Spiritually Speaking

1 Cor. 1:26 "For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:"

Spiritually Speaking

The day I came home from my first round of chemo, my body felt like it was pulled out of an ice chest, set in the car, and told to go home and fend for yourself. Basically, that is what happened when the lady behind the desk looked at me stupidly and asked, “Is that all for today?” I’m not a cursing woman but I’m sure my eyes poked hers out with the daggers I was slinging at her.

Luckily, I had taken a small blanket that Steven quickly wrapped around me as he saw the chills were getting the best of me as he buckled me in the truck. Yeah, you’re at the whim of everyone when this takes place and luckily I got one of those good men that can handle taking care of me. 

But the white dove… when he made an appearance earlier in the week, I knew he was spiritually telling me that things were going to be alright. I haven’t seen him since mind you. Things just didn’t feel like they were all going to be okay at this moment as every bone jingled, every tooth chattered, and tears, well, of course, they were not in short supply, they overflowed my eyes like the Niagara Falls!

I got home, was helped into the house, helped into my pajamas (with a hefty blanket wrapped around me, mind you) and laid back on the bed. I fell asleep instantly. I woke to pee a couple of hours later, took a pain pill then it was back to sleep until the next day. 

The next day I woke to feel very stiff, hungry as all get out because a pretzel was the gist of my food the day prior, and I felt like I was in the Cone of Silence, I spoke in whispers, and no one heard. I was in a fog. Luckily Steven had off that day because I would’ve been no good to take care of myself. Honestly, a couple days passed before I can say I consciously remember what happened.  

I wasn’t hit with a ton of side effects and chills were the main thing on the day of treatment, to look out for. I was told they’d call and see if everything was alright on Friday but it was Tuesday before they called and asked if I had found the bottle of poison I passed on months ago. It was an Estrogen blocker but the side effects were worse than the chemo Herceptin and I quite clearly told her I was not comfortable with taking them. I found an alternative blocker and told her that THIS is what I’m taking, the only side effect was a possible headache. I’m okay with that.  The doc didn’t understand why I wasn’t willing to take a prescription DRUG with an arm's length of side effects including liver damage, possible heart damage, hair loss, and a lot of other losses I just am not willing to gamble with! He needs to see the bottle of what I’m taking and I’ll show it to him, next week on my second trip of a ten-year dance with chemo. (The Doc is a he, Navigator is a she)

I knew my birthday was coming up and I was so glad to finally relax and have a ray of light shine in my window after the floods and snow absorbed my mind and chemo stole my positive line of thinking. I was losing hope and this is not something I’m familiar with! It is totally foreign to me! I’m upbeat and overflowing with positivity! 

Thursday would be a Joni day! My son was coming out to see me to give me my gift, (because he’d be working on my birthday) and my mother in law wanted to come out and see me too, because on Saturday my nephew, her grandson, was getting married. I haven’t seen her since Christmas, so that would be nice. I wanted to hear how the flood affected her little town that made National News for the first time in their lives I imagine. She had not seen any of my progress since December and I’ve come along way since then. She had no idea about my choice of doing chemo. She had company the week before and I was too shaken by the events to rain on her parade so I kept it personal. Okay, my online friends knew more than my family, just so you know!

My son got me an awesome sketch pad and an extremely nice pencil set so I can get back into my sketching. I need to refocus on something more than Facebook and just writing about the Big C. I need to focus on my passions and love! My drawing, my poetry, my gift. My story, my husband and my son are number one in my life so I need to focus on caring for them, but also nurture the passions and gifts that God gave me. My M-I-L brought me a card with money (always needed and helpful) and a soft cuddly bear with inspirational words attached to her ribbon. I named her Harmony, a grayish bear with one black ear! A precious addition to my growing stuffed family.

I was slowly feeling uplifted, but I needed to be careful because one thought, one memory could just knock me down. Saturday, my birthday arrived, I was going out to enjoy my day and have Chinese food! Woohoo! I’m on a strict protocol but sometimes the strictness binds me and it gets me down. It would take a knock on my door and a beautiful flower from someone many miles away to boldly lift my spirits! Online friends who can reach your front door with acts of kindness need their own special blessing because I’m telling you, it started a snowball of an all-around good day!!! Thank you! 

At the Chinese restaurant, I got the garden medley. My goodness, green pepper, broccoli, mushrooms, onions, carrots, and more in a nice sauce, with rice on the side! It had been gray and dreary and my one wish, my one prayer was for some sun not only for my birthday but for my nephew who was getting married outside at his family's home where he grew up. He wanted a special day as much as I did. As I walked out the door to go on my adventure, the sun came out!!!  Bright and beautiful with a little blue sky in the mixture. It was going to be a great day! What a meal I had! I bet it was a really nice wedding, too. Because of my disability, I like to spare people the burden of coddling me when something more important than me is taking place. 

I was feeling hopeful but I’m telling you it only takes one thing and wham, I’m down. Sunday it would be my talk to my mother. She is so depressing. She says over and over how lonely she is, how she has nothing to live for, life is not worth living, etc. etc. NO, no one can get through to a woman who all her life was dedicated to her husband and nothing else. Of course she has nothing to live for, with him gone, she literally has nothing. It’s sad and it brings me down, and she has NO IDEA of what I’m going through.

Monday came and I was trying to pick myself back up! I woke, cleaned myself up, got dressed, exercised, ate fruit, washed clothes and I was well on my way to a brighter day, even if the sun wanted to play hide and seek every single day! Adam visited and it was a good day, exhausting but good. I needed rest. I normally set myself by the front window with my computer but I was so exhausted by six o’clock I decided to just go lay in bed and meditate. I took my computer and instead of surfing, writing, or anything else, I chose meditative sounds to help me calm my nerves and the loss I had been feeling.

I had not realized thirty minutes had passed but I opened my eyes after a relaxing prayerful meditation and just sighed. It was a good sigh and then I caught something out of the corner of my eye. Something was saying to look out the window. The curtains were drawn but a couple of slats of the mini-blind were open. I saw something white. A mound of snow? No, it moved. Must be my white dog, Riley. No, it’s too white to be her. I jumped up not believing what I thought it was, a duck, so I made my way to peek out the window.
“My dear sweet Jesus, it’s a duck!” A BIG WHITE duck and a small black one were nestled on my lawn. Just sitting there looking around as if dazed.

My husband jumped from his chair and came in to see. He couldn’t believe the white dove and now a duck? He was scratching his head too! We both made our way to the back of the house so we could see with camera in hand what we were seeing! There they were Yin/Yang I thought. A big white duck and a small black duck.

From Wikipedia: “In Chinese philosophy, yin and yang is a concept of dualism in ancient Chinese philosophy, describing how seemingly opposite or contrary forces may actually be complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world, and how they may give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another.”

