Tis the Season

Col. 3:15 “And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful.”

Tis the Season

As the Christmas season unravels, starting with Thanksgiving, compassion rolls out like a red carpet. People start donating to charities but then there are posts on facebook of who NOT to give your hard earned money to; that’s the joy of the season. We are so desensitized and so ‘well informed’ that people out in the world get no help at all because they’re being told to pick and choose wisely who you give to during this season. 

Over the weekend I had a welcomed surprise. My niece sent money directly to my PayPal account. I cried because this girl is a hard-working young mother, cleaning houses for a living and took the time and money out of her funds to help me.  She just never stops amazing me with her compassion. I have another friend who has gone above and beyond on the compassion for Joni and helps so often, I feel spoiled. I have many amazing friends who have reached out to help me and the only way to thank them is… my survival and my continued positive uplifting writing. I call them my Spiritual Family because they wrap their love around me and blanket me with support.

Yes, there are people out in the world who care about other people but I’ve found that the algorithm of the Facebook feed shows the dimly lit pulse of the world and where it stands. Recently I’ve had to limit my time on the social media platform because sadly the heartbeat has flatlined across the board.

I do see positive in the world so I’m not just focused on the negative aspect. If I had to do a percentage, I’d say eighty percent negative, twenty percent positive. Yes, I feel that is how bad we’ve become. Hopefully, over the Christmas season, I’ll see a shift of great magnitude. The darkness cannot win.

When people tune into facebook I want to be the one bright spot they see. I had planned an altogether different post but scrapped it because to me it felt full of negativity, and I am in no way about negativity. I almost feel guilty for feeling so good when I’ve had the diagnosis of a lifetime that would have others crumbling. Again, that is not me, I don’t give up that easily.

For four years I struggled with the bone-crunching of arthritis, years before that I fought the debilitating depression battle and the angst of anxiety battle. I clawed my way out of the darkness that had a tight hold on me only to find myself face to face with the diagnosis that cripples people to the core. People were full of advice on what worked for them, pills, drugs, etc. but since I was a young girl I shunned drugs after surviving an epic battle of drug and alcohol addiction by the time I was twenty-one. You see, I’ve been in a raging war all of my life FOR my life and now I’m feeling great without the use of drugs and I feel like I need to shout from the rooftops the positive change that has washed over me and will carry me into the new year!

My success is not bragging, it’s not boasting, it is LIVING and surviving! Now don’t get me wrong, there is a force out there that tries to take my eyes off of the Lord during these times but the more I focus on God the more cleansed I feel. I wrote a post last week about changing or staying the same, and I find that with CHANGE everything, and I mean EVERY-THING, changed for me. 

If you’re out there struggling in pain, with non-weightloss, with migraines, or with a stagnant life and you feel like you’ve changed, then take notice of what you HAVEN’T changed. Maybe you’ve lied to yourself and tell yourself that you’ve changed but as you still overindulge, knock back alcohol, or feel like the change is getting you nowhere, maybe you need to do a reassessment of what you FEEL you’ve changed. Write it out and tell yourself the truth.

Tis the season to reflect on another year that the Lord has given you. Have you done everything you wanted to do, to change? Are you happy with everything the way it is, and don’t lie to yourself because you’re only cheating yourself? Maybe you haven’t been given a diagnosis of an illness that has taken your world by storm but are you not worth the change? Or will you wait until the New Year to make a bungled resolution? If you were given one month to live, what would you change? That is more than likely the part of you that you believed you changed.

Every aspect of my perspective on life has changed in this past year. Everything has shifted and I’m leaving no stone unturned. Now as I go into the New Year, I’m reaping the rewards of painless living. My wish for you this Christmas is that you embrace the change that is inevitable as we go into the New Year. My hope for you is that you scrutinize your life as much as you dissect the wrongs of the world and other people. Find within yourself a comforting place of healing and take hold of the real change in your life that will lay you at serenity’s door.

Phil. 1:2 “Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.”

I Can Hear Them Now

2 Cor. 1:5 “For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ.”

I Can Hear Them Now

I can hear them now after telling my family of my cancer diagnosis. I understand the biopsy is needed to confirm the truth if that makes you feel better, but Breasts Specialists would NOT say the word ‘cancer’ if they thought one iota of cancer not being present. 

