O Holy Night

So I meant to post this for Christmas, but I'm obviously a little behind.

One of my favorite Christmas songs is O Holy Night.

I've been thinking a lot about this line.

A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices.

 It's Christmas time which I usually love and look forward to every year. It's a time of hope. It's a time of joy. But this year has been tough. I've felt a little like a zombie walking around with this weight on my heart. The weary world part has never been so real to me.

These past few weeks have been the hardest weeks of my life. I have so much hurt, anger, despair, and sadness inside me that it makes the day-to-day pretty challenging.

What do you do when the thing you've hoped for and believed in and thought had happened....didn't? What do you do when your future is probably not going to pan out the way you'd hoped?

At this point, medicine has little left to offer us. We've always believed that it would be God who would heal me, but now we feel a miracle is really the only way out of this nightmare.

Everything looks bleak. I feel like there's nothing to look forward to. I long for hope. The thrill that comes from imagining a bright future. The thrill of believeing that all is not lost.

I want people to still believe that I will be healed. I want to still believe it.

And I do.

God could still come through and heal me. God could still provide a way for me to live on this earth with my husband and have my babies. If anyone can do it, God can do it.

I do believe He's able, I just wonder if He is willing.

And what if He isn't? Where does that leave me? What if this cancer takes my life like it does so many others?

Well. I'll be with Jesus. I'll be in heaven. And people, heaven is better.

I mourn and feel so hurt because I want to be here, but we were never meant for here.

Jesus came to earth as a tiny baby. He lived a perfect life and died a horrendous death on the cross....for me. So I would be able to go to heaven. So when I die, it won't be black and dark and nothing, but a new life in heaven with Him!

There's no greater hope. There's no greater thrill.

I'm not giving up. We will press on and as we always do, we will take things one step at a time.

But I'm still reeling and still hurting from the disappointment. I'm unsure of what the Lord is doing and trying to trust Him.

My prayer is still that He would heal me on this Earth, but that my thrill of hope would come from being with Him someday. Please pray with me. Please hope with me. All is not lost.

My wish

There have been several times in my life when I wished for things that were just out of reach.

I've wished I was thinner, more beautiful, more outgoing, smarter, funnier, someone who had it all together.

When I was single I wished I was married and I have constantly wished I was a mother.

And even though these things have still tempted me, over the last year and half all I have really wished for was that I was someone who was healthy and didn't have cancer.

But today...today I wish my faith was stronger. Today I wish I could trust more and not fear death.Today I wish I had confidence in my future despite my circumstances.

We received probably the worst news possible this week. After less than 100 days since my transplant, the cancer has grown back in three lymph nodes in my chest.

It seems like such a punch in the stomach. To share such positive news back in August and go through transplant and think that finally we had beaten this thing. To think that finally the Lord had given us freedom from cancer.

I had planned my 2014 and it was going to be a wonderful year. I was going to grow my hair back and lose the cancer weight. We were going to go on a trip healthy and happy. We were going to start classes to become foster parents and look towards the future with hope.

All those plans are out the window. My cancer is back.

I can't even begin to tell you how much it hurts and how alone I feel.
I can't even tell you how much I would rather poke my eyes out than put my family and friends through more pain and heartache.
I can't even tell you how angry I am.

I feel like I was drowning for so long and I finally had been pulled from the water. However, this week I was thrown back in and I don't see a way back to the surface right now.

The plan right now is to do radiation and hopefully get control over the disease again. Then we will potentially do a donor transplant. These treatments are scary and hard on my body and will be done in Nashville. I still have a chance for a cure, but this cancer is more aggressive than we could have imagined.

I want to be strong and courageous. I want to give you scripture and tell you that I believe everything will be ok. I want to say something wonderfully profound about life that will make you believe that I'm hopeful.  But I'm struggling with that right now.

All I know to do is stand on the truth that I know.

God still loves me.
He is a good Father.
He understands my hurt and my pain.
He wants me to be honest with Him.
He'll walk with me to the very end.

I wish my circumstances were different. I wish my remission had been a cure. I wish I didn't have to walk this road. But I know who's walking with me, and I know where I'll be when I'm finished. 

We appreciate your prayers as we face this next chapter.

Fear

Fear

It sneaks in and takes hold of you before you even know what hit you.

I haven't posted in a while. I've had lots of thoughts for posts to write. I've had a lot of half-written in my head posts. But I just haven't followed through and written anything.

After it was rescheduled about 14 times, my "100 Day" PET scan has been scheduled for this coming Monday, Dec. 9th. At my appointment on Tuesday I will get the results and we will decide about radiation. (It's not actually 100 days since my transplant, but close enough.)

I wish I could say that I was confident about this scan. God healed me, this I know. But I haven't been feeling wonderful over the past few weeks and in my weakness I have let in some pretty intense fears.

I'm afraid that the cancer has grown back.
I'm afraid my healing was temporary.
I'm afraid everything I believed about my future won't come true.
I'm afraid God has forgotten about me.
I'm afraid.

Cancer is a big, ugly monster. It has completely altered the course of David and my life. It has prevented us from being parents right now. It has put our dreams on hold. It has claimed the life of my Grandfather, David's grandfather, countless others, and just this morning a friend from high school.

It's scary. It's big. And God doesn't always protect us from it. So it seems like it would be ok for me to be afraid that it would come back and ruin everything.

But it's not ok. Fear is not of God. God is bigger than cancer.

"Do not be anxious about anything but in every situation with prayer and petition present your requests to God and the peace that passes all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus."

Friends please petition the Father on my behalf. Pray that the cancer is still gone. That nothing would grow back. That my scan would go well and be COMPLETELY clean just like it was in September. That I would have peace no matter the outcome.

Thank you so much for standing with me.