Hope was speedily returning to me. Could this be the push I needed to get me through another session of chemo next week? When Tuesday came I was almost afraid the hope would be gone but it was still there. And when hubby checked the mail there was a THANK YOU from the wonderful ladies of Physical Therapy with a thank you card. I had framed a poem and gave it to them for their office and they thanked me for that ‘blessing’ and so much more, my genuine thoughtfulness, my spunkiness, and the laughter I brought to them. I had made my mark as I apparently do. 

I read something this morning by Max Lucado: When Joseph, Mary’s husband, was asked to do something for God, instead of saying NO,  “Joseph obeyed. God used him to change the world.  He does the same with us.  Be a modern day Joseph.  God will use you to bring Jesus into the world.”

I think I found my calling. I’m listening, Lord! I’m listening. 

The Chemo Journey

1 Sam. 1:15 “And Hannah answered and said, No, my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit: I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but have poured out my soul before the LORD.”

The Chemo Journey

Preparing for the inevitable chemo Herceptin was an anxiety driven road riddled with potholes. First with the, “We need to see if your heart can handle this drug,” to “Come in the day before treatment to have your blood drawn.” All while having to say my goodbyes to the wonderful young lady who brought me this far in my Physical Therapy recovery and her team that I had grown to know and love over seven months.

A rollercoaster of emotions that I’m still not sure I’m doing the right thing but I was powering through like a champ. The heart test was tedious; take my blood, wait thirty minutes, put my blood back with some kind of drug that would identify if my heart was pumping. Into a tube after putting those lovely sticky nodule things on my chest and into the tube for twenty minutes of picture taking. I wouldn’t find out the results until chemo-day.

Even the day of drawing my blood was filled with anxiety as the lady who drew my blood was not the regular lady and it kind of hurt this time with the wiggling of the chair's arm. My arm was at an awkward position, thus the needle hurt going in and when she was done, she pressed on some cotton that didn’t feel too good but again, I was pushing through the day. Test results wouldn’t be available until the next day, chemo day. 

Chemo day arrived and my anxiety had hit an all-time high. There was no form of meditation or prayer calming me that’s for sure but again, trudge through, rain and all. I did want to go to the Mall and the Pretzel Palace where they make fresh soft pretzels. The day before we went there and met up with my son and he said he'd like to do that again on chemo day if I didn’t mind. Mind? Hubby, son and a soft pretzel equal heaven to me! And an FYI, NO, I'm not supposed to be eating it but at least I passed on the melted cheddar cheese that you could get with the pretzel. It was definitely comforting food for me in a hard time.

This was also the day the flood waters began to show signs of keeping us from getting out of the house. Hubby had been having troubles with his truck and hadn’t driven it much this winter and there was no way our already previously flooded out driveway would allow our car through. The water was rising, the substation across the road was covered, surrounded by water as I’d never seen. I was ready to cancel.

Hubby, determined to get me the doctor on Chemo Day, tried his truck, it started right up. He revved and revved, turned it off and on a couple of times and he was good to go! I wasn’t ready but he and the truck were.

As we swerved around the bend to slosh our way to the entry of our driveway, we saw what we were in for. The water around the substation was now crossing the road. The truck stalled, rev it up, stall. “Let’s go back,” I said anxiously. But instead, the next rev of the engine had us swerving on our way, up the muddy dirt road, where the ditches were almost level with the road beside them. On we went.

I had texted my son that we were on our way and would meet him at the mall at the Pretzel Palace. A relaxing visit that eased my anxiety and found me not in tears heading off to the Chemo that I was still against but trudged on anyway.

Arriving at the set time, slumped over and sad, I could feel my smile was a frown. I was not happy to be there and the thoughts of being a small child being led into a gas chamber weighed heavy on my mind. The weigh-in was grim. The hellos were stilted and the waiting for someone to come in and tell me what was next was like waiting for a dentist to yank out a wisdom tooth! I was so glad to have my husband by my side, but I could see that he too was tormented with confusion and uncertainty.

After a forty minute wait, the twenty-minute idle chit chat of the PA sent me off to ‘pick out a chair’ and they’ll set you right up. The room with the chairs was like looking at coffins to pick out. All looked like nice comfy recliners with chairs beside them for guests, but the recliners themselves looked like a deathbed. I feared that room from my very first day of diagnosis and now here I was, a victim to be sat in ‘the chair’.

As I, with a head of thinning hair sat and looked around, there was elderly bald folk hooked up by a port to get their poison. A thin young bald guy awaited his blood to be drawn and another lady waited for a shot in the stomach. Oh, the torture. I was about to cry when my doctor appeared saying he had a cold so he wouldn’t be shaking my hand today and asked if I was okay and had any questions. I had hundreds but shook my head no, tears now brimming my eyes. More idle chit chat that I didn’t hear and the nurse appeared with a needle. “You don’t have a port?” She asked quite shockingly like why are you here?
I told her no and she proceeded to stick a needle in my ‘bony arm’ and the juice flowed. For ninety minutes, with my back already in pain, I would sit as the poison flowed into my veins. I was now a victim of chemo. Outside the window, the sun briefly shone. Days on end of clouds and rain and here I was on my deathbed and the sky opened up and let the sun out to dance for a while.

After the ninety minutes were up, the nurse came back to flush something in my arm and I’d be there another ten minutes. This was almost a three-hour visit! I was hooked up to a blood pressure machine also, as this form of chemo affected the heart and they wanted to monitor me. I watched my blood pressure go from 115 to well over 140 by the time I left.

I rose to leave. Weakened, I almost dropped. My back in utter pain. Walker in hand, I made a beeline for the door, with my husband in hot pursuit. Walking past the front desk smiley receptionist says, “Is that all for today?” I wanted to tell her to go… nevermind… “I’m fine, thanks.” And walked out the door to be met by dark clouds, a chilled swift breeze and a mist starting to fall from the sky. The sun had run away too!

The chills, the pain, the anxiety, the sadness, the fear, the glazed watery eyes, the mud-puddles pretending to be roads all made their presence known. I will wallow in self-pity and figure out what I do now. Where does one go from here? 

TO BE CONTINUED…

There will be the REST of this story.
Please, no harsh criticism.

Pss. 18:4-5 The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid. The sorrows of hell compassed me about: the snares of death prevented me.

OPTIMISM: A New Day

Pss. 34:4 I sought the LORD, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.

Optimism: A New Day

For the past two and a half weeks I’ve been walking around in a veiled fog. My brain couldn’t wrap itself around the simplest of things. I knew without the Oral Chemo I would start to fail. I don’t know why the nurse assumed, two weeks ago, I would jump right into the chemo Herceptin, she knows me and has been working with me for seven months but she went ahead and stopped all further shipments of my meds and didn’t, it sounds to me, get the doctors okay. He wanted me back on what I had left here at home, pronto! And as soon as I started taking it again, my body, muscles, and brain all connected, finally.

