The night before chemo

It's the night before my very first chemo treatment and not surprisingly, I can't sleep. I'm sure the copious amounts of sugar I ingested today aren't helping in the slumber department! I figured today might be the last day in six months that I would actually enjoy what I was eating, so I ate whatever I darn well pleased. My body is not thanking me for that now ;-).
I feel as if I should have some big words of wisdom or insight, facing this monumental giant tomorrow, but to be honest, I'm mostly just feeling relief. Finally, we can get this started, and the sooner we get started, the sooner it's over and we can move on with our lives. If everything goes as planned, with no hiccups and/or schedule changes along the way, August 9th will be my last chemo treatment. I'm looking forward to that date with anticipation, but at the same time, I don't want to just hold my breath through the next six months. My life isn't stopping!! I don't want to "waste" this time.
Someone told me today that she hadn't visited me since my cancer diagnosis because "people don't feel up to visitors after surgeries and things". Please, dear friends, don't think of it that way! I don't want to be a recluse for six months. YIKES! Ask me, or ask Jason if I'm feeling up to visitors. We will be honest. And if you will agree to visit, I will agree to let you know when I've had enough. Some days, I may only feel up to a five or ten minutes, but those few minutes are SO refreshing! There have been a couple times in particular that I can think of when friends stopped by (Ann, Pamela, Drew, Tony and Tami, etc) and when they left, I had a smile on my face and in my heart that lasted for hours!
I need you, dear friends. I don't want to fight this battle alone and many of you have gone above and beyond to shower us with love over the past few months. Thank you for getting us through the first three surgery hurtles and the roller coaster of the diagnosis and test results and more diagnoses. Your prayers and support have been invaluable! Now we are entering stage 2 of this fight, and we need you still. Your prayers, your support, your visits, your love. They make all of this seem manageable, like a nuisance that will soon be over, as opposed to a giant that cannot be conquered. Thank you for fighting this fight with us and kicking this cancer to the curb...and beyond!

Who am I?

I had lunch with a dear new friend today. Through our at times difficult conversation, I was reminded of a life altering truth, and I want to try to pass this on to you.
The last two years have been brutal for me; probably the most difficult season in my entire thirty-five years of life. Brutal. Suffocating. Eviscerating. As I left lunch with my friend today, I processed our conversation and realized that I had been identifying myself by everything that had happened: the shame, the guilt, the anger, the pain, the shame, the shame, the shame, the pain, in a never-ending burden that at times sucked the life out of my soul! I was stuck there, unable to move on, not knowing how in the world I was going to heal from that stage of my life. What my friend reminded me, however, was to remember who I am.
I am not cancer. I have cancer, but it doesn't determine who I am. It takes much of my time right now, but it is not my identity.
I am not depression. I struggle with depression and have hit rock bottom on a couple of occasions, but I am NOT depression. It is one of my battles. It does not identify me. It has made me stronger and has given me experiences that I can use in the future to help others.
I am not a failure. I have failed many times over, but I am not a failure. I have made some serious mistakes and have hurt people in the process. I am deeply sorry for those mistakes, but they do not define me.
I am not a reject. I have been rejected multiple times over, but how others see me does not determine who I really am. As I tell my children, if someone called you a hamburger, would you suddenly turn into one? NO! So if someone calls me a failure, a reject, a waste of space, why do I believe them? Those labels are not my identity.
I am not a writer. I express myself through writing, but should my ability to write some day disappear, I would remain myself. My identity is not wrapped in my ability to make words come alive on the page.
So who am I??

I am ultimately God's child.

Yet to all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God. John 1:12

I am a temple of the Holy Spirit.

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

I am a member of Christ's body.

Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. 1 Corinthians 12:27

I am complete!

For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority. Colossians 2:9-10

I am owned by God. I belong.

Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. 2 Corinthians 1:21-22

I am God's workmanship.

For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10

I am made NEW!

