Grace

I feel like such a fraud! Many people have told me that I am an inspiration to them, they tell me how well I am handling my diagnosis and chemo, how admirably I am facing what the future holds, how great it is that I can still smile when my daughter was just diagnosed with P.O.T.S., while my son still struggles with his Crohn's disease, all the while traveling to Houston and dealing with mounting medical bills, and so on and so on. If they could only see me on the inside! 

Usually, I'm just a quivering mass of human flesh. So I thought I would share, in specific detail, how I handle the moments I get scared, or angry, or worried. 

Pretty!

One time, when I was getting a contrast CT scan, I was told that some people don't react well to the iodine and to let them know the if I started having a reaction. Since I seem to be sensitive to certain medicines (and had passed out completely the day before) I was nervous about having a bad reaction.

As I lay on the table about to undergo the procedure, scared and trembling, the only way I figured I could get through this was to start quoting scripture. So I tried to recall any scripture I had ever memorized, and these came to mind:

"What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee."  "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee." "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." "Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." (Ps. 56:3, Heb. 13:5, Ps. 23:1, Jn 14:27)

AND... 

"I will lift up my eyes to the hills

From whence comes my help?

My help comes from the Lord,
Who made heaven and earth.

He will not allow your foot to be moved;
He who keeps you will not slumber.

Behold, He who keeps Israel
Shall neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord is your keeper;
The Lord is your shade at your right hand.

The sun shall not strike you by day,
Nor the moon by night.

The Lord shall preserve you from all evil;
He shall preserve your soul.The Lord shall preserve your going out and your coming in
From this time forth, and even forevermore."

 Psalms 121

There was more scripture that I memorized as a child and into adulthood that I mentally quoted to myself, but you get the picture.

After reciting these verses, I can't say a great calmness overcame me, or that I was okay with everything that was happening or anything even approaching a miracle occurred. But I can say it kept me occupied as I tried to remember all the scriptures I had learned through the years. Before I knew it, the procedure was over and I didn't have any bad reactions!

During the longer scans, like the forty-minute MRI, sometimes I would be so nervous that I couldn't remember that many verses, so I would quote the ones I could recall over and over again and somehow made it through the process without moving and messing up the imaging or having a reaction, again - a gift from God!

What I have learned through all this is sometimes we want God to carry us through the storm, to lift us up so our feet won't touch the mucky ground. We hope that He will lift us so high that we can't stumble and we'll rise above our circumstances. 

But sometimes God just holds our hand and walks us through it, or sits down beside us - just as a comforter would. Sometimes He doesn't take away all the pain of the needles, or the difficulty of a forty-minute scan or the side effects of the chemo, but His grace is surrounding us - through the prayers of His people, through our faith in His love, through His word which does not return void, He is enabling us to make it when we don't have the strength to do it ourselves.

My hubby, always taking pictures!

When I was first diagnosed with cancer, after the whirlwind of the first few days had passed, I was sitting on my bed, alone, and it hit me how big this all is, how cancer kills people, how I might die from this - and it became too much for me. I broke down and sobbed and cried and told God how I could not handle this.

Then I remembered the book 'The Hiding Place' by Corrie Ten Boom's book, when her father had told her that at the right time, just when they needed it, God gives people their 'ticket' to get them through a particularly difficult circumstance, like facing death. Her father likened it to when they would get on a train to travel, the time he gave her the ticket was just before she got on the train - just when she needed it. 

So I started asking God to 'give me my ticket' because I didn't have the strength to handle what was ahead. I didn't have the strength to fight this disease, I was scared - terrified, actually.

It didn't happen all at once, but I slowly started gaining control over my sobbing and shortly thereafter wasn't even crying anymore nor worried how I was going to handle all this.  Then I got up, washed my face and headed downstairs to be with my family, smiling again. God had given me my ticket.

When I'm told I'm an inspiration, I feel uncomfortable because I know how much of a cry baby I really am. But God's grace is here, even if it isn't an 'over the top, abundant, visible, shouting from the rooftop', kind of grace. 

There have been times in my life when God has worked a miracle, but so far this journey is just one step at a time - while holding my Father's hand. And strangely enough, that's okay for now.  :)