I was angry and bitter at just about anyone I came in contact with. I put up a good front (or not) but I muddled through each and every day. If you’ve been reading my blog over the years, you know I am an optimist at heart. I take everything to the Lord and listen ONLY to Him. Not my husband, son, doctors or family can tell me anything, I listen to God and wait for what He has to say ALL of the time.

This instance was no different as I told you last week. I prayed, I heard, and I listened. I also told you I didn’t like the answer I got and for that, I became bitter and disgruntled and in all honesty, ready to pick out my urn! Just an FYI: I want the cover of Dark Side of the Moon on it. Inscription will say: "I'll see you on the dark side of the moon."

Pss. 34:6 "This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him and saved him out of all his troubles."

God wants me to go the Herceptin route and for the life of me, I cannot conceive why. Why would He do this to me? Why can’t I just be healed like everyone imagines how healing is done? You don’t have to answer that I already know the answer. GOD DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY! 

With all of the healthy eating and supplementation, my body was being prepared to handle what the damaging poison would do to my system. It’s a fact that chemo destroys, it’s a fact that we have the power within ourselves to heal so we need to step up and take action to see healing through. I worked hard to build up my immunity and it may just be time to see if it is strong enough for the poison while the poison attacks the C cells. A science project in motion, if you will.

My body was ready for the Oral Chemo. After sifting through the lies that the doctor told, I had no idea the Oral Chemo was a short term route. I was led to believe ‘that I would see ANOTHER Christmas’. Well, if I don’t go the Herceptin route, I might not see another Christmas!

I have said over and over and over again, this illness is not like a cold. You eat some soup, take some vitamin c and you’re all better. There is no clear indication that just changing your diet to an organic plant-based and taking supplements is the secret to healing the Big C! I’ve NEVER EVER said that or misled anyone to believe that. I made it perfectly clear that there is an entire chasm of healing tools and chemo is NOT the only way to go either! And also, cancer is NOT the death sentence that doctors would like you to believe it is, it’s an enemy of your system, but it is YOUR system, your body, your healing, no one else can heal you but God and you!

The women I see healing alternatively have money, the choice of fine doctors at their fingertips, chiropractors, have been to the clinic in Mexico, have access to the UV saunas, have within their reach the ability to afford all the crazy organic Plant Based food, and many live in states where Medicinal Cannabis is legal. They have family supporting them and maybe they’ve never had a life of trauma. Yes, I know, we’ve all had hard lives but again TRAUMA is different than losing a dog when you were a kid or being whooped because you were bad. TRAUMA is stress that needs tender loving care to get through and it doesn’t happen in a meditation session, or on a psychologists sofa, or with drugs! There are elements to healing this disease that the poor impoverished person has a much deeper struggle to contend with.

So with that, yesterday I woke with an answer. Optimism! I’ve had a gung-ho attitude through all of this but in recent weeks my pep pooped out! Today, my poop got pepped! Ewww. Wait. Today my perk got prepped! Yeah, that sounds better. God said to me if I go into chemo thinking it’s going to destroy and kill me, by all means, it will. If I go in with the optimism that this is just another supplement (albeit a poisonous one) needed in my healing then we’ll find success, then so be it! We’ll find healing! 

God is not a God of fear tactics and scare traits. He wants me to see this as a love potion to add to all of my other healthy eating, exercising, and supplementation. This is just an odd leg of the journey that I did not want to accept. You heard me right, I didn’t like what God wanted me to do! After asking for forgiveness in my doubting Him and asking Him to hold my hand and lead the way, He shouted, OPTIMISM! We’ll walk with optimism so I can see a new day every day and see many more Christmas’! 

I don’t have to do what the doctor says, I’m in the passenger seat of this vehicle and God is my Almighty Driver! The doctors fear tactics have me on this Herceptin for years, ten to twenty. Look, people, I’m not a prisoner doing ten to twenty years for something I didn’t do. I am going to show the world that this disease can be licked, all wounds healed and scars tended to. Years down the line, the scars will be minimal with caressing, rubbing, touching, acknowledging and coming face to face with what brought them to me. 

My mantra will continue - I am HEALED, I am Healthy and I am WELL! 

All praise and Glory to my God! 

Pss. 34:1 "I will bless the LORD at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth."

The Bombardment: Doubt and Fear

Baltimore, Maryland - Fort McHenry

The Star Spangled Banner was written out there

Pss. 57:6 “They have prepared a net for my steps; my soul is bowed down: they have digged a pit before me, into the midst whereof they are fallen themselves. Selah.”

This week and last week I’ve been hit with a bombardment of emotions. I’d wake in the morning to tears, look out the window and all I saw was a dense fog, so deep there was no seeing a light, a blade of dead grass or even a winterized tree, just deep snow packed lawn, fields and a mist.

It all began as a flurry of uncertainty the minute I accepted chemo as a way to heal this crud. If you all have been with me throughout this ordeal you’ll know I’m dead set against chemo (no pun intended) as this being any form of healing. I see chemo as a death sentence and I can’t get past this unnerving grating feeling deep inside me.

At the beginning of this trial, the only family member I told was my niece. She was the only one I trusted to care. My hubby told his family also. I had expected care and compassion to crawl out of the woodwork but say the words ‘alternative’ to a conservative nation, you’re going to be met with a bombardment of questions and doubts and a sort of wall to be built that you’re not allowed over. All negativity I tried to avoid came creeping in, in unexpected ways! 

Here I am two years into this affliction and I’ve grown and have learned so much! My diet was never bad, I’ve been 125 -135 pounds since I was in my twenties. I didn’t keep that weight because I pigged out on all the wrong foods with no exercise. No, I pretty much cared for my health until about five years ago when living in a carnivorous world finally caught up to me. All the meat and potatoes could not be excreted quick enough with exercise, that’s for sure! But two years ago, with this diagnosis, I dove into research on natural treatments and possible cures for one of the deadliest diseases that in over one-hundred years has found no CURE! 

I found that a plant-based diet and supplementation could be the secret to healing and in two years, I’ve witnessed the success of MANY women going this route. No surgery, no chemo, no drugs, just the fruits of the earth to replenish their damaged body. I tried that route and was succeeding until last year when my world came crashing down. I realized I needed more than the food and supplements to get through this and it was the only reason I tried Oral Chemo.

What I was not expecting is finding a doctor I liked (finally) and being met with lies and fear tactics. The first doozy came in the way of telling me I should focus on the tumor/lesion on my brain. “OOPS, I must’ve been reading the wrong file, sorry.” There was no tumor, that was just a fear tactic to get me to jump into chemotherapy! Then there were the months he told me my markers were going down when in FACT they were rising! 

Assuming once again I’d jump into chemo, “Stop taking your meds, they’re not working!” 

I stopped taking my meds, I didn’t jump into chemo, then the disease started gnawing at my bones! I could FEEL it, chomping and weakening me. Doc says, “Now start taking your meds again until we get in here and get the poison in your veins to fight the battle.” 

All of the hard work I did at building up my strength in physical therapy was dwindling. I at one time was the champ of the place, meeting and exceeding my goals but just yesterday I came home and could hardly bend my knee. I climbed into bed and wrapped ice packs at different parts of my leg.

Last week I hit rock bottom. Feeling isolated and alone. Everyone seemingly has abandoned me except for my husband, son, my Physical Therapists and my loving Spiritual Online family. They are my anchors in getting me through this. Whether it’s through faith, religion, or just a positive presence, these people are the ones I’ll credit with any healing that takes place!  

I’ll be the first to admit, in all honesty, I even felt like God bailed on me. I’m just dangling on the end of this thread and it’s about to snap but luckily I’m grotesquely underweight that even a thread can hold me. Doubt and fear knocked on my door and like a fool, I let it walk right on in. 

I fear the chemo won’t work. I doubt that it is the cure all I seek. The doctor tells me of a lady who has been on Herceptin for TWENTY YEARS, and she’s still alive. And I’m supposed to find hope in that? I don’t! I will not be on this poison for one year let alone ten or twenty. That’s ridiculous! I’m concerned that the chemo, as I’ve read in all of my research, will destroy my immune system. For two years I have worked to build up my immune system! As I watch friends get sick month after month with a cold, flu, and any other illness, I’ve been the picture of health except for this one debilitating illness. I actually care about living and work my tail off to secure my strong immunity, now is chemo going to come in and destroy all I worked to build up? Am I going to lose MORE weight? How much can this tiny frail body take?

Again, feeling abandoned, I prayed. In the wee hours of the morning, for hours, I prayed. I woke to this message:

Prov. 13:12 (ESV) “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” 

That is exactly what happened with all the talk about chemo. It brought in negativity that I didn’t know how to deal with. I’ve shunned negativity for so long when it beats me over the head, I think it’s personal and wants to fight. I think that’s the city girl in me, always ready to battle. Chemo knocked all my hope out the door. 

So what is my desire? To live! I don’t want to live until I’m ninety, but a good seventy-five - eighty would be nice. There’s my hope, right there! 

The realization of HAVING to go the chemo route is this. My diet and exercise can only save so much of me. I live within one-hundred yards of a substation, an element that cannot be removed from this healing equation. Move? Not an option, it’s Nebraska, substations are a part of life. Money would help too, then I could move. Then there are crop dusters, dropping poison on the crops to save the crop from bugs while damaging humans in the process. Such is life, I’m surrounded by fields and fields of crop dusters. I also have dealt with black mold for the ten years here. Then there is the chronic illness I’ve had all of my life and that is psoriasis. Sure supplementation has put it to sleep over the years but I do deal with flare-ups on occasion. 

I’ve been back on my plant-based diet for about three weeks now. I will continue exercising as long as my broken body and weakened limbs allow. I'll continue to meditate and pray. I’ll waltz down the organic route, the non-chemical use of body lotions and sprays, shampoos and soaps. I’ll pursue doing my part of the healing, God will do His part in protecting me, and my family will continue doing what they do, live in a toxic world right along with me.

I will wake every day and see hope in the hopeless. I will pound through these doubts and fears. Next week will come and instead of tears, I will hold hope instead of kleenex. A smile in place of a frown. Joy instead of sorrow.  I heard yesterday someone say that the simplest form of bravery is choosing to wake and take a step. How true is that?

May God bless you all in the steps that you choose to take.

A Dove Tale

In Texas, my dove visits

Josh. 1:9 "Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest."

A Dove Tale

I know my friends think I’m crazy, that’s a given. I’m always ranting and babbling about holistic and alternative treatment as if it is the Holy Bible of the medical world. I sure hope I never gave that impression. The first impression I like to leave you with is for you to go to God in prayer and see what He has to say about your situation. He DOES listen! He WILL answer!

Now the second thing I’d like to leave you with is timing and patience. We all go to prayer with wants and needs, OUR wants and needs. While God is all about our wants and needs too, with Him, it is all about in HIS time and not ours. Meaning sometimes we’re not going to like the answer we receive, or when we receive the answer.

When I was first diagnosed I went to Him first and listened to Him. Now you’re probably saying, “And He told you what you wanted to hear, right?” Well shockingly enough, yes and no. I had no intention of doing port chemo and when God gave me an option, alternative treatment, I listened but went for a second opinion from a doctor. It was obvious no doctor was going to hear me like God, or pay my thoughts and opinion one piece of mind. Nope, they were all about drugs and money, point blank! 

So, on I went for a year and a half listening, praying, loving, learning and healing. During this time I really tuned to the animal and plant kingdom. Whether it was my dog (who was still alive at the time), the stray dog who is still here four years after wandering onto my property, or the birds and squirrels. They are all a part of God’s kingdom and the kingdom I live in most of the time. Man has let me down on major levels throughout my life, so I have to have someone, some THING to turn to, I trust the animals. The squirrels, the Cardinals, the Doves, the Owls, the deer, the wandering wild turkey, and the Falcons; the signs, the wonders. There are more things I look for, if you can imagine, from God himself. I listen, good or bad, I have to listen, this is who I am, this is who God shaped me to be. He didn’t fashion me out of false clothing that I put on every day to prance around and show you, no I received the straight up Value Village clothing to walk around in and proudly display because this is who God created in ME!

I was recently hit with oncologist lies. I don’t know what to do with that. This is my third oncologist (I don’t have a variety out here in the middle of nowhere) so I go where God leads me. This doctor is doing an okay job, but he likes the fear tactics and scaring me and in my weakened state, I fall prey to what he offers. I’m alone and abandoned out here, I only have my husband, son, and my God. Yeah, that’s a lot to me! Besides my Spiritual Family, everyone else is just voyeurs along for the ride. 

1 Peter 5:8 “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”

The Big C is nothing to mess with. I know in the deepest depths of my soul that this can be beaten on an alternative level but funds are needed for that route, funds I will never hold in my hand for say Vit. C therapy, Cannabis, UV therapy, a chiropractor even and so many more treatments but out of my reach. So I have to go with what I’m offered, cannot afford, but is covered.

The doctor wrongly assumed that by scaring me back into his office a week after my visit that he’d devour me with fear and I’d jump into Chemotherapy, the port chemo that he’s been pushing all along.  He hurried me in to tell me my markers had gone up, and unknown to me, had been going up all along, he LIED! He lied when he told me they were going down, they went down once, in Oct., then went up in Dec. Jan. Feb.! And here I was two visits in February. Of course I’m going to be scared. I trusted him! 

He didn’t know that his Navigator nurse had already canceled my oral chemo from being delivered. She had called the day of my blood test and told me to stop taking the toxic drugs and that is what I did, the doc was not prepared for me to say NO to port chemo. He wasn’t prepared for me to ask what the rush was and why couldn’t it have waited until my next scheduled visit. He mumbled and babbled but I was not ready to completely give up, just meet him on MY terms, not his. I agreed to the intravenous chemo drug Herceptin. Toxic and debilitating and I knew I’d need prayer and guidance on this one. Lord, don’t fail me now. This to me is not a courageous route. They won.

I agreed only if, by my next scheduled visit, my markers were still rising. I told him I’d wait around for the results and not wait to get home to be scared. I’m also going to ask for a printout of the graph that visually shows me my red, white and C cell counts. He didn’t know the nurse had one printed for me obviously because again he lied and said my red and white cell counts were rising also. I hold the graph in my hand and it shows no such thing. My red and white cells were still dropping. So we’ll wait and see. Do I go on or do I TRY and find another doctor. I can’t keep toying with my health! I run out of choices.

Prayer upon prayer, tear upon endless tear, decisions to be made, give up, give in or trudge on. My doctor also assumed I meant that I’d sign on for this drug and it would be in my arm like the next day. I said, no, I want another blood test before my hookup and he said he needed to schedule a test to check and see if my heart can handle this toxic drug they’re going to pump into my veins. I told him I work on my husbands' work schedule, not anyone else’s. We NEED food to eat and he NEEDS to work, I have to finish up my Physical Therapy and I’d see the good old liar in three weeks.

In these weeks I’ve prayed. I had to weigh the pros and cons. I shared with my husband and son and listened to their opinion, I prayed, because I already knew what ‘I’ wanted but I’d listen for God…..

I woke on a cold brisk morning, my feeder aflutter with my usual winter birds. For a week or two, a female cardinal had been hanging out with the sparrows and I asked her, “Where is Red? You get him back here!” Red is the male cardinal who only makes special appearances since he was chased away by the Blue Jay family. I needed to see him, I needed my ‘other’ family and that is the ones of the animal kingdom. 

On this morning he was hard to miss, his rich red color against the white snow as he scurried around for some stray seed. It’s funny when they seem to stop and look right at you, and slant their little heads, then go on about their business, but sure enough, Red made his appearance this day, no sign of Bell his lady friend.

In the following days as I waited to discern answers to my prayers, I enjoyed the bunnies at the feeder in the morning before the sunrise. Four bunnies, all of which I thought had moved on because I hadn’t seen them all winter. Tracks in the snow told me they were around but I never saw them until this morning when I turned on the outside light to see if it had snowed. To my surprise, there was snow AND bunnies! As the sun came slowly cresting over the horizon on this rare event of a day, (we never see the sun these frigid, gloomy days of winter) my birds along with the squirrels all started making their appearance.

This day was different, I could feel it but couldn’t put my finger on it. Then it happened, a dove came fluttering down with his mate, then another and another. They always come in pairs but recently the six-pack was only five. I don’t know what happened to the sixth dove. These were just your every day Morning Doves. Then the fifth dove appeared and I said good morning to them all. I know my husband thinks I’m crazy but hey, it’s all I have these days! Wait, what is that, a sixth dove, a WHITE dove! WHITE! Tears were brimming my eyes and I couldn’t say nothing for fear of scaring him away but I whispered, “A white dove! Honey, a white dove!” I was full fledge crying now, in all my years here I’ve NEVER seen a white dove! 

My husband jumped out of his chair and slowly went to the kitchen window after peeking out my window and seeing what I saw, a white dove! Through tears I asked him, “Please tell me you see him. Please tell me I’m not crazy.” 

“He’s there! I see him too!” 

A sigh of relief. I’m not letting God or my family down if I go this toxic route. Let me tell you in all honesty, I wanted God to tell me no, don’t do it! That would’ve been MY answer, but I have to listen. I could spin it and say God doesn’t want me to go this chemo route and twist His answer to meet my needs but that would be dishonest, that would make me as small and little as my doctor.

I was told to give it a try, if it has bad side effects that my body can’t handle, then stop, no matter what doctor liar says. This is my body, my temple for the Lord and I will only do what He leads me to do. If at the last minute my markers miraculously go down instead of up, I pull out of this chemo crud. I just feel there are too many obstacles that can’t be beaten with diet and supplementation alone.

Back to Square One… the will to survive.

P.S. In the following days, no Red,

only one dove, and the normal

sparrows and squirrels attend

the feeder. Just so you know.

This little fella visited me last year

Poetry Sunday: We Are One

John 20:29 “Then Jesus told him, ‘Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.’” 

We Are One

I am the branch and He the vine

or the other way around 

so intertwined.

I am the shadow He is the Light

I fall to the ground without

                                         a sight.                                          

I am the wick and He the spark

illuminating space there is

no dark

I am without as He is within

breathless purity leaves

                                       no sin.                                        

I am the bride, He is the groom

loving relationship in

full bloom.

I am the vine, He the branch

integrated as One

mortal chance.      

I am the branch and He the vine

communal spirits 

natural design.    

Crossroad to Confusion

Exodus 4:11-12 (NIV) “The LORD said to him, ‘Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the LORD? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.’” 

Okay, so here I am reopening my blog writing again and you might be asking yourself why. Well let me tell you my story, yet again. The Big C came into my life on a black horse carrying with it fear and uncertainty. That was January 25th, 2017 when I got the official diagnosis. Now in all of my research, I learned that the C cells were awakened seven to ten years earlier when they were as small as a dust mote and no possible sign of them being seen even with the finest equipment in the 21st century!

I’m not going to rehash the entire story, you can read it here with this link and all of 2017 if you wish but fast-forwarding to 2019, after I was told I was stage 4, that the C cells had metastasized, meaning they spread to my bones, my liver and I have no clue where else. Doctors are funny that way, they tell you snippets of what THEY want in little increments of fear, so you stress and worry yourself, literally to death. But I have something no doctor has and that is FAITH in the Lord my God!

Yes, I know some doctors have faith but I can assure you, they think they are doing God’s work for Him. Maybe they are and maybe they are not, that is not for me to judge. They are NOT the God I listen to. In my heart and my soul, no doctor’s fear penetrates me so much that I override what the Lord tells me and says for me to do.

Around the time of my femur break, I was placed on (OC) Oral Chemo. That is not the same as chemotherapy, being hooked to a machine pumping poison into your system. This poison targets the estrogen positive cells going crazy in my body and attacks the little wanderers in other places.

My markers were extremely high and the doctor really didn’t feel like this OC was going to work but after a month in the hospital, the pills, often not taken on a regular basis until I got home from the hospital, were showing signs of working. The oncologist who visited me in the hospital for the ten days that I was there kept pushing for me to do the port IV Chemo which I AM firmly against. I know it, God knows it, the doctors know it! But Dr. Biscuit, a colleague of my current Onc., was astounded that the little time I was on the OC, my tumor was shrinking and the markers were sliding DOWN the sliding board at record speed!