I can hear them now, hasn’t this girl already been through so much? Let me assure you, the answer is no! If you read my blog from the past eight years you’ll see that I’ve been through a ton of stuff from my husband going completely blind to his miraculous regaining of his eyesight, to my hefty back arthritis right up to my diagnosis of the ‘C’ word.

Now if you look at my life from birth up until now I might see a few people reaching for a towel to dry the sweat from their eyes.

‘You should stop with the pity party on facebook’ an unintentional hurtful comment that cut to the bone. I’ve been trying to give my family clues and hints (I changed both profile pics to the Breast Cancer symbolism). Just so you know, I have a facebook account where I’m lucky if I have 40 friends. It’s for family, my blood family. I have a Writing FB account for my writing and my Spiritual Family! Two different names, two different people in my eyes, but the prognosis the same for both. 

Pity Party? Is crying out for my family a pity party? Is wanting them to just feel my pain and love me in some way a pity party? Let me tell you, my niece was the ONLY one to pick up my messages, messaged me and google searched me to see ‘if I was still writing’ and guess what, she found out, without me opening my mouth.

I started this post before my oncologist visit yesterday. I notified family members that I wanted to know my business and like cockroaches afraid of the light, they scurried away from me instead of to me to lend support. 

My beautiful niece is about the only one 100% behind me on my thoughts and the route I want to take. It was obvious the Oncologists had a different route in mind and wasn't open to ANYTHING I was saying. Absolutely nothing!

I went in full of HOPE and positive thoughts that I was going to beat this and that we’d fight together in seeing the healing outcome. Three ladies surrounded me in cult fashion, the doctor, a navigator who’d then guide me to what the doctor just said and an observer. She confirmed that it was cancer, that it was small and treatable if we attack it now. But the mere mention of turmeric and holistic healing she became defensive as if on a battleground and SHE was the one in control, not me, not God, not plentiful, bountiful, healing, medicinal herbs!

She wanted to examine me and I didn’t want it, was told on Monday that this was JUST a consultation. Why do they LIE? She went on to examine me pressing on the tumor so hard, I woke this morning with a bruised left breast! I am not kidding or lying to you, no I’ll save that for the doctors.

Her battleground route? “We’ll do Chemo first.”
“Isn’t that what causes you to lose your hair.” 
“Yes, yes, you’ll lose your hair. That long beautiful hair. You probably had that since you were two.” 
Tears
Hubby, another tactic observer, (not for the physical exam mind you) piped in saying, “It will grow back.” 
“Easy for you to say, you’re a man.”
The three ladies giggled as if eating the cheese on a broken mousetrap.

I did not feel in control of my body, my illness, this was THEIR battleground and I was just observing what tactics they were going to use to fight the enemy. I was the ant and they were the grasshoppers. Personally, I wanted to be the bird!

Anger was boiling under my skin. 

They went on. The doctor spoke, “We’ll give you drugs so you don’t feel sick.” Almost a year of chemo and drugs to shrink the tumor, then they would cut what is left out of me, then they would radiate me to finish the job of ridding the field of the enemy. And no guarantees of HEALING!

“How about turmeric working WITH your tactic?” 
“We’re not knowledgeable enough in unconventional treatment.” 

Wait a minute, doctors are NOT knowledgeable about other successful, albeit unconventional, TREATMENTS? She kept looking up at the ceiling and as a person who understands and reads body language, that is the sign of a liar!

Hubby was excused from the inner circle. She went on to examine me. It hurt so bad I was in pain instantly from the pressure she applied to both of my breasts. Now keep in mind, one year of no doctor, no pain whatsoever. One week into seeing doctor’s and this morning my breast is BRUISED! 

Last week, the GP examined me, no pain. The breast specialist examined me, no pain. Mammogram squishy, no pain. Biopsy needles, tender pain, meaning it just left my breast tender to the touch. This visit, I had to come home and pop a naproxen instantly FOR the pain. The ONE HOUR wait for the doctor to finally see me didn’t help matters, it just made me think bad things about this office.

