What do I even say about this day?
Today is mixed with almost every emotion known to man.
The most overwhelming ones however, are gratitude and joy.
Joy to still be alive, not just alive but thriving. Gratitude for positive results in the last month, the ability to live life to the fullest.
This is the first time in 2 years that I am going into this day knowing that there isn’t a surgery looming, or getting news that change my life forever.
Today is my Second Cancerversary!!
What a day to celebrate!
It has definitely been a wild ride over the last 2 years. We have gotten the occasional curve ball, many ups and downs, bad news when we were expecting good news and good news when we were expecting bad news.
But through it all we have come out stronger than ever before. God has used this time for me personally to be pulled closer to Him. For Jeff and my marriage these last 2 years have definitely been challenging in many ways but looking back, our relationship now is so much better than it was before.
Being forced to have difficult conversations such as: I would like you to look for love again should I die; or are we going to have children; or what are we going to go if I become permanently disabled, conversations like that teach you about communication. They teach about being open and honest with each other, even when it is uncomfortable. Conversations like these are truly a blessing in disguise.
As I previously mentioned I have been seeing a counselor through the cross for the last 6 months or so. It’s amazing how much it helps having a stranger listen to the things I struggle with and give advice or even a different angle to look at things. It is just incredible to get someone to put things into perspective and show you that it isn’t quite a big a issue as you thought it was, or maybe it is and you need some ways to deal with the situation.
As my life has ‘normalized’ in the last 8-10 months or so, I have had to look at some relationships or some things that had become a part of my ‘sick routine’ and I have had to reevaluate them, or restructure some.
In relationships that meant having a few more difficult conversations. Anyone who knows me, will tell you that I am not a very confrontational person. I would much rather shut down and walk away from a situation then deal with confrontation or call someone out.
Well through my counseling I have learned how destructive that is, not just for my relationships but also for myself.
For a long time, while I was having my treatments, it was all about making it through the day and the next day. Making it to the next scan feeling somewhat well. In some ways I forgot what it meant to really live. Not just live to survive, but live with purpose.
This past year and now coming up to my second cancerversary that is what it has been all about. Learning how to live my life with purpose again.
In some ways going back to work sparked that learning process for me. For 15 months my whole purpose and focus was my cancer and my survival. Not that there was anything wrong with that, it was what was needed at the time.
Shifting my purpose back away from myself a little bit and back towards other people was what I really needed to do know however. The season of cancer treatments is over as of right now, now its shifting back.
Achieving and learning to make that shift, is what this year was all about for me.
As I approached May 31, 2018 this year, my eyes welled up with tears. Tears of joy and gratitude.
While I am writing this I am reminded of a gift Jeff brought me on our very first official date. It was as a plaque with the verse out of Jeremiah 29:11
“For I know the plans I have for you” declares the LORD,
“plans to prosper you and not to harm you,
plans to give you hope and a future”
I have always loved this verse and the promise that it brings, but I am not sure I ever fully understood the meaning of it until I went through this season.
Just because it says “plans to prosper you and not to harm you”, doesn’t mean that my life will be a breeze and I won’t ever run into trouble. It doesn’t mean that because I got cancer God broke His promise. Quite the opposite, He used this journey I am on to teach me many new and exciting things, to point out areas in my life in which I thought I had it all together just to figure out I still have lots of work to do.
This season of my life was not a season of burning and destruction, it was and continues to be a season of refining!
“I have refined you, but not as silver is refined.
Rather, I have refined you in the furnace of suffering”
Isaiah 48:10
