Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Life in Cancer

There is life in cancer.  This might sound weird to some but it is true.  You have to see it and choose it.  As a mom of two young kids at the time of my breast cancer diagnosis I was terrified of dying from my cancer.  It was once I truly believed that God was using my cancer for His glory to help others and would carry me with His grace that I could see that there was life in my cancer.  I cannot say that over the past 5 years of my cancer journey (I was diagnosed in 2011) that I have seen life in my cancer every single day or that it has been a picnic.  It is a roller coaster and you can only take things day by day and sometimes even hour by hour.  But, it CAN be done.  And honestly it can only be done with Christ. 

People often tell me that I am the strongest person they know, and was called a real life Wonder Woman.  While I love that as I am a Huge Wonder Woman fan, I cannot take credit for this strength.  I wish I could and when I was younger I thought my strength was mine that I was a "badass".  It is now with maturity and spirituality that I can say my strength is not my own, it is Christ.  God has given me my strength, has made it possible for me to go through aggressive chemo not once but 4 times!  To go through horribly painful radiation when I didn't think I could go on, to be disfigured for over a year from a mastectomy and all the awful side effects of the medication and treatments.  And as awful as it was for me, it wasn't what it was predicted to be by the doctors and statistics because God covered and carried me with His grace.

We have all heard that God doesn't give us more than we can handle right?  And there are times where we tell Him that we can't handle anymore, we can with His help.  I have felt that I was at my limit so many times.  All I can say is I thank God for God.  I can't survive life much less a horrific disease without Him. 

There is life in my cancer because of Christ.  I am alive to enjoy my children and my friends and family.  I am still in chronic pain and have to monitor my cancer but there is life.  I go to church, I read my bible and even on my bad days I see that there is life in my cancer every time I see the people I have brought back to Christ.  Seeing my children go to Sunday school, talking about how God has helped me in my cancer with others.  Life is more than a day you are alive, life is seeing God's blessings all around us.

You can survive cancer.  But you can't do it alone.