Hubby returned, for the ‘consultation’ with “The Navigator”. She wanted a PET scan scheduled TODAY if possible or Friday. My defense mode went up and into overdrive. WHAT? No talk about turmeric, curcumin? NOTHING? Just rush me into drugging me and radiate me? 

Those who know me know I never owned a microwave until 13 years ago. I had no clothes dryer, my clothes were all line dried by the sweet sunshine, I had no computer to get all of my information either. I used good old books and libraries for information! I was the picture of old school yet I was 37 years young. 

And here I am today being told, when all I’ve read about radiation was negative, I’m being told radiation was the end all cure all way to go. Hmm, I wonder why I don’t see it that way. “PRAY”- prayer after prayer, listening after listening, day after hope-filled day, this almost three-hour visit left me HOPEless! I left not wanting to LIVE or FIGHT, no, I wanted to DIE and be LEFT TO DIE! 

Alone, I’ve never felt so alone. I cursed, I screamed, I cried all of which did not feel like me, I felt their job of demon possession worked, I was now filled with RAGE, HATE, MISERY, and PAIN!

I came home ready to spit daggers at anyone who was unfortunate enough to stand in front of my spewed words. So this is what it feels like? To be full of anger and hatred and then want to spew it to the world so they could feel it too? This is quite sad. This is NOT NORMAL! It may be a normal reaction but can you imagine people waking and feeling like this daily and not because they have cancer either, many felt this exact way before, during and after the election year. Those poor souls, I feel your pain. Is this what it took for me to understand your level of slithering hate?

My niece, my beautiful niece, she immediately put me in touch with cancer survivor pages, herbs and testimony of hundreds of success stories, not the lab rats that the elite, ‘professional’, supposedly scientific pros spit at you. I prayed… I woke today… HOPE and the path the LORD has set before me. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, I want to be The Face of The CURE, not the face of the getting by on drugs.

I put it this way to my husband (who I don’t feel is behind me on this, by the way) it’s like the ice storm that hit a couple weeks ago. People were told to stay home, stay safe. (the chemo route).Wouldn’t you know it, people went out anyway? (Unconventional route) Did you hear about the hundreds (possibly thousands) that made it to their destination? No, of course not, you were fed the images of those who died trying to make their MONEY. 

Another instance, hubby went out into an extremely mud-thickened visibility fog, a day after the ice storm. He has one eye, so depth perception is already askew, but he went out anyway to get to work. He made it to work; he made it home safely as the fog (but not as thick) still clung to the atmosphere. He said he’d never do it again but I think he is fooling himself, he’d do it again, we need the money desperately, and he’d do it, he knows it!

He took the chance, he went the unconventional route but I’m supposed to just jump into the cult and allow them to surround me with their tempting fate? Why didn’t the words, “Feel free to get a second opinion” come up?
I think you know where I’m, going with this… I CHOOSE HOPE! LIVE OR DIE…I CHOOSE HOPE! I’m a Jesus freak and it will be the death of me for sure…but at least there is PROMISE in that route!

ALLELUIA AMEN!

1 Cor. 1:9-14 “But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead:

 Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us;

Ye also helping together by prayer for us, that for the gift bestowed upon us by the means of many persons thanks may be given by many on our behalf. For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world, and more abundantly to you-ward.

For we write none other things unto you, than what ye read or acknowledge; and I trust ye shall acknowledge even to the end;

As also ye have acknowledged us in part, that we are your rejoicing, even as ye also are ours in the day of the Lord Jesus.”

Like A Flowing River

Like a Flowing River

*   *   *

My love is never-ending

My prayers they never cease

Like a flowing river

My God He gives me peace.

My mind is full of His word

My actions do resound

Like a flowing river

To Him my prayer is bound.

My soul is ever present

In all things that I do.

Like a flowing river

Through Him my essence grew.

My heart is steeped in His hands

My weakness evident.

Like a flowing river

He cleanses discontent.

My body begs for mercy

All sin to wash away.

Like a flowing river

I’m new with every day.

Pss. 19: 7 The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple.