancer is a part of me daily. And because of that daily reminder, I feel like this journey is still worth sharing. I am a cancer survivor, having been at the lowest of lows and in the depths of despair and death. Fortunately for me at this time, I am not there; but unfortunately, others are.

When life happens, whether we label it as “good times” or “bad times,” we have to live life. Psalm 139 is such a strong chapter, I want to hold on to it today.

“O Lord, thou has searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether. Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain it. Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.”

Summary: Good times and bad times are known to our God, and wherever we go, He is there. Wherever we go physically, mentally, emotionally our Wonderful, All-Knowing, All-Powerful God resides in Heaven watching. When we feel like it is too dark to God, it shines brighter to Him. Good times and bad times are no different to Him; granted, they are to us.

While beginning my senior year of college, I was looking at pretty cool times. The totem pole had my name at the top; life was so exciting. Shortly into the fall semester, our family had a significant change. My dad, who was a part of the board of directors at the college, had been asked to be a part of the faculty on campus. He accepted, and planned to move the rest of the family down to southern California in January of 1998. CANCER SCARE! During this process, I had noticed a hard spot that raised major concerns in my heart and head of a recurrence. Man, the thoughts and anxieties that occurred. After doctor appointments, it was decided to remove what they classified as a fatty tissue tumor. I would return home at Christmas break and have the surgery. Senior year, fall semester: beginning-good times, middle-bad times, middle-good times, Christmas-bad times, good times. I have an immediate thought of a Charlie Brown character with a giant mouth open wide screaming, “AAUGH.” My life was in craziness mode; I may not have been doing a good job trusting God here.

I remember coming home and help pack the house up and then saying goodbye to the most precious people in my life for the last nine years. Our little church in southwest Wyoming had grown to include wonderful people who had stood by our family’s side during some of the hardest times in our lives. God was moving us away from them. Why? He knew the reason. That move along with other decisions were instrumental in where I am today in all aspects of my life. After saying goodbye at church, I entered a hospital which I had sworn off ever placing another foot in the door. Returned back into the cold, white walled surgery room with the hard bed and a gazillion medical instruments, and let a doctor take another knife and cut me open. Check – another surgery to add to my resume’. Cancer, heart, benign tumor… The tumor was just as they had said AND we had hoped, so we left two days later, saying goodbye to a place that we loved so much. We return every few years to visit with many of those friends and see God’s beauty in the mountains.

At the same time my home address changed, I was in search of my future address because graduation was just around the corner. What in the world would I be doing and where would I be? During this time, I was student teaching, and after a few days I was 100% certain God had NOT been leading me into teaching. No way, no how would I want to go into the classroom. It was an extremely rough classroom situation. I was totally wrong about my career! At the same time, I was approached about going back to the church camp I went two summers ago to work for the summer. With no other future plans, I signed up to return after graduation to Colorado; my future address was still undetermined. That would change quickly.

Within a couple of months and many turn of events, my parents would be moving to Oklahoma because the entire college was moving. I knew one thing: I was going with my parents after my summer in Colorado. Before and right at graduation, I would be offered a couple of teaching positions, but since my future did not have TEACHER in it anymore, those were easy decisions. Again, Charlie Brown – AAUGH!

But as a planner, things were being planned for me, and the good times and bad times were aligned; I was ok with that. At least I did not have cancer, even though it had raised its ugly head at me again, in a way. I knew at that point that I was going to have to keep this cancer past in my periphery, not the back of my mind. It would not be going away as easily as I had tried to remove it. God had made me aware that He was still in control, and after my amazing life-changing college lessons, my relationship with Him had changed dramatically. He was so good to me. I stood amazed at who He was and trusted Him for my past and my future. Proverbs 13:12 is my life verse and pushes itself at me constantly. I have used it once already in a past post. “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick, but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life.”

We Do Not Know What We Are Missing…

photo-1541890289-b86df5bafd81

10/28/19

Summer 1997

A recent sermon, make that many recent sermons, that I have heard have been about prayer. Boy, do I need the reminder. People have needs, and prayer is the conduit between us and our Faithful to Listen God. Answers are not necessarily readily available, but how many times have we heard someone say that prayer changed everything or they knew prayers were being sent up to God. Like a thousand times here! I am an obvious answer to prayer, and much of my life is as well. But, I would like to submit that some Christians would like to change their prayer life to be more meaningful. A prayer life that sees God and feels His presence. To develop this, we have to take time out of our lives and show God we mean business.

When the team and I went to the Philippines between my Junior and Senior year of college, we experienced many major life lessons. Of course, the lack of things that people have in other countries hits a person right in the face when that person was born in America. We see the videos and pictures on TV. They are portrayed to us pretty accurately from what I have seen even on a recent mission’s trip to Peru. But as a college student, it was the first time for me to see them in real life. I will never forget what I learned though. Even when the people of these countries seem to lack everything we take for granted, they are not lacking anything. Why? Because they do not know what they are missing. The way they live is all they know. They do not realize that their home could have an actual floor and not dirt, or their windows could have screens and panes and not just wood that swings out to let air and light in. They do not realize that sewage should not flow in the cut out ditches next to the road, or their clothes do not match because they were hand me downs from the local missionary who received them from Americans.

A small little, old Filipino lady beat me up with her words as we sat across from her in her one room shack with dirt floors. Through an interpreter she said that she was happy the way things were for her, and she would never change it. But the young people of her country see that Americans have so much and the only thing they want to do is go to America. They work hard in school trying to get good grades so they can get on a list to go to a college in America or try to get a job there. “Their only goal in life is to get to America.” That was crazy to me. These people had so little and never knew they had little until they saw that Americans had so much, and they wanted that life. They were the happiest, kindest people I had ever met, yet they wanted to be me?

Why did these people, whom we would consider poor and impoverished but who really were not, want to be me? It made me think what was my purpose in life? Who was I and where would I be going? I did not realize I had not answered those questions before. I did not know what I did not have was missing because I had never had it. The older people in this country were in the same boat with material things; the younger people had figured it out. They saw what was missing and knew they wanted something different. I needed to pray about this phenomenon in my life because cancer was instrumental in whom I had become.

I was not missing material things life food, clothes, family, friends. I had that covered. I had all of the things needed for a cozy dorm room, good grades, and a goal set to teach in the classroom. There was a fantastic job in college and a car to drive there. Plus, I would be graduating in a year. Absolutely nothing was missing from my life until the above questions came to light. The people from another country help me to get a hold of God in a new way and ask for the guidance that I did not know was missing. The direction in where I should be going, and who was I, really. So enlightening. I began to see answers to those questions as I searched. God gave me a peace about my career path, which would waver, unfortunately, but He would still be there to show me He was in control. God gave me a sense of purpose; looking at lost souls with a new set of eyes, and sharing the Gospel with them. He would answer for me who I was, and why He had chosen me to have cancer.

