Next week is my birthday. A year ago, I was asking my friends and family to donate money to the American Cancer Society. You all helped me raise almost $5000 to help create more birthdays for others...which was the best gift I could have asked for!
I know you've heard it before, but I'll say it again and again until I run out of breath - Cancer Sucks.
I've never had to fight that fight myself. I know that I don't come even close to fully understanding the toll that it takes on your body, mind, and spirit. I know that I don't understand what it means to be the caregiver of someone battling this disease.
But I know it sucks to be watching...hoping...praying...trying to grasp what is happening to the people that you love while they literally fight for their life before your eyes.
To see them lose their hair, live in a whirlwind of emotions, fight nausea and fatigue, and just struggle with keeping the right spirit and making the right decisions - it's a hard thing to watch and not feel like you want to do something - ANYTHING - to help take away a little of their burden.
My family has a history of cancer on all sides. If I'm being honest, I know that a lot of my family will fight this fight in the future, and that my chances of fighting it are incredibly high. This is the reality that I don't like to think about.
But it forces me into a corner. And I have to make some decisions.
How do I respond when someone I love so much is diagnosed with something like this? How do I react in my heart? How do I react outwardly? How do I support them? Encourage them? How will I help them?
After dealing with these kinds of situations over and over again over the past decade or so, I've started to answer some of those questions. I have come to rely on my God and Father as all-knowing and powerful and trust Him with things in my life that don't make sense because I've seen my loved ones do the same when they've been faced with this horrid disease. I've allowed myself to get angry and honest with God when things don't make sense. I've learned to trust Him with every beat of my heart, knowing full well that nothing is promised and everything is fragile.
Most of all, I've answered God's prompting that I can't do much in the way of support, encouragement, or help without Him. I've come to know that He is glorified when I can acknowledge that and let my own desire to "fix" everything fall away. I can't fix cancer. I can't make it make sense...but I know my God as Jehovah Rapha - the God who heals. I've had Him heal my wounds, physically, mentally, and emotionally...and if I can be a tool for Him to show Himself to others, then that's a beautiful thing.
I'll say it again - cancer sucks. I pray that one day it's not something we have to worry about and, instead, we just get to celebrate more birthdays with the ones we love.
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