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 2 Corinthians 5:17

I am not what I did. I am not what happened to me. I am not who people say I am. And you, dear brother or sister, are not what you did, what you thought, what happened to you, or what people called you! If you had an abortion, you made a poor choice, but that is not your identity! (new creation) If you had an affair, stole from others, or harmed your children, you made terrible choices, and they will most likely have consequences in your life today, but they are not YOU! (new creation) If you were rejected by others, even those who rejected you in "Christ's" name, that is not who you are! (God's child, His masterpiece).
Our pastor has been encouraging us lately not only to know the truth, but to see how it tangibly applies in our lives. So I want to take these truths about my identity and take them a step further. How does the knowledge of who I really am make a difference in my life?

Hmm...This is a tough one...I actually thought this mental exercise would come easier than this. What does this truth look like in my day to day life?

1. I am God's workmanship, the temple of the Holy Spirit. I don't belong to myself, so when I'm choosing what I eat, how I exercise, how I care for my body and my mind, I need to keep that in mind. What am I doing with the body and mind God entrusted in my care? Am I giving it the best care possible? And in light of my cancer, I can rest in the knowledge that He knows me intimately, since He created me. He can lead me to the proper care if He so chooses, or choose to put an end to the life He gave me. That is HIS choice, because I belong to Him. So I will do what I can to care for the body He created, and trust Him with the rest, whatever the outcome may be.
2. I am made new. That means I stop beating myself up with things of old, and old includes yesterday, or even an hour ago. I made mistakes. I made bad choices. They are covered by the blood of Christ and for me to continually carry them around is to spit on what Christ did for me.
3. It also means that when I meet new people, they do not need to know all of my dirty laundry right off the bat, and maybe not ever. And I don't need to know theirs. That is what we've been through, not who we are. It helped shape us, and there is a time and a place for self-disclosure, a time when others can benefit from it. But people can get to know me, and know me thoroughly, without knowing all the areas I stumbled in, or the trials I've been through. This one is HUGE for me!! I'm always terrified that people won't love me once they know the "real" me. Now I'm realizing that the person I was putting out there wasn't the "real" me either. It was bits and pieces of my life. Not ME. I won't hide what I've been through and what I've done, but I no longer need to advertise it either.
4. I am owned by God. I belong. Practically, this means I can stop trying to make everyone love me. I feel physically ill when I know someone doesn't love me. That can stop now. I am loved enough that God has claimed me. What others think of me or do with me will never change that. With this truth, I can walk with my chin up and brush off the hurtful words, returning to the ever-present arms of my Father, where there is always love, security and acceptance.

I hope you find comfort in these words. Know who you are, because covered in His blood, you are BEAUTIFUL!

Only a piece

As a church, we are reading daily through the book of Exodus. I was reading this morning in the fifth chapter and I was struck by something. Exodus 5:22-23 says: 

Moses returned to the Lord and said, "Why, Lord, why have you brought trouble on this people? Is this why you sent me? Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought trouble on this people, and you have not rescued your people at all."

The New International Version ends this passage with a period, but I can only imagine that Moses was a tad more emphatic! "You have not rescued your people AT ALL!!!" Moses was upset! God had shown him all these great signs and told him that He was going to deliver His people through Moses, and now the people were mad at Moses because things had gotten harder for them, not easier. Moses obeyed God, and things did not go the way Moses expected them to. He forgot that he only had a small piece of the puzzle. God gave him a general overview of what His plan was and Moses concluded things would go a certain way. When they didn't, he became indignant, but God knew all along what He was doing because He could see the whole picture clearly.
Sometimes God gives us instructions and we obey, only to find that what we expected to get better actually gets worse and we wonder why in the world God lied to us!! He didn't. We just weren't looking at the whole picture. We may never get to see the whole picture, but God, in His infinite wisdom, ALWAYS knows best.
My sister-in-law's best friend is losing her four year old beautiful boy to a brain tumor. Tragic. Terrible. Heart-wrenching. How can we make sense of a terrible tragedy such as this? We can't. We cannot fathom how this could be part of a beautiful picture.
Jason's grandpa just passed away last week, leaving an emptiness in this world that no one else will ever be able to fill. His wife now faces life without her companion at her side. How is this beautiful? How does this puzzle piece make sense? It doesn't, because we don't have all the other pieces that go along with it.
My new friend Corrie was just diagnosed with lobular breast cancer and just underwent an axillary dissection. She is thirty-five and has two children, ages 13 and 9. How is this part of God's perfect plan? How do they make sense of that? I don't think they can.
But in all these cases, there are so many more pieces that will ultimately fit together into God's perfect will. I cannot explain it, but I know it. Because of this, when I face the giants of life, I can trust that I am seeing a mere microcosm of the eternal plan and that the One Who set all things in motion will ultimately use all of this pain and heartache for good.
 

And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those you love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. Romans 8:28.

Grandpa Gabby's legacy

Jason's maternal grandfather passed away Thursday night. He was a truly incredible man and I feel honored to have known him for the thirteen years I did. I never once saw Grandpa Gabby in a bad mood, or heard him say anything negative about anyone. He had a way of making people feel really special, important. His daughter Sue posted on Facebook some things she learned from him. I asked her for permission to repost those here because I believe that some of the lessons he taught her can inspire us all. Here is what she wrote:

Some things I learned from my Dad.
“You don’t choose a life, you live one”. That is the message of the movie starring Martin Sheen. I watched that movie last night and while it was an okay movie with a message of how we choose to live our lives it reminded me of my Dad.
He knew how to live the life he had. Some of the choices he made along the way were not always the easiest to live through for him or those around him but he always knew how to make the most out of what was in front of him.
He lived , worked and played hard. He gave his best to everything he did and was loyal to his friends and family beyond the hurts and pains they might bring to him. He taught me about forgiveness in the way he could lay aside the bad that was sometimes handed him.
Once after being deeply hurt by someone he loved I asked him how he could forgive so easily and go on as if nothing had been damaged in the relationship. “You can’t live, like that”, he said. “You forgive by remembering that you also need forgiving for things you have done as well.” And I have to admit that I have not always forgiven others who have offended me or those I love so I try to remember what my Dad told me.
Another thing I learned from my Dad is to try and leave a place better than you found it. Through the years we and later he and my Mom have lived in some homes that others would wonder at the reason it was even allowed to be called a house and certainly not a home. But in almost every case those shabby sometimes ram shackled places became home and took on whatever bit of beauty he could bring to it. He didn’t just stop and smell the roses he planted them, watered them, pruned them into things of beauty and he would never complain about the thorns they might bring but mention only the beauty and fragrance they added to the surroundings.
He also taught me to do my best to live up to my obligations. Don’t promise to do something and then make an excuse as to why it isn’t done. He may have failed in some of his but I saw how hard he struggled when he bit off more than he could chew. There were times when he lived on very little sleep while he held down a full time job and tried to have a little farm, which truth be told the farm was where he would rather be.
He was also not afraid to try new things for fear of failure, though he had plenty of that in some of the ventures he tried. I remember all the chickens. First he tried raising “fryers”, chickens grown then killed and cleaned and sold to market. Then he switched to raising chickens for eggs to sell. After chickens it was hogs. Somewhere in there was a short venture with mushrooms and a small sideline with raising beef. I don’t think he ever made money with any of these ventures but he worked hard at everyone.
Those adventures took place on a small nine acre place in San Jose, California and until very shortly before he died he talked about how he loved that place the first time he saw it and had to find a way to buy it. It is where I grew up climbing trees and sitting at the edge of the creek that flowed along the property. I moved there when I was 6 and left there when I was 17 and the family moved to Oregon.
My Dad also taught me that to have friends you must be a friend. And he had so many. He seemed to have a knack for knowing just how to bring out the best features of those around him and make them feel worthwhile no matter their flaws. Some of his friends where people who were rejected many others because he seemed to have the ability to see the person underneath or inside or perhaps it was their soul he saw.
I could write much about what my Dad taught me. He lived a full and sometimes complicated life but he truly lived the life he had. I love you Dad.

Anxiety

Six days from now, I will have received my first chemo treatment and to be honest, I'm terrified. "Red Devil" it is affectionately called; so toxic the nurses have to use extreme caution when handling it. And I'm going to be putting this in my veins on purpose? Really? Is this really a smart scenario? Somehow it doesn't seem quite...um, what's the word? Rational. It doesn't really seem like something a smart person would do. And yet the alternative...So I will allow myself to be intentionally poisoned for six months, and yes, it terrifies me.
I'm not sleeping well because my anxiety really kicks in when I stop, when I relax. It's odd really because I'm not laying there, thinking of the toxic liquid about to course through my veins, or the resulting side effects or anything like that. In a sense, I feel as if a battle is going on inside me. On one hand I trust God fully and know that ultimately His plans are best. There is a joy and a peace that come with that and they are not manufactured or strained. They are real. Yet, at the same time, I sleep fitfully (when I actually sleep!) and have other physical signs of anxiety. What is the matter with me?! It's going to be ok. No matter the outcome, it's going to be ok. So why the anxiety? To be honest, it makes me mad. Mad at myself as if in some way I have failed. Mad that I am incapable of controlling my own emotions and fears. I hate my weaknesses! And yet,

"That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." 2 Corinthians 12:10

Perhaps that is why. Perhaps I need to be weak so that He can shine. I sure don't feel very "shiny" in my own strength right now.

I gave you this cancer because...

One of the most common questions that people ask when going through tough times is "Why?" "Why me?" "Why now?" "Why this?" "Why? Why? Why?" My case is no exception and many times, those questions go without answer. The other night, however, as I was laying in bed struggling with some non-cancer related issues, I believe God gave me a little insight into part of His plan for this cancer.
Most of you know the last two years of my life have been brutal. I lost friend after friend after friend. The people I thought loved me the most threw me away and I was left raw and bleeding, only to be pummeled again, with a broken heart that I didn't think could be put back together. I came to believe that I was expendable, replaceable, that the world would be, if not a better place without me, at least perfectly fine without my presence there. I believed Jason could find a better wife who would be just as good if not a better mom to my children. I believed what my "friends" showed me time and time and time again over two years: that the world was a better place without me, that I caused nothing but heartache and that I wasn't worth their time.
Fast forward to a night a few days ago. Jason was gone to Massachusetts. I hadn't slept well in days. It was late. I couldn't sleep once again and the weight of the world came down heavier and heavier on me. The thought that used to be ever so common an occurrence in my life flickered through my mind. "You don't have to stay here, you know. You could end all this pain once and for all." Without skipping a beat, I mentally responded: "NO! I am loved. Look at this quilt on the wall that was painstakingly made for me in love. Look at these drawings from my children who love me more than they could ever love another woman in the world! Look at these cards from people I've never even met who would be saddened if something happened to me! Look at these window treatments that my Mother-in-Law hung with love. Look at this overflowing basket of chocolates brought to me by people who love me, who care about me. Look at this blanket sown together with love by a fellow cancer survivor I've never even met. No. If I weren't here, the world will miss me. I'm going to fight. I need to fight. If I become too overwhelmed that I can't fight for my own benefit, I will fight for the benefit of others." And then the thought that had entered my mind on a couple of other occasions hit me again. "I gave you this cancer because I needed to put you back together." "I GAVE YOU THIS CANCER BECAUSE I NEEDED TO PUT YOU BACK TOGETHER."
I pondered that for some time. I came into this cancer diagnosis a very broken person. My heart was mush. My trust in humanity, especially fellow Christians, was shattered and I was limping my way through life. The cancer diagnosis came and people started coming out of the woodwork, showering me with love everywhere I went and slowly healing the brokenness within. I'm not going to lie. The pain is still there, real and vivid at times, but I can tell that healing is taking place. I know that God is slowly putting me back together. Like the cancer nurse told me at the beginning of this journey, everything has a silver lining. Sometimes we just have to look for it. My cancer has a silver lining. It is healing me.
I would like to encourage you all to take the time to love someone "just because". Show them that they are important in your world and don't wait until they are sick to let them know. Many people are very good at hiding what is going on inside and it is very possible that someone desperately needs to know that their life makes a difference in yours. Send them a text. Write them a card. Drop off flowers or chocolate "just because". Maybe God wants to use you today to let someone know they matter. Maybe God will use someone today to let YOU know that you matter. Love is powerful. Let's spread it.

James' rockets

James likes to design ships at night, before he falls asleep. This is a picture of one he did a few days ago.

Here are three ships he designed last night. Hmm. Looks like he may be processing something!

 The big one is the ship. The small ones are the rockets. The name of the ship is "LOVE YOU".

 Another ship with guns all around it.

A third ship.