Cancer is followed by the word why. It really helps us see our prayer life in a real light. But if cancer is not near or has been placed in the far corners of our minds, what do we really pray about? Do we have a time and place for our prayers? Honestly, we NEED the time and place. God is felt and moves in our spirit and soul when we kneel before Him and fellowship in prayer. Most likely we will have a prayer list, but maybe the list should be shorter. Then we could intercede at a more intimate level when we concentrate on that name on the list and pray about their inner self, their well-being, and their needs. People all around us need us. Not only them, but we need us. We need to pray and really pray. I tend to be pretty faithful about lifting someone up in prayer when I am driving. It is a good time for me, but I would like to take more time in my “prayer closet” for me and my fellowship with a God who took my life a totally different direction than I had expected. He is pretty real to me, so I want to be the person He wants me to be.

Psalm 39:12, “Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear unto my cry; hold not thy peace at my tears: for I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were.”

That’s What Friends Are For

best

8/15/19

Spring/Summer 1996

Yes, I had the necklace above. And, yes, these type are still being bought by teens and kids today. I would have an extremely hard time keeping my head up if I had one for each of my friends over the years that I keep in contact with often, and then one for each of my friends who are in my life right now. I chuckle at the picture that comes to mind of me with an abundance of necklaces around my neck for each friend, but I also would know which one would stand for which friend and cherish them like I did when I was 15.

Friends. What does this word mean to us? When it is spoken, it triggers a picture or a thought in our minds. Sometimes we see a spouse or a close friend; other times we may picture a friend from our past. Our thoughts may include a feeling of relief, trust, a big hug. The word friend conjures up mostly good feelings because we have been through a lot with that person. They are super important to our lives as we live in a world of negativity and disappointment here and there.

The word FRIEND means “a person whom one knows and with whom one has a bond of mutual affection.” A friend is a person we know, a person with whom we have spent much time, shared many thoughts, and let down our guard showing our true self. We all know who our true self is, and many times a choice few people know that self. A spouse will most likely understand us the most and then family members whether they be a parent or child. A close friend whom we have spent hours with either at work, on the playground, or at church may also see that true self. It really is hard to hide when hours upon hours are shared with others. It is not a bad thing to be ourselves, but some people may think that because feelings get hurt, don’t they? Unfortunately, I tend to be an open book, to the chagrin of those closest to me. I am truly sorry, but thanks for loving me, all!

My sophomore year of college became one of the most important years of my life. I met friends that changed my life and are friends to this day. I can look back on that school year and as it was closing thought how important it would be for me stay in a spiritual place even without chapels, roommates, and classes. In the early spring, I had signed up for a summer at a church camp in Colorado. Being from Wyoming, I was super excited to be close to home, and although I had never been to the camp, was looking forward to spending time there and in that capacity. School ended and I headed home for a few weeks before trekking south for eight weeks of church camp. Growing up as a pastor’s kid, I had been at camp my whole life. Literally! My birthday is in the summer, and many a present and song were passed on to me at camp, even at five, six, seven. My parents brought us along since they were going. Fond memories, but I really enjoyed when it was my time to be a camper in junior high and high school.

God knew I needed to be at church camp for eight weeks that summer. It was a little nerve racking at first because we were assigned roommates for the little rooms we would stay in for the summer. They had two bunks on either side of the room with a bit of space in the middle as wide as the door frame. Close quarters, so we would need to get along somewhat. Unbeknownst to both of us assigned to one room, we would definitely be getting along. We became fast friends; ones who would have bought the necklace. This friend was not only just like me as a ministry kid, but planning to go to the same college in the fall that I was already attending! Uh, God? Yes! She encouraged me, prayed with me, and became what I needed to further my relationship with my True Friend. Any apprehension was all gone about leaving Bible college and what I had experienced that school year, and I spent another two months seeing God work in my life through the preaching and friendships created. My roommate was not the only person that God sent my way that summer. He provided Godly leadership and multiple “best friends;” such close friends, they were all in my wedding six years later.

And now back to cancer. Not only was the first weekend at camp scary, each of us were assigned a host family we would stay with on the weekends, or let us say for 36 hours, so we could do our laundry, sleep, and get a home cooked meal or a much needed out to eat. If I remember right, my first introduction to my host family was at church the day after orientation at the camp. One of the other camp workers and I met with a cute older couple that we would stay with the next weekend. They were so sweet, and we would soon be grateful for their beautiful home and cool basement, couches, and TV where we would spend the majority of our Saturday and Sunday afternoons sawing logs.

The first weekend we arrived, we were shown our room and the basement with laundry facilities. We ended up in the kitchen continuing small talk and getting to know each other. I looked around and low and behold smack dap in the middle of there refrigerator with business cards and calendars was my picture. When I got out of the hospital the first time, we had been told I would most likely lose my hair. My mom took me to a photographer downtown and had my picture done before my hair fell out. She wanted to put together a little prayer card to send to the hundreds of people that visited and sent cards, flowers, and gifts after hearing of my diagnosis. This sweet couple 400 miles from my little town in Wyoming to Denver, Colorado, had received my prayer card through the church and had been praying for me. When they had been told I was coming that summer, they had requested that I stay with them. They wanted to meet the subject of their prayers and get to know me. Uh, God? Yes!

Under no other circumstances can anyone make these things up. There is absolutely no way to even write books that have these kind of twists. Well, I guess there are books like this, but they are mostly fiction. This is real life with a real God. My God said, “Cancer, Rachelle.” I said, “Nope, not me.” But He did not listen, and decided my family and I needed this in our lives. Why do I have this little blog recounting the years of agony and defeat and hair loss and hurt and whys? Because the story is worth sharing for that one person that may be going through the same thing I did. Because the story is worth sharing for that other person that had a why? day. Because of the stories like the one above. Because…

That day in the kitchen of the sweetest couple ever, God showed me my story was not just mine. It was theirs as well. Before them stood an almost 20 year old that they heard about years before, had cancer, then received a prayer card, and prayed for her. She was now in their kitchen, totally healed and a walking miracle to them. Now this was OUR story. God also knew years later, our paths would cross again. One of them has passed on, but the other one is a member of the church I attend in Oklahoma. Friends for a lifetime on this earth.

But our friend for Eternity is Jesus, and there is not enough time to list all the verses that confirm that. John 15:13, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” Romans 5:8, “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” We can receive that True Friend today and never want for another friend or thing to make us happy. But, I am so grateful God said Cancer, because of the people that He has brought into my life to call my friends and that call me friend. Friends are what make the world go round.

The Road Ahead Looks Great

road-ahead

6/11/19

Fall 1994/Spring 1995

With the brother in a better health situation, my mind could focus on the task at hand. The college life kept moving ahead with day after day of classes and book work. I was able to secure a fantastic job as a private tutor at a tutoring service in a nearby city. It was a fulfilling job because I was a teacher at heart and hoping to get my degree in that field. The hours were perfect; leave school at 2:15pm to start teaching at 3:00pm and clock out at 8pm for the drive home. It was a solid 30 minute drive on the streets of the suburbs of east LA. Most drives were uneventful, and it was basically a straight shot down Arrow Highway.

On occasion the drive was abnormal. A couple of us from school worked at the tutoring service, so we would carpool. One trip, my friend and I were talking and having a good ole’ time, and a guy started yelling at us with his window down, pointing at the ground. We were a tad nervous, because, well this is LA. I soon realized I was driving on a flat tire, pulled over, and we took a look. Since we were not in the tire changing business, looking for the items to change the tire was an ordeal, and the lug nut turning never happened. We were weaklings to say the least. My friend was a blond beauty so many a honk came our way, and one guy stopped in front of us and turned around with a car phone. We waved him on, very nervous; again this is LA. She ran across the street to a pay phone and paged a friend, who showed up and changed the tire. We got back in the car, and it would not start! Our friend was able to help get it going, and we headed to work, late for our first appointments.

When we were stopped at the side of that road with a flat tire, we soon noticed we were on a long stretch of highway that did not have a gas station. Well, before that fateful day, this particular stretch of highway was the best time to get up speed and catch up on time if we were running behind. It had, in the past, been our saving grace when we needed help to get where we needed to go on time. That road was not looking so great those few moments. Our perspective changed in an instance, and we never did look at it the same again. We chuckled about what happened there when we would pass by, and I can go to that spot today and point it out.

Stories of road mishaps can be told by all, but it is amazing that there are not more of them, when we travel well worn paths in the concrete on a daily basis. Many times we take for granted that road, the familiar stop sign or stop light, the same neighborhoods and businesses… Our surroundings do not change but unless our circumstances do, we typically do not notice or we pay little attention to them. When the circumstances change, we then notice. Same with our lives, right? Day by day, we try to live a life that has meaning and fulfillment; focusing on our families, focusing on our relationship with God, focusing on our church family, focusing on… We can fill in the blank with whatever we narrow down our focal points. It is what we are supposed to do, but then the flat tire comes along and what happens?

First off, our physical reactions to the flat tire are super important to discuss. This subject hits close to home, because in the last few years, I have been confronted by the way I react. I truly and purposefully try to be better, not always successful but am grateful for those around me that confront me and give me grace. It is incredibly important to keep my relationship with God strong, which keeps my focus on Him strong when the flat tires come along. I try to remind myself of the following illustration all the time: people are like tea bags; when things around them get hot and boiling, what is on the inside comes out. If we have that relationship with God, and we do not like what we see when it is hot and boiling, there should be a time of reflection on what changes could be made.

Second off, the flat tire changes our perspective; it becomes a reminder. It becomes a place when time, people, places changed, and we have a different perspective. There are many new perspectives that have come along in my life, but cancer was a big one for me. I saw myself as a teenager with a whole life in front of her, and in one week the flat tire changed my perspective to, “Wait a minute, what life?” There is not much life to be had when you wake up from surgery screaming in agony, not having a clue what is happening. When you hear your mom say to someone, “How am I supposed to tell her she has cancer?” When you realize you have an eighteen inch long incision on your stomach and an IV hanging out of your chest. When you see yellow and red liquid going into your body that the doctors say are supposed to get you back to being a teenager.

New perspective? You betcha. I may have not realized it for years to come, but that flat tire gave me a new look at a road I had been traveling on. I eventually became grateful for it, and the road ahead looked great. Jeremiah 29:13 says just that, “For I know the thoughts I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.” Psalm 119:105, “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” So grateful for God’s road I am on!

Do You Remember When…?

5/21/19

Fall 1994

What about the time that we …? Do you remember when…? It feels like yesterday that I was riding a bike down our alley to go to the church where my dad was a pastor. We lived a street over, and between the row of houses there was an alley where we would ride to and from the church and our school which was across the street from the church. I remember the house and my room with a large picture window. The house was two bedrooms and two bathrooms with a dining room and eat in kitchen. My parents closed off the door from the kitchen to the dining room, and it became my bedroom. It had large windows on one side where I was certain to keep the bed as far away from them as possible. I loved that room. It was somewhat decorated girly, but most of my time was spent outside with my brother who was a year younger. Our other brother was born around this time.

We had the coolest trees in the front and back yards, and we did our dead level best to conquer them all, and they in return tried to do the same to us. The tree in the front was graciously used for sitting and talking and, one time, swinging with a sheet tied between two branches. It was not too fond of that because the swing lasted a few seconds and sent me crashing to the ground, breaking my collar bone. The five, large pecan trees in the back had an amazing crop of pecans that we turned in for money, which was well worth the time spent picking them up. The trees also had the best branches for climbing extremely high, but once sent my brother to the hospital with two broken arms. Although we had our share of mishaps, we have our share of fond memories that are cherished to this day.

In my cancer journey, a trip down memory lane brings me to the point where I had recently registered for college in Southern California and am fully engulfed in my freshman year. I had a quick turnaround from Ms. Independent to Ms. Homesick. I missed my family greatly, and it was not just the fact that I was not in the same house anymore. My brother was having a medical scare of his own. My parents had taken him to the doctor who had given him the news that he had cancer cells. He had surgery to remove a tumor and cells which were localized and not spread to any other locations. But the biopsy and a return trip showed the cancer could show up anywhere in his body. This sent my parents back into Cancer Parent mode, and they began the cancer journey again for the third time in five years. They chose along with my brother’s consent, who was almost 16 at the time, not to treat with chemotherapy and radiation. Just return trips for scans and monitoring. He never had another reoccurrence!

We were so grateful and took a sigh of relief that he would not have any treatment like I had to go through. I remember being in the dorm at college and asking roommates and housemates to pray for him, his surgery, and the diagnosis. I had so many people informed and praying, and I felt like if God could heal me, He would heal my brother as well. Really never doubted but was anxious all the same. I think my family kept me minimally informed about what he had to go through. Nonetheless, he is another sign of God’s healing hand for our family, because when cancer is diagnosed, the whole family is involved.

This memory of God’s intervention was impactful. I saw God in a whole new light because before, my cancer was my cancer, and He would be giving me my life back. My mom’s diagnosis the same time as mine, was not as impactful maybe because I was a little distracted. When my brother faced the same thing, it changed my perspective of the disease. I saw it as a threat, something that was going to take family from me. I was not ok with that at all. When everything turned out so well, I mean “so well?”, how can cancer have a “so well” result? Anyway, it was a good ending. God became real to me. I learned that freshman year that my daily walk with Him was an essential part of my Christian life. I also learned about making wise decisions when the decision making is in your court for the first time. Boy, I was shown time and again that my decisions were very important to my future and would need to be bathed in prayer. I learned that my study habits from high school were strong which helped me with the intense college grind. College can pound you with the schedule, papers, tests; the work load can at times be relentless. But pushing ahead and working hard will pay off. My freshman year was no exception, and it started off with a cancer diagnosis?!?!

Three people diagnosed with cancer within a few years of each other. How does that happen? Medically, my parents have spoken to specialists. But we understand that God did it this way for a reason. We have individually seen time and again why He brought cancer into our bodies. For me, my brother’s journey really helps solidify God in my life. Stories like this, or memories, are endless for us and would take volumes upon volumes of books to catalogue each instance how God revealed why the diagnosis of cancer was made in our three lives. Our memories are used to make new memories for us and then for someone else who might be experiencing cancer, and the cycle repeats.

Memories of our past can cause pain and can cause happiness. They can cause frustration and can cause joy. A memory may have been a learning experience or a turning point in our lives that made us a better person. Many of us have old memories of a life lived without God and new memories with Him as our Savior. We can rejoice in our salvation when the “old things are passed away” and “all things are become new” II Corinthians 5:17. I am truly thankful for memories, and ask the Lord when the memory is not so pleasant to help me not be bitter or learn from what transpired. It does not always happen that way, but I want to be aware. As I write each article, memories of how the events transpired come back and reveal to me how blessed I am; how amazing God has been to me.

Senoritis, Cars, and Five Seconds

4/9/19

Fall 1993

And then there was one! One more year of high school, and I was outta there! My senior year was memorable, exciting, and so much work.

My academic career up to this point had been a boatload of hard work; granted I hit a brick wall in eighth grade that could have sent me in a downward spiral. I had around 3 months of my eighth grade year where I was on chemotherapy, all of ninth grade, and around 2 months of tenth grade. The eighth grade teachers were gracious in my school work load; even though I finished every paper sent home, I missed that instruction time for about a month plus chemo days. There was a plan in ninth and tenth where we would leave school at the very last minute, miss a couple of classes and then the next day. Those afternoon classes suffered quite a bit my freshman year. But still the teachers were helpful and let me come after school for a refresher course if I had any questions.

The one thing that was a life saver for me was the fact I was unable to take the PE classes because of the broviac and the risk of having my chest hit by a ball. I was an aide for the office where I could work on school work after the office duties. Still there was a struggle with the missed instruction time in class. Especially Spanish! Hard work kept me at about a B average, and in 10th and 11th with more class time, more A’s appeared on my report card.

So the beloved senior year came around the corner with a lack of a “sluff off” “senioritis” type of entrance. I had a full load of classes including AP English, AP Calculus (for the second time), Geometry, and Girl’s Jazz Choir. I chose to take Calc again because a repeated class might result in a better grade which was a C my junior year. I was determined to work extra hard this year because there was only one chance to see an improvement in my grades and graduate with the best GPA I had seen on my report card up to this point. I was very much aware of a younger brother who spent substantially less hours working on homework and receiving substantially better grades every single time. What can I say, both our results came naturally, but I was determined to catch up. Last chance!

Along with senior year came my past medical history, so that was never far away from every day life. I walked into school in September with a gorgeous head of hair which was down to my shoulders, a repaired heart, and driver’s license. I was a July baby so I was literally the last person in my junior class to get a license; it was such a bummer. No really, big bummer. But I was now in the driving crowd and had the coolest car in the world, too. Well, since it was free from my parents, it was extremely cool. How many of us remember our first car? Um, most likely the majority of people we ask will remember. This car was a 1979 Chrysler New Yorker, 15 years old, and a classic. It had a leather interior, a trunk the size of a train car, and two full rows of seats. I quickly became the driver for off campus lunch!

A month after school started, I had my two-year follow-up visit in Salt Lake City. These visits were now enjoyable beyond words. I did not dread the road trip anymore. My mom and I went to this appointment and kind of planned to make it a day. Scan days are always a bit anxious, but we had only one scare in the past three and half years, and that was not even from my results, just an overheard conversation. That day, we had a CT scan, blood work, chest X-rays, and a cardiologist appointment. My heart looked really good, and, of course, I had not had any SVT episodes. My oncology results came back normal as well, and the doctor came in to have a discussion.

They were going to give me the “Cure” diagnosis. What does that mean? We had heard the word remission which means that the signs and symptoms of cancer are reduced, but does cure mean really cured? It means that there are no traces of cancer after treatment and that the cancer that type should never come back. Yes, it really means cured. I began with a cancerous tumor throughout my whole abdomen, three months later not a trace of any cancer cells, three and half years later… Mom and I were overjoyed. The doctor explained a few things to us about side effects of chemotherapy in the future. A very obvious side effect is infertility. Of the drugs given in my protocol, two were most likely to cause egg damage, and since a girl has all her eggs at birth, they can be highly effected by chemo. Ok, that was not really what I wanted to hear, but I accepted it, thinking in the back of my mind that I would be invincible from that just like I was when I was going through treatments. At 13, 14, and 15, cancer was just a nuisance, and I did not comprehend that what I had gone through was really life changing for me. Being older and hearing those words, put reality into perspective.

The doctors would like to see me each year as long as I was in the area to keep monitoring me and basically mark it down how I was doing with the side effects. We would continue those visits until we moved my senior year of college.

My mom and I were extremely excited for the diagnosis. Mom decided we would go get my senior pictures done while we were down there to celebrate this amazing news. We had spent so many, many seconds, that added up to minutes and cumulated into day’s worth of agony from hearing bad news. That can really get a person into a bad place emotionally. It can put someone into a thinking process that all hope is lost, that there is nothing worth pushing forward for. “You have cancer,” takes how long to say? Five seconds? And yet those five seconds mean more to some people in a lifetime than any other five seconds they will ever have. Changes our lives forever. So cliché, but it changes our lives forever. Other five seconds have words in them like: there was an accident… I have found someone else… it’s a boy… you may kiss your bride… Not all five seconds have a gut punch, but a rejoicing time, and they can change things for us dramatically.

Take five seconds today to say I love you or thanks for being there for me or have a great day. It may not be that one life changing five seconds that person will encounter in their years here on earth, but it may be added up with other five seconds that help them when they do. When faced with trials, a person needs hope. A God I know gives that hope. I had Him during my trial, and He is still holding me in His hand today. He gave me strength, power, and hope even though He knew about the cancer before I did. I want to live a life that remembers that often; I know I will not remember it every five seconds, but I pray that it will be often.

James 4:14 “Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? it is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.”

MY God healed MY body and gave me MY life back. It is MY duty to live it for Him, because I do not know about tomorrow.

Time To Clean Things Up A Bit

CleaningServices

3/25/19

Summer 1993

On my cancer journey, we had many ups and downs; one being a heart problem I began having when I was small. I remember playing one day when I was super little, and all of a sudden my chest hurt. I went to my mom and told her, and she felt my chest and said my heart was beating really fast. We rushed to the doctor.

I have always been on the lower end of the growth chart, and I was pretty small when I was little. Back in the day when I started walking, my mom bought a baby doll that had hard soled shoes so I would have shoes to wear. When my heart started racing like that, my chest moved with the beats. At three, it was very unnerving, and when we arrived at the doctor’s office, they moved very quickly to get me stabilized.

My rapid heartbeat was called SVT or Supraventricular Tachycardia. In my terminology, the heart would get triggered and beat right around 300 times a minute. The doctors and nurses had me do many different things. We began with coughing, and then pretend like I was having a bowel movement, because the “bearing down” maneuver stops or slows the rapid heartbeat. When that did not work, they had an ice bucket, and they told me to put my face in it because the heart will slow down when someone is submerged in cold water. The last thing, if the previous actions do not slow the heart down, is a fast-acting medication that blocks the electrical impulses causing the heart to race. All of these treatments are done very quickly, because a body cannot sustain a rapid heartbeat for very long before there are major problems, like cardiac arrest. We were told we had a fifteen-minute window to get it under control.

For some reason, I remember having the medicine that first time we went in because the other treatments were not working. My memory may be wrong, because this was the beginning of dozens of episodes that I dealt with in my childhood and teen years. I would say 95% of them were treated by me. The first few we went into the doctor, and then I got to the point where as soon as it occurred I would cough, bare down, jump up and down, and then my personal go-to treatment was a cartwheel. Yep, that is right! All of those actions were done fairly quickly, but if I was playing with my brother, and the SVT set in, I did those actions in that order. I would mention to him that my heart was racing, and then off to the races-cough, bare down a few times, jump up and down, cartwheel. It worked almost every time, and then a few breaths and back to climbing trees.

Almost forty years have passed since my first episode, so these were the only treatments. As we entered the cancer world, I had just turned 13 and was still working through my same SVT treatments, with no new medical treatments out there. I would be hanging out with friends, playing volleyball, or even jumping on a trampoline, and there goes Rachelle doing a cartwheel. Absolutely random! But it had become my life, and that is just what I did. Cancer changed this self-treatment and “turned it upside down on its head.” Once I began chemotherapy, I had absolutely no control over stopping the rapid beats. We rushed to the hospital multiple times to receive the last resort treatment; the medicine that stopped the heart and then the heart would go back to a normal rhythm. The cancer surgery was severe, with an incision all the way down my stomach, and the chemotherapy blocked a healthy healing process. The final treatment for my irregular heartbeat was open heart surgery to repair that defected electric pathway that causes the signal to go in a circle instead of straight. Open heart surgery was absolutely not an option for me on chemotherapy, but it was the only option right then. At one of the heart episodes, my mom had begged the doctors not to do surgery; there was no way I would survive it.

I mentioned in a previous post, that we were at a chemotherapy treatment, when I lost it. I was done with the heart problem, I was done with the chemotherapy, and I was done with all of it. After my blood work that day, the doctors said counts were good, and we were going ahead with the chemo. I said I did not care if I died, tried to leave, and my mom stopped me. After we calmed down, we headed to the cardiologist appointment that was scheduled for that day. He came in, and we talked about the next step. What would we do now? He said there had been new medical treatments for SVT. One was a catheter ablation that goes into the groin and neck and burns the defected electrical pathway. The other treatment was a pill that was proven to lessen the amount of episodes of rapid heartbeats. We were very much ready to try the medicine, and if that did not work, the doctor would do the ablation. The medicine proved to be a life-saver, for real.

The medicine did its job and lasted through chemotherapy treatments and for the next couple of years. I stayed fairly healthy through the summer and 11th grade and kept up with my schoolwork and softball. It was determined at an appointment in my junior year, we would do the catheter ablation to correct the defect. This was in the early 90’s, and when you read about SVT treatments these were the medical advancements in this disease that were being introduced. I just happen to be going through what I was going through at the same time. The ablation was extremely new, so there were no long-term results to go off of, but we had been through so many years of this disease that we felt positive this was the direction to go.

Right after my seventeenth birthday, we went into the hospital again to have the ablation. I would be admitted for a week so they could monitor the heart and its response to the minute change in structure. I was pretty apprehensive because the last time I went into surgery, wow, did I wake up different. This time I actually was not put under but sedated. Now, that was crazy, because they “burned” the irregular pathway, and I remember clearly the sensation; I woke up slightly at that moment. A week later, I was good as new and 25 years later, my heart is still strong. Now, I have a normal heart with a skipped beat now and then, which sometimes makes me anxious because that was usually the same sensation that sent me into SVT.

I am so grateful for the Lord’s timing, direction, and leading my parents to make the decisions they felt were right for me and the problems that came my way. My parents asked for the doctors to wait on the open-heart surgery because there was no real deadly threat, and I would struggle with survival from another surgery. The Lord brought medicines in our world when I was at the bottom. And He gave us a non-invasive ablation that has proven to work for quite a few years now. What an awesome God! At this point in my cancer journey, decisions were still being made to further a healthy life. We were “cleaning up” some of the things that were put on hold for so many years.

God asks us to do the same in our spiritual lives. He directs us and leads us in the paths we should go, but we need to stay close to Him to see those paths. As Christians, each and every day we must confess our sins, the bad things that we do. We are human, we are sinners saved by grace, but our sin keeps us from God’s leading. I John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” This is so important, so needed, and so much required to see our path clearly.

What is The Biggest Question?

12/18/18

Cancer. Why does that word bring a gasp, an extra heartbeat, a heavy chest, a picture of someone we know? Because it literally affects just about each and every person in this world. We all have a connection to cancer because we have it or had it or through someone we know or someone we know who knows someone. There are cancer treatment centers in many towns, because it affects so many people and the need for a nearby center that focuses only on this disease is crucial. Every single day thousands of people are diagnosed with cancer, and thousands of people are treated for cancer.

Cancer. What does that mean? We see the effects of the treatment, but what exactly is cancer? The long and short of it: Our body is made up of trillions of cells, and sometimes those cells turn abnormal for one reason or another. Because cells divide, an abnormal cell divides and it does so rapidly for there is nothing to keep it in check. It can appear in so many forms, it is unbelievable; or not appear in any form on the outside which is more unbelievable. I think there are signs that maybe we overlook as regular aches and pains, but it shows itself most of the time in some form or other. My cancer appeared as a knot in my lower abdomen which was an ovary that was taken over by the cancer. I had a sign, but I was also at the tail end of puberty, so we were keeping an eye on it. I was very healthy and had no other symptoms. Because the abnormal cells divided so rapidly, my tumor was very large when the doctors opened me up.

Modern medicine has found a way to test this silent killer through different types of abnormal cell killers. Once a diagnosis is in place an oncologist will work to get the best protocol which was tested on patients in a study and proved to get results as the best treatment. Chemotherapy, radiation, surgery, etc… Chemotherapy was the only cancer treatment I received when I was diagnosed. I received it in the form of an IV drip, orally in a pill, and through a spinal tap each month. My protocol set up by the doctor for Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma had seen great results in patients, and to this day this type of cancer has a high cure rate. We saw results very quickly, but we also had many prayers go up to the Great Physician on my behalf.

Cancer. Why? Why are so many people affected by this disease? I do not know. Everyone has their thoughts about it, but there are studies of things that are known to cause this disease. We all have heard of them. Why me? I do not know. Why my family? I do not know. You see, six months after my diagnosis, while I was still going through treatments, my mom went into the dermatologist and had a spot removed on her face. It was melanoma. Cancer again became the word in our home and affected another member of the family. It was a scary time. The doctor was confident that they removed everything, and she did not have to have treatment. We let out a sigh of relief to have such great news concerning her.

Why? That question is asked when cancer is a part of two members of a five-member family unit, and our story was not quite over in this department. But the question of “why” and others are asked by the family and those around us. It does not bother you when they are asked because it can be a healing process for you to talk about what you are going through. It can be a help for those asking the questions. They might be facing the same crises or a similar one and just need a word or two of encouragement they might receive through the same conversation.

Whatever reason for my life to see cancer is only answered through my Almighty God. For me and my family; God Said Cancer. The “why” has been answered thousands of times. First off, I did not have Him fully in my life as my God and my Savior. I accepted Him as my Redeemer less than a year after the diagnosis. Secondly, God said cancer and three months later God said no cancer. My body was full of disease and the three-month scans saw not a trace. Why cancer? So God could perform a miracle. Why cancer? So the people around us could pray for us and see God work… Why cancer? So our family would become strong together in a new community… Those around my parents in the work environment would see their strength and come to our little church… We could talk to the nurses and doctors about what God did for us… I would lose my hair and feel totally embarrassed and humbled which helped me realize I was not in control… We would get a little article in the paper about my diagnosis and our church… I would lose all hope in the middle of the protocol and see God bring heart and nausea medicine to help me… Our community would come together and raise money for our cause, and remember it well when we speak to them on visits… We would travel as a family to the National Spelling Bee… These are just a few of the reasons up to this point in the journaling of our story. There are so many more before this.

Hebrews 13:21 is talking about how the God of peace “Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is wellpleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.” Every single thing in our lives is there to help us be more like Him who is working to show others the glory that is due Him. In the moment, super duper hard, but so very important. They say hindsight is 20/20, but I want my foresight to be 20/20 and want to remember to ask God for this.

Cancer. Mine is hindsight, others is now, and still others are in the future. Why? Because God has amazing things to show us. And He had amazing things to show me as I continued my journey past the one-year mark.

Words All Around Us

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12/4/18

May 1991

My spirits were up, and the family was all pretty happy, mainly because I was not throwing up near as long. My youngest brother had had a hard go at the cancer thing. He spent so much time with sitters and really had a couple of rotten experiences. We talk about them still today, but he was a trooper. But many a time I would be laying on the couch with my tub nearby and when I would throw up, he would hold it for me. Sometimes he would set up a cot next to the couch, probably because I would watch TV to keep my mind off of the nausea, but all the same he wanted to be near me. He had to see so many things that a four and five year old should not have to deal with or see. My whole family did, but they were still my strength no matter how many times I would yell at them through the pain or mistreat them. In my mind, I was sick and had every right to behave however I wanted.

My eldest brother was back on the spelling bee trail and had done well. He won at the school, district, and then headed to state and won that. It was a pretty exciting time at home, especially when we received word, he would be traveling to the National Spelling Bee in Washington, D. C. The spelling bee organization would be paying for the speller and a chaperone to attend the event. My dad would be going with my brother. It was a busy next few days for us because the middle school he attended contacted us and asked if they could do something for the family. They would be having their annual spring fair, and they wanted to donate all the proceeds to our family so that my mom and I could go to D. C. as well. They published the fair in the paper and the cause, and the community came out in abundance. What a surprise and blessing! They ended up raising all of the funds we needed for the trip.

And we were on our way! I think I had only been on a plane one other time before we boarded the plane for the National Spelling Bee. No matter the end result, my brother was ready, and we were all very excited. Thank yous went out to him for his hard work and our community for sending us on this adventure. We would be gone a few days because they had a schedule of events leading up to the Spelling Bee. When we arrived, we were taken to a beautiful hotel down the street from the U. S. Capitol Building. We spent the week with the other spellers and their families touring our nation’s capital on tour busses and enjoying down time at a Memorial Day barbeque. We were able to see the Arlington Cemetery, some of the Smithsonian like the Air and Space Museum, and the Declaration of Independence.

My brother was nervous on the day of the Bee to say the least. We were all nervous. A spelling bee brings about a whole lot of emotions you do not expect. When the speller is up there and the word is pronounced, they have the ability to ask a couple of questions. During the whole time he was standing there, my heart was beating a hundred miles an hour. I cannot imagine what his is doing! As soon as he started spelling, I would just hope he knew the crazy word, because I did not have a clue. Each time he got it right was such a relief because you knew he could picture that word in his head, so he was in a good frame of mind. He went out in the fourth round and was very disappointed, but we were all super proud of his accomplishment. This time in our lives needed a time of joy, and we acknowledged that God had given us this trip for just that; a trip we would never forget. I had received a chemotherapy the week before traveling, so when we returned, I had a couple more days off and then back to the routine.

What is it about certain words that can cause a spirit and the physical and mental state of mind to change in an instant? First of all, we are human beings, and God created us with a body, soul, and spirit. We can keep the body looking well on the outside, but many times actions and words affect the spirit and mind more than we can control, and what is on the inside will come out. God’s word tells us in Matthew 12:34, the second part, “…out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.” Secondly, we keep allowing ourselves to be around the negative, so we internalize it and let it affect our heart. Each time I heard I had to have chemo because my counts were good, it affected me. The same went for my brother and spelling. He would put in the correct spelling of the words, so that what came out was the correct spelling of the word.

There are so many horrible outside forces that are not as easy to combat as those spelling words or the words I heard each time from the doctor. But as Christians we have the same God who can help us make it through, and if we will purposefully make it a point to internalize God and His Word at the hard times, we WILL come out on the other side.

Only God Can Do That

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11/27/18

Winter 1990 and 1991

Mint chocolate chip or peanut butter? Pepperoni or cheese? Wood or painted? SUV or sedan? Right and wrong? Choices are constantly in our lives and sometimes staring us in the face asking for us to make a decision that instant. What do we do for those major decisions? Pray and seek counsel from those around us that have most likely been faced with something similar. The little choices do not seem as important but can really change some things in our lives depending on what choice we make.

I was up against choices that changed my life forever. Since cancer had already done that, it was my turn. My dad and I were driving out toward the house, and he asked me a question that rocked my world. Had I thought about dying? Because he had known from his point of view that I had been at death’s door. Of course not! It did not even cross my mind at all. My only thoughts about cancer were that it was the worst thing that ever happened to me; I hated every minute of the fact I could not be a normal teenager, and stupid chemo made me lose my hair! No reason to talk about dying because I was going to be done with chemotherapy in less than a year and so long cancer.

I did not admit it, but his question scared me, and I spent the next few weeks in anguish. You see, when I was five, I knelt at a chair with my aunt and prayed the sinner’s prayer, but during elementary school I went to a Christian school and my teachers would always talk about where we would go if we were to die. I remember getting the opportunity to pray a couple of times on my knees near the chalkboard, and each time I asked God to save me if I was not saved. I knew I was not 100% sure if I had not woken up from surgery that I would have gone to Heaven. On January 5, 1991, I accepted the Lord as my Savior and felt a relief beyond all measure. I also felt like maybe things were getting better for me as a person.

That changed quickly. Around March, I had had enough of doctors, chemo, heart problems and the world. School was pretty difficult, and my headaches were unbearable. Nothing seemed to even scrape the surface and give me any relief. My heart condition was getting extremely out of control. I could not stop it right away, and it made me a nervous wreck. Throwing up for 24 hours was the last straw. I was so totally and absolutely done with puking. So I was walking into another chemo hoping for a low blood count so I could go home. When the doctor came in and said the counts were good, I made a choice to leave. I told my mom I was done, I was not going to do chemo, and I did not care if I died. This awful, this horrible disease was destroying my spirit and my wherewithal to live.

I got up and tried to get out of the room. But mom stood between me and the door and told me that I was not leaving, we were going to stick with this. Through tears and sobbing from both of us, we had a verbal and mental struggle with each other, and me with the devil because I was not going to stay there. Our memories of the day are a little different, but we both know God took control of it from that point. I sat back down on the bed, and mom kept telling me we were going to beat this thing; we had come this far and had six months left. Literally, within minutes the cardiologist stopped in and asked us to come over and discuss a new drug that came out for my condition. It was taking control of the rapid heartbeats, and patients were seeing improvement in the number of episodes a person was experiencing. He said our only other option was open heart surgery, and my body could not survive that on cancer treatments. Right after we returned from the cardiologist, the oncologist came in and said they were ready for the spinal tap, and by the way, a nausea medicine that helped with the length of time a chemo patient threw up just made its way to the department. I would be the first to try it out if I was interested. We said we definitely would try it out.

In less than an hour my choice to leave, my mom’s strong and convincing words to stay, and my choice to stay changed the next six months of my life. Both drugs really did just what we were told they would do. If I remember right, I did not have another heart episode during that period of time, and my nausea stopped at the twelve-hour mark. We said then and say now, only God can and did do that. Just like my God gave me a clear scan and blood work from three-month post diagnosis until now, thirty-three years later; only God can do that.

Stories like this could not possibly be true, but I am a living testament that they are. God showed Himself to us so strong and powerful, there was no question in our minds and thousands of others that have heard the story. It was He who did it. Why do I forget that miracle in my life? Why do I go through things right now and struggle to see God working? Where is my focus? I submit that it is not on God but on myself and the difficult situation I am in. I try hard to remember where God has brought me from and what He has done in my life. Little things like not complaining about a bad hair day are at the forefront of mind, and the reason why should be, too.

God is so good to me, and I am truly, truly blessed to be able to say that only God could do that.

What Is Happening Right Now?

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10/23/18

March 23, 1990

“It looks like we are going to send you home. You are tolerating the chemotherapy, you are keeping solids down, your bowels are functioning again after surgery, and you are moving around better.” Those doctor’s words were wonderful music to our ears! The other music had been screeching in our ears for two weeks, and we desperately needed a new genre. Constant beeping from the IV pole and the heart monitor, people talking in the halls, and the blood pressure machine every couple of hours. None of the milestones mentioned in the first line were expectations of the doctors when this all began. But God said otherwise.

Hospital stays are so difficult, or maybe it is just me. At the beginning, I was started on a liquid diet for a few days and lost quite a bit of weight. When Jello was allowed, there was orange, green, and yellow, but I really wanted to have red. Do you know the hospital did not make red Jello? After a couple of days, it appeared on my food tray, and I was absolutely ecstatic! They had made it just for me. After a few days, I began to feel better, and they started weaning me off of pain medication. I was more aware of my surroundings and sleeping less. I really wanted to go home.

By the time we received those joyous words that we were going home, I had received a chemotherapy drip, with the second one scheduled to be administered at my pediatrician’s office in a few days. Two different drips were on my eighteen-month protocol. One drip was two hours and would later be the one that I dreaded. It was associated with the spinal tap, and both of them combined would make me extremely sick. The other drip was four hours long and did not seem to hit me as hard. At any rate, I tolerated them at the hospital, which was a good sign for the doctors. We received tremendous care, and we all understood we would be seeing each other for months to come.

Being home was rejuvenating, but I spent more time sleeping than anything. I was about seventy pounds and pretty weak. It was nice to be around my dad and brothers again. A new group of people to draw strength from. They were a big help, and we settled into just working at getting me strong again. My mom headed back to work to catch up, and the boys continued to go to school. Things changed quickly though. Within a week, I was writhing in pain. Mom made calls to the doctor, and dad loaded me up in the car for a trip to the hospital.

As I mentioned before, Wyoming has winter. This was the first of April, and we had received a snowstorm. On our way to the hospital, dad hit black ice, and the van spun around, flipped, and landed on the passenger side on an embankment. I was in the front passenger seat and remember looking up and seeing my dad hanging from his seatbelt. We were alive, but in a very precarious situation. Dad told me to crawl on the window over the seat, and then I could unbuckle him. By this time, a man driving by had stopped and was talking to us from outside. He and dad decided to see if the back hatch would open up, and we crawled out. I had hurt my leg, maybe when we had landed on that side, so they carried me to his truck. He drove us to our original destination, the hospital, and they started to check on me. I kept saying that my dad was in the wreck, too, and I wanted them to make sure he was fine. Thankfully, we were both injury free.

There was more of situation with the reason we were coming to the hospital. The abdominal pain was excruciating, and my incision was started to come apart. After testing, it came back that I had a bowel obstruction which is a complication from the surgery. Also, the incision was not healing because of the chemotherapy interference. It lowers the white blood cells which are supposed to help in the healing process, and it is possible I had attracted some kind of infection.

I was about to hit rock bottom, and I am pretty sure my family was about to hit the superhero status. I Corinthians 10:13 says “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” How can one verse say so much about our God, our Christian lives, and the trials that come our way?

The Pink Stuff

9/26/18

The list of my activities in the new school: choir, volleyball, basketball, and track. Singing, cleaning, and youth activities were added to my list for the new church. The new home brought a new room with organizing my clothes and shoes and doing my homework. My parents worked at the church and for the school district. By the beginning of our second year in Wyoming, my brother and I were starting school again in eighth grade and sixth grade in the same building. Our youngest brother spent time with another family in the church during the day until he would start school the next year.

Winter came, and we were still getting used to the first snow falling in October. It was pretty hard spending so much time indoors, so my brother started Spelling Bee competitions which we worked on at home. He was doing very well. In addition, we quickly found ourselves learning to ski as a family. These Texans caught on a little, and soon enjoyed the snowy outdoor life. In February, I felt this weird hard spot in my lower abdomen. Mom and I talked about it and decided that we would see if it was just a part of being a teenage girl.

March 1990

Within a few weeks, I woke up on a Monday morning and did not feel well enough to go to school. The flu, that is what it was. Achy and feeling pretty wiped out. My mom said I could stay home from school, and we went to the doctor. The pediatrician did not seem concerned until my mom mentioned that I had this hard spot in my stomach, and maybe he should check it out. After the examination of my stomach, he said that I was either 3 months pregnant, or I had a tumor. My mom’s eyes got huge and she firmly said, “She is not pregnant.” Ask mom, I probably looked exactly like her, because I immediately said, “I am not pregnant; I don’t even have a boyfriend!” This was verbalized partly because there were cute guys at school but I knew “none of them liked me.”

The doctor said that we would need to do a CT scan to see what we were dealing with. He sent us home with this awful pink drink that made me gag. I could not believe that any medical concern would require me to drink this awful stuff, and furthermore there was absolutely nothing wrong with me! The next morning after downing only a little bit of the pink stuff, we arrived at the hospital, and the nurses told me I have to drink more, because I did not finish the first one. I was not having it, but I did what I could to get by, and they took me back. I was in a new world, surrounded by all these machines, and once I got back there, they injected more dye in my veins through a needle.

After the whole ordeal, there was a waiting period, and my pediatrician came and got us. I remember so vividly walking into a dark room with films hanging up all over on glass walls. The doctor began to explain what each of the pictures were, and I realized at that moment this was not a good situation. Those pictures in front of me and the explanation from the doctor were going to change my thirteen-year-old life forever. I was totally unaware of that.

The pictures showed me black blobs. I remember the doctor explaining to us where a certain organ was, “and surrounding it we see there is a tumor.” He said that about all my abdominal organs. In my mind, I deducted that we could not see anything because of the “black blob”. I did not realize that was not good. That day, we headed to Salt Lake City which was about 80 miles away. There was a well-known Primary Children’s Hospital which had a fantastic oncology center. The hospital was located downtown at the time, and I was going to be admitted to have surgery to remove the tumor. It was pretty busy in the hospital, and we passed a couple of kids in beds in the hall in transition between rooms. They told us that the hospital was constantly running out of space, but that a new hospital was within days of opening up just a few miles away.

I remember feeling anxious because of the results of the CT scan. I was also aware that we were about to do surgery and remember the doctor come in to talk to us. He mentioned they recently did surgery on another girl that came in and had her tumor removed because it was benign. That is what they were hoping they could do with me. Or that is what they were telling me. Through this time, I know my parents were receiving much more information than I was. My dad’s pastor friends from the Salt Lake area came by to pray for me, and I was quite aware that God was in control; just not fully aware. I do not remember thinking to myself that He was going to take care of me or of a peace that came over me. I kept saying to myself, “Let’s just get this over with.” I was so done with this hospital thing already, and besides, I had schoolwork I needed to catch up on. It is so hard to explain how I could be in such denial to the happenings around me.

Even though I was not really excepting the situation at the time, throughout the process and many years later, I learned how much my God was taking care of me. These verses below show God’s direction and power; bringing them to life for a Christian. They show us how He knows all about us and the things we go through, and the psalmist recognizes how we can praise God for those things because we have chosen to follow Him.

Psalm 139:1-5, 14

“O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me, Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art aquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether. Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me… …I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.”

Where Is That Place?

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9/22/18

Because there are so many details that are pertinent in a story like mine, I do have to start quite a few years before my cancer diagnosis. My mom grew up in a Christian home and accepted the Lord as her savior early on in life. My dad was saved and surrendered to be a preacher by the time he was nine years old. They both went to Bible college, got married, graduated, and headed out to serve in a ministry in North Dakota where I was born. Shortly after, they moved to another ministry in Oklahoma where my brother was born, and then back to Texas where they met. My dad was asked to be the pastor at a church in their hometown when I was five, and because this was where they grew up, their parents and siblings all lived in the same area. Everything was so wonderful in the eyes of a kid my age. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins all lived nearby with many of them attending our church, and there were many family gatherings were exciting and memorable.

My brother and I attended the Christian school across the street from the church. We lived one street over, and walked and rode our bikes to school and all over the neighborhood to play with friends. My mom had our youngest brother during this time, and we stayed busy playing with him after school, as well. One day, my parents came in my room, and said they needed to tell me something. My dad had decided to take the family and go see a church in far southwestern Wyoming. I remember asking why and thinking, “I am not quite sure I really know where that state is.” I looked it up because I knew Colorado and Wyoming looked just alike, and I wanted to make sure I knew which one it was. After we returned home, my dad accepted the call to the church, and we loaded up a moving truck and a minivan and headed away from family and friends on a new adventure.

We, or should I say I, had no idea what the Lord would do in our lives from this point on. I know He had already been directing our paths and showing my parents that He was in control up to this point, but at twelve, I was a little disappointed and confused but mainly nervous. Sometimes I think about current decisions that my husband and I face right now and wonder if that was what my parents were going through at the time. I can imagine that it might be similar, and I appreciate their step of faith into the unknown.

If I recall correctly, we arrived a week after the public school started, so I headed to seventh grade and my brother to fifth grade. I remember walking in after school had started that morning, and the principal greeting us. After a conversation, they took me down this long hallway and outside of Science class I think, I was introduced to a girl. Cliché, we became fast friends. No, really, we did not leave each other’s side for years. Who knew I would need that introduction to this girl that would be a support to me, and who introduced me to other seventh graders that would eventually, outside of my parents and church family, be the support on this earth to walk through a valley. God knew. He had guided the steps of my parents up to this point in our lives. He had brought them together, showed them a path to take serving Him in the ministry, have a family, and move them to a small, remote town in Wyoming. This move was truly important in our lives not only because of the church my dad accepted, but for the proximity it was to a place we would visit often. We truly had no idea how important.

Psalm 37:23 tells us, “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord; and he delighteth in his way.” It is hard to know God’s direction sometimes, but if we stay in His Word and seek counsel through those He places in our lives, the path will seem more clear to us. God wants us to follow Him, because His path is right. Whatever the journey, whatever the circumstances, whatever the outcome, He will show us the way, and then He will show us why.

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