Markers are blood cell counts. White, red, and C cells. They tell the doctor what is going on inside the body. Dr. Biscuit didn’t want to agree with me that my strict diet adherence is what made my body accept the OC so well when thousands of women across the country were falling sick with vomiting, skin problems, diarrhea, and other side effects. I was an exemplary guinea pig if you will.

Miracle after miracle, my markers, month after month was going down. August-September they were at an all-time high of 2711 dropping to 350 by November. What my doctor failed to tell me was that December and January there was a slight increase in my C cells, not my White and Red ones, so I guess it didn’t draw concern at that time.

During those months I thought I was home free. My current oncologist told me to eat what I wanted to get my weight up and like a fool, I LISTENED to the doctor! As I sit here in February all the junk food, meat, dairy, carbs all toxins I hadn’t had for almost two years were in my body doing a little dance, unbeknownst to me, with my cells! I weigh the same that I weighed when I entered the hospital back in September. So the doctor was wrong in telling me to eat what I want.

I was told to stop my supplements back in September but was allowed my Vitamins A, B12, C, D3, and E. I stopped all supplementation except two that I felt were essential, Green Tea/Curcumin, turmeric/black pepper. The doctor on many occasions LAUGHED at me and made fun of my supplementation. I let it roll off my back because I took jabs at his bald head, so touché.

Also in these months, I’ve been attending Physical Therapy to regain the mobility that I lost when my femur popped out of my leg. Yeah, it was not a simple break, it was a total disaster and they really didn’t think I’d walk again after repairing the damage, but again, miraculously, I PROVED THEM WRONG! I’m walking with a walker and often with just my cane! 

The other day was my oncologist visit. It was the first time they’d seen me NOT in a wheelchair. The one assistant squealed like a little girl in amazement! 

“JONI! What’s this? You’re walking!” Squeals of delight and smiles from the other nurses as I passed and little murmurs of “Way to go!” could be heard as I was led into the docs office. Even the doctor smiled and said, “You’re looking good!”

In the room, the talk began, the banter if you will. Him making fun of me and me listening to his rhetoric on chemotherapy and how people die without it. THIS is when he mentioned my C cells rising. The OC had done its job and can do no more. This is also the time, six months later, that he tells me the OC was only supposed to work for three months. Here I was five-six months out, still looking good for a stage 4 patient. My white and red were ‘plateauing’ as he put it, an evening out.

I got home from the visit sad, not my peppy self when the phone rang as we walked in the door...

“The doctor needs to see you again. Your markers are up.” PA says to me. I said a Wednesday visit would be okay. 

I broke. The tears that had been stored up for a few months all unleashed when the floodgates opened. I had been doing so good, I’ve been soaring, walking, healing, feeling great and BAM! Slap me in the face kind doctor! 

I was angry. For the first time in my spiritual life, I was angry at God! I lost two children and didn’t feel the anger that swelled up inside of me at that very moment. I was not as well as I was led to BELIEVE I was. 

“WHY,” I cried, “why is all of this happening again. I just wanted a break, a reprieve from the stress of healing! I thought I was. I was being misled down a path?” The tears filled the trashcan to overflowing with Kleenex.

That night I did what I always do, I prayed. I apologized first and asked what He’d have me do. No answer. In the morning on Thursday, I prayed as I always do and talked with Him. I had said in jest that if it snows on Wednesday (or snow inhibiting my visit) then my answer was to just say no, to chemo! I looked at the weather and while snow was forecasted for Friday and Saturday, three to four inches, it was sunny and clouds all next week. A deep sigh left me still praying and wondering. What was I to do?

I was told by the docs office to not take any more pills and they called the pharmaceutical place and stopped delivery of further shipments. Great, I’m dangling out here, alone. HA! The jokes on them! I AM NEVER ALONE! I have an Almighty God! An intense faith in my spiritual life! It surpasses anything in this physical realm! I know my friends think I’m crazy, surely the doctor does too, but I have an AMAZING Healer in God! I cannot and will not lose my faith!

I woke Friday morning feeling eerily good. Two days in a row of PT wore me down, the doc visit shredded me to pieces and here I was Friday morning, snow blanketing the fields, and I’m feeling pretty good. Wednesday I tossed the drugs in the trash and resumed right then and there my supplementation. No more meat, back to the strict protocol that OBVIOUSLY worked FOR me and not against me!

On to reading my morning devotional emails. I was going to read ‘Verse of the Day’ first but I inadvertently hit Encouragement for the Day. In it was a story of a woman who had in-vitro fertilization and was told by her doctors that these last four embryos were ‘inferior’. In his YEARS of study, knowledge, and experience told these hope-filled parents that inferior embryos don’t ‘hatch’, so to speak.

She was on the sonogram table listening to THREE HEARTBEATS! From the email: “As I lay on that table, looking at the glowing screen, those three fluttering heartbeats told me what a doctor had labeled “inferior” was exactly the kind of thing God uses to accomplish His will.
Our doctor briskly entered the room, breathless and looking perplexed. “I really don’t know how this happened!” He exclaimed.”

What message was I, little Joni, getting from this? Let’s look at the accompanying scripture and you’ll see/read for yourself.

TRUTH FOR TODAY: Deuteronomy 31:6, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” (NIV)

Exodus 4:12, “Now go! I will help you speak, and I will teach you what to say.” (NCV)

I closed down my writing because I thought I was done, I could move on. As you see...God is not done with me yet! A look at next weeks weather? A 70% chance of snow on Tuesday. 

All praise and Glory to a Wonderful and Amazing God! 

Just in case you were wondering, this was the other message received today. Our God is an AWESOME God! From Charles Stanley: In Touch
Pss 23:1-6

Happy Valentine's Day: Another Year

Pss. 116:1 "I love the LORD, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications."

Another Year...

It was here and then gone

the year that was then wasn't

We started off on a slippery slope

the days of does and doesn't.

I try to make some sense of it all

but memories mesh together

A sunny day here, a rainy one there

all measured by crazy weather.

Then there are days filled with pain

coughs, sniffles, and sneezes 

your hand in mine, memory blind

a warm soft hug appeases.

We've made it through some blizzards

together all seemed so easy 

fierce lightning storms and raging winds

with love, it passed as just breezy.

Here we stand once again

confusion trying to take hold

but we're too strong to let it win

Our souls should stand so bold! 

This Valentine's day remember

as all the ones in the past

The year might soar in a whirlwind

but it's our enduring love that lasts! 

To my honey! 

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

Closing Up Shop...Soon!

Gen 2: 2 “And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.”

Some of you might or might not care but I am closing up my blog for a while. I have given you ample time to read my story, learn from all I’ve shown you and time to benefit from my hard work and research. I have not fiddled around once, I’ve given you my heart, my soul, and my truth. It’s time for me to rest, but not really rest.

Some will say for me to leave my blog open so others can learn from it, but honestly, if you’re not from my inner circle, you can read it when my story hits the bookshelves. If you’re from my inner circle then you should be fully aware of my story, my stance, and my advice. As for total strangers reading and gleaning from my words? They’ve had their chance and five to ten hits a day doesn’t warrant an open blog.

My Spiritually Family knows who they are! Daily or occasionally my link will slink up their newsfeed and they’ll click and read or roll and scroll. I’m okay with that because I am at peace with the timeframe of all that has happened, from diagnosis, to fracture, to healing to HOME. When all is said and done, it’s time to write and put together my story! I have nothing against self-publishing but I’d like to go a different route if possible. I don’t know, we’ll have to see where God leads me. And no, I'm not in a hurry, I'm going where God leads, not where man or the old selfish me wants to take me.

God’s not done with me by a longshot. He now wants me to focus on me; my writing, querying, my publication. As a writer you know the rules, my work cannot be anywhere on the net. Even as an unseen personal blog my works, my words, my strategy, and my end game are already out here for the world to see, as such, it is considered published work.  And yes, I’ve done my homework on that too, it cannot be already published and I am willing to give publisher's publishing rights to my work.

If you’re reading this now, know, you are my family, my friends, my supporters and followers who have watched me grow in writing and in life. Now I am going out into the fields of life to see what is out there waiting for me to blossom. Wish me Godspeed because I am once again, following where He is leading.

I will NOT cease to exist out here, I am going to become a somewhat reclusive writer who peeks out and checks on everyone from afar. You’re my inspiration, so I need to see what motivates you and keeps you going. My writing friends will KNOW where to find me, where this honing of my writing skill all began! 

My Spiritual Friends will spot a post or two from me on Facebook. I’m not going anywhere I’m just letting you know which way my writing is heading. If nothing pans out and I give up the ‘old let's get published’ game, I’ll let you know, but I think one thing you have all learned from me is, Joni never gives up!!! 

I wish I could thank you all by name but I can’t because each and every one of you hold a special place in my heart and life. If you click like on this post, I thank you, you’re the real people that keep me motivated every single day. If you like a post on my progress, you’re my growing Spiritual Family who really does care how I am doing. If you don’t like this post and a month down the line you wonder where my blog is, I’ll pray for you, you need more light in your life, I’ll pray! If you post a comment then delete it thinking I didn’t see it, I saw it, and now wonder. I pray for you.  God was out here performing a miracle and you missed the beauty of it all.

Maybe I’ll be inclined to start a NEW blog… a new adventure, whatever the case may be I’ll still be around, alive and the woman you’ve all grown to love. May you all find the truth I’ve shown you. God is alive and still in the business of seeing miracles through. May you all learn to understand HIS time and not selfishly of your own time. Patience IS a virtue. I’m living proof that the diagnosis of cancer is NOT a death sentence! Trust, faith, and patience! 

God Bless you and me on the journey of a lifetime! 

Angel Always... Godspeed! 

What Healing Looks Like

John 12:35 “Then Jesus said unto them, Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth.”

God's Healing Touch

What Healing Looks Like

Often times when people are in the throes of pain and suffering they can’t grasp what the finished product of healing looks like. I remember the day of dire diagnosis when everyone around me wore grim and sad faces, reaching out in sorrow to offer their hand of comfort and prayer during a trying time. I made it perfectly clear from the beginning I was not accepting the diagnosis as the death sentence everyone sees at the announcement of a Big C diagnosis. At this point in my journey, you could walk with me holding my hand or perhaps stand face-to-face in a guiding manner, or behind me drifting with the dust of the earth, your choice.

I saw the diagnosis quite differently and I think my stance took people by surprise, understandably so; I saw it as healing. Yes, you read it right, healing. When I took my daily walks, my mantra that I repeated out loud was, I am HEALED, I am Healthy, I am WELL! When I announced my mantra on Facebook my friends were kind of stunned, “You’re healed, really?” Their voices came through in words, clear, bold and loud.

“Yes, I believe I AM,” was my response very soon after my diagnosis of that dastardly death sentence announcement.

Pss.121:1-2 “I will lift up my eyes to the mountains; from where shall my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth”

Some people were so aghast that they stepped back and away from me, either thinking I lost my mind or I was in deep denial. To me, they looked like little beacons of light drifting off, holding candles as they slowly floated away from me, off into the night sky. Whatever the case may be, dear friends became people I thought were friends and no longer offered prayer or support in any way. As a few folks stepped away from my inner circle, others entered, droves of people fanned in from out of nowhere, stood up and rained support on me. Not only on Facebook, where my Spiritual family dwells, but my physical family and friends I knew were all in PRAYER for me. They offered the loving prayers in their weekly prayer box at their churches, announcing vocally that they needed prayer for ME, or silently in their inner prayer circle whispered my name asking for healing. Little old me was being healed by prayers!

I understand that not everyone believes in God and I’m okay with that. I do have friends who stayed by me that offered peace and light, and that is a positive I fully accept as a blessing. My healing is not about religion, it is more about FAITH and my faith grew ten sizes in a day through prayer and blessings, in return, I prayed for those souls who backed away from me; they needed my prayer. 

Pss. 103:20 “Bless the LORD, ye his angels, that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word.”

I’m wondering if I came off as arrogant in my stance on healing besides people seeing me as if I was in denial. My first step in my healing journey was to stop worrying about what other people thought! Yeah, that’s a tough one for us all, but if it's healing you seek, cleanse yourself of naysayers right up front.

Healing is not about reading the bible more (though it can’t hurt), it’s not about knowing more scripture than the next person, it’s certainly not about dissecting the Word, word for word, and I can say it is truly not about claiming to know God more than someone else. We all own our own faith and beliefs, what you discern from your faith is where the true touch of healing resides. Although your actions are weighed, there is no amount of acts that can inch you closer than the next person to His embrace.

1 Sam. 2:3 “Talk no more so exceeding proudly; let not arrogancy come out of your mouth: for the LORD is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed.”

Healing is found by touching base with God within you. Healing is not going to be found outside in the corrupt conventional world. Medical doctor’s are aids in healing, not the means. God is the greatest healing physician in our lives. For some reason, we’ve been conditioned to accept and trust that outside of God, we believers can find healing. Funny how that works isn’t it? 

Pss. 121:2 “My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth.”

What does healing look like? How do I explain the explosive beauty of healing? Well, for one, you need to dig deep within the core of your being. WITHIN means not outside in a physical manner, DEEP within, in a spiritual manner; God, prayer, meditation etc., whatever the spiritual means to YOU. In that core realm is where God resides and is waiting for you to acknowledge Him and put your faith and trust in Him. That is when we find, touch and SEE the actual healing take place.

Pss. 121:5 “The LORD is thy keeper: the LORD is thy shade upon thy right hand.”

