Faith, Strength, and Determination

Side by side, me and my God

Zeph. 3:17 “The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing.”

Faith, Strength, and Determination

Again, after the diagnosis, I knew what I wanted and it wasn’t chemotherapy. The days following the Big C diagnosis I did a lot of talking to God and asking Him where it is that HE would have me go. I was listening, hearing, and leaning on his promise. I knew what I didn’t want and that was to be sliced open, radiated, and given chemotherapy for YEARS then be placed on meds until my imminent death. Or I didn’t want midway through the course of the treatments to change my mind THEN decide to go the healthy HEALING holistic route. No, I would need FAITH, strength, and determination!

I felt like this was a race of a lifetime. The race where I might struggle and fall at times and would surely need God to come and hold me up and help me finish each stretch of the journey. You see, I think people get the wrong impression of God being a punishing God, one who wants to take you out swiftly because you’re a sinner. They could not be more wrong. This is my take.

When God created the world and sin slithered into the picture God the disciplinarian stepped in to show mankind the path that we should go. We were aimed at leaning on Him and trusting that He knew what was right for us. Man didn’t want a Father to lean on; man relied falsely on himself to take care of matters. Selfishness and greed ruled and God in his eternal love for what he created gave discipline where discipline was due. Then he rested, He let man try and shape his moral dilemma and we failed miserably.

That’s where Jesus stepped into the picture. God, as man, lived on earth to feel the intensity of what sin in the world was in ‘real time’. What is so ironic is that God could feel the anger of mankind destroying all that He created, but he was never tempted to be like man. That is what set Jesus apart from the selfish greedy man. Man could not, then or now, accept the fact that there was perfection allowed to walk the earth. Man was and is still consumed with himself only allowing God into the picture when they need Him.

Prov. 3:5 “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.”

I am deeply rooted in my faith. It is no better than yours and no worse, it is different. We are all allowed to think and feel differently about our beliefs as long as we know where to lean when times of trouble arise. Man still wants to do things for himself, a kind of not wanting to ‘burden’ God with his problems sort of matter. As for me, I always lean on God for even the smallest of things, seriously!

Well, this diagnosis was nothing small but I still turned to Him first. Was I wrong? In my mind, NO, I’m different. Some people take a doctors word as solid truth with no room for error. Some go for a second and third opinion for a reason, I like to think it’s because their gut instinct is telling them something doesn’t feel right. My gut instinct is God in me, holding me up and carrying me and giving me strength and determination in places where others might fall. He shows me the way in which to go and I follow with no doubt or mistrust in the midst.

1 Pet. 1:8 “Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory:”

I got a first and second opinion and what it felt like was that same small child who was on the playground being bullied. I felt like my opinion didn’t matter and I was supposed to lay down my life for this disease and adhere to the almighty doctor who doesn’t know one hair on my head but thinks he knows what is best for me. Bullies belittle and shame you into submission. Out of fear, you crumble and fall, it's the human thing to do.

Luke 12:7 “But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows.”

I went that route of the bullies as a kid. It didn’t work then and I was led down the wrong path and only when I trusted with everything in me, God my Father, that is when my life turned around. At the doctor’s office, I felt the taunting fingers, pointing at me, screaming and telling me I’m wrong and that I was nothing, I was not committing to their plan and no, they were not happy about it. Just as it was when I was a kid and turned to God, I was shunned, the doctors then released me and would not claim responsibility if anything were to go wrong. No tests, no follow through, nothing. Like bullies who didn’t get their way, they stomped off into the sunset, onto their next victim.

I was scared and alone but everything in me told me to trust in God. As in the past, I knew the path, I knew the trust and faith I needed to put in Him. No, it would not be an easy task but it was a route that I trusted in my very being, my soul was in the safe familiar territory.

By the grace of God, I was now filled with strength and determination. Out in the small crowd of family and friends, there would still be wagging fingers, taunting and unbelieving of the idiocy. How dare I go against what they themselves found to be truth and trust in the doctors. Who am I to go against the grain? What makes me any better? Nothing, she’ll fall! I allowed the doubts of the naysayers to tinker in my mind for a spell. Not for very long as you can see. Almost one year has passed and I’m still going strong, feeling great, am forty pounds lighter, and people now want what I have! 

Trust, faith, strength, and determination. They’re all yours! They’re already inside you, you just need to tap into them. It is hard since we’ve been conditioned to trust our fellow man but let me tell you this, in all honesty. You know how you have a friend that you trust with your life? You’ve told the biggest secret to and they carry it with them without sharing it? Then one day it happens, you come home and find that the secret has been spilled? Yeah, God’s not like that. He is the ONLY One you can tell the secret to and trust He won’t tell a soul. As a matter of fact, He already knows the secret before you tell Him, He would just like you to claim it, put it out there for Him to carry for you. That’s me! I share with Him my deepest darkest secrets and trust Him to carry it to my grave. He does, with Light and Love.

As I go on, He is my strength and determination. My faith is in Him and Him alone. The taunters and teasers are silenced. The naysayer is drowned out, limping along the road in doubt and fear in a sunny oasis waiting for one dribble of water. Me, I have a fountain full of faith that I’ll shower them with if only they’d be open to receive. 

Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the EVIDENCE of things not seen. (My motto by the way) Strength is the leaning not on my own understanding and trusting God implicitly. The determination is knowing there is an eternal reward at the end.

Heb. 11:1 “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

May the Grace of God be with you all!