How do we see within all that we are? You must be humbled by your illness, your trials, and tribulation. You might as well toss pride and dignity in the heap, also. This is not the time to panic or seek outside help. This is the time the prayerful meditative mind can touch, breathe, and be one with the part of God in you that needs to be reached. This might be the hardest part of healing, listening to God, not yourself.

I’ve always seen myself as a vain woman and that was a hindrance I could not release in my healing journey until I was forced to face the intense flaming fires of pain and hell, head on...

I was walking along proudly boasting that I was healed, healthy and well. I stuck my fingers in the breast of my jacket, proudly strutted my protocol, spoke to all about my alternative ways. I was sharing physically and vocally my success of this route that God placed me on. Only when I FREED my pride and dignity, I felt, touched, breathed my true healing. Yes, friends, with the aids of medical science! Go figure! The very science that God used in creation, He was now using to implement my full recovery. My faith, when falling into God’s hands, is what saved me.

Prov. 16: 18 “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.”

My vanity, pride, and dignity all got swallowed by a black hole in an instant. When my femur burst out of my leg, in the depths of torments rage, I gave my all to Christ. It was at the very moment as I’m sitting on the side of the bed, pantyless and just a t-shirt that EMT’s had to come and pry me out of the room. Not just one or two, there were about four or five men and two women. They were either tending the gurney, the truck or me, bare and broken.

Pss. 121:8 “The LORD shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.”

I went blank, got lost in the swirling darkness that surrounded me with a couple of stars and gems in the night sky keeping my focus. I then woke to the reality of my healing on October Fifth, the anniversary of the day that Steven’s dad was released from this earth and went home; also the day that I was released from my torment and went HOME. In the midst of my affliction all of my pride, vanity and dignity were sucked up into a tornadoes vortex, to leave me, humbly picking up the pieces of mirrored glass I called me.

This is when God’s finger reached out and touched me. When I came before Him as Eve, sinful and bare, and begged for mercy. Instead of a soft touch, He embraced me, wrapped his ever loving arms around me shielding me and healed me with the warmth of His love.

Isa. 6:7 “And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.”

John 19:35 “And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true: and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe.”

Acts 15:8 “And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us;”

Poetry Sunday: God's Healing Touch

Pss. 45:1 “My heart is inditing a good matter: I speak of the things which I have made touching the king: my tongue is the pen of a ready writer.”

Shimmering reflections of pain I feel 

Lost in fragments I needed to heal

A mending touch if truth be known

Is in His fingers pressing stone.

By chance, my aches towered then crashed

A mighty sword by flames were dashed

Slicing through with torments rage

Remnants bound in an open cage.

Not being confined by a limited view

My heart beheld all that was true

The night sky opened gems bedazzled

Made whole of me the frail and frazzled.

Armed with faith my body to restore

The strength therein the open door

No longer doomed by fate I’m driven

With all the tools that God has given.

I was blinded by mortal shame

And only had myself to blame 

Shaving off my arrogant pride

Unearthed the healing deep inside.

Once I freed confined vanity

Not veiled behind bent sanity

I relieved myself of the crutch

Bare I found God’s healing touch.

Job 37:23 “Touching the Almighty, we cannot find him out: he is excellent in power, and in judgment, and in plenty of justice: he will not afflict.”

Better Days: Powering Through

Hebrews 6:19 “Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil;” 

As I power through my story, I see some as a hard read and a lot is a hard write but I power through to give you the meat of the story as rich in detail as I vividly remember.

It has been four years since I found a lump in my breast, two years since diagnosis, and one year that the cosmos sucked away from me and I’m trying to piece the last year together to make sense of it all. If it’s a hard read for you, imagine living through it and cleaning up the mess you find.

I think I want to put my husband on a pedestal for a bit. When you marry and say words like ‘in sickness and in health’, you are not ever thinking that the day would arrive and you’d have to pull up your britches and show what you’re made of. Many times its the woman who comes through for the husband and quite often there are times when the husband has to stand up, be a man and take care of his wife in ways he’d never imagine.

When my husband went blind in 2009 I was hit with responsibilities I never knew before. I had to become his eyes. I was always the homemaker but he was the breadwinner and he was shot down as he became a disabled person, dependent on the money he put into the system. Dependent on me, in hopes I would stand by my man. We sailed through that storm and came out in calming seas as he had a cornea transplant and part of his sight was restored. Smooth sailing afterward, right? Wrong. 

Not long after his sight was restored, he lost his one eye because it was beyond repair. The system made us wait two years for the coverage of the operation and by that time it was too late. 

That is when my health started to fail. Not recognizing aches and pains for what they were, we just strolled along twenty-twelve and thirteen. Not without a bunch of doctor visits, mind you, until the dastardly lump made its appearance in twenty-fifteen and it was as if we were standing on top of a mountain being forced to slide all the way to the rocky bottom.

Twenty-fifteen was a year of loss. I lost three family members, one being my dad and my hubby lost an uncle. My medical needs would have to wait. When I finally had a chance to face the music, the diagnosis was grim. The doctor’s made sure fear would win this battle and that my God was not more powerful than they were. They LAUGHED at my faith. By twenty-eighteen I had the chance to at least smile in THEIR faces showing them that my God IS more powerful than they are! God and I are winning the battle.

My husband would step up to the plate and take on the nursing and caregiving. His mind wobbled from having the task of putting our beloved dog to sleep then BAM, I get worse and too much was tossed on his shoulders. I prayed. I had friends and family praying, not only for me but for him and my son who had to take on caring for their now disabled wife and mother.

In his panic, he would wash, dry and fold clothes, rearrange drawers, vacuum, and steam clean floors. He would do any and everything to occupy his mind as he dealt with this new routine he was forced into. Like I said, no one thinks that those words ‘in sickness and in health’ would slap them upside the head full force and hold them accountable, but rest assured, it will happen, often times in a quiet day! 

I was home from rehab, he would now readjust and hope beyond hope he was up to the task. While his mom wanted to help her baby and shoulder some of the burdens, he knew this was something that he’d have to do alone. A meal here and there from mom but the rest, lay at his feet wrinkled and unable to be folded. 

Weeks would pass and he struggled to remember the water or the grocery list, or place the claw close to me, or my walker or wheelchair within reach; sure he’d forget one or two things but would remember so much more. He was fighting this like a boxing champ in the fifteenth round, he was tired and worn, but would come out winning with a total KO!

Many men will say ‘I’d do it for my wife’ and many women will say ‘I’d do it for my husband’ but in truth, none of us know what we’re made of until something tragic happens and you have no choice but to stand up and fulfill that vow you took.

The past six months have taken their toll on us but as man and wife, circumstance has made us stronger as a couple. Every day that passes he sees in me the caretaker and homemaker he married, and even more so I see the husband I had every bit of faith in when I uttered the words sickness and health. 

May this be the year we both get to dance with health, we deserve to dance! 

Pss. 149:3 "Let them praise his name in the dance: let them sing praises unto him with the timbrel and harp."