Waiting

A few weeks a go I was on a support site for people who have or have had brain tumors. Someone posted that they felt like they did well through the diagnosis, surgery, and radiation, but really fell apart after the initial tornado passed through. For almost all of us, this beginning time moves quickly. There is a lot going on and a lot of people around for the initial crisis. In my case there were only eleven weeks from the ER to the end of radiation. Now it is waiting between MRIs and managing pain and medication, which can be beasts.

I really resonated with this person's question because I have felt very much that way in the last month or so. Being a person who has struggled with depression as long as I can remember, I find it visiting me in full force now with all its tentacles. The old familiar patterns of loneliness, fatigue, apathy and caving in are upon me. If you know, then you know. It is much like laying under a huge pile of clothes on the bed and they are so heavy, you cannot budge being forced to wrestle with body, mind and God. This is not always a bad place to be albeit painful. I am hoping in and waiting for God to bring about something beautiful.

The Lord will bring up the same scripture multiple times in a few days to get my attention. This has been very pronounced since my diagnosis. This is the most recent:

"Trust in the LORD with all your heart
And do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He will make your paths straight."
Proverbs 3:5-6


Here is a link to the Art Benefit on November 5th my community, friends and family put together to help us with my medical expenses. Craig and I are so grateful and completely overwhelmed......

Breland

Rachel has the same diagnosis as I do. Her blog is: "Breland: My journey to kick Glioblastoma Multiforme tumor's ass."

She has a video of radiation that is much better than mine, cos' she is much cooler than I am.

Temodar, the Villan.....

So, I made it through the first round of high dose Temodar. I came out relatively unscathed. Most of the battle with taking chemo, essentially a poison, is mental. I think I had my defiant crying jag the first night. "I'm just not going to take that crap! I don't want to put {explicative} poison in my body!"
My wise husband quietly replied, "Well, you can take it or die. So, you are going to take it." He was right. Actually, now that I think of it, almost all of this is mental.

I am limited, extremely limited, in my ability to comprehend the complexities of life and how to live it. I lie to myself. We all do. I try to figure out things by my own distorted reasoning. Yes, the Temodar is doing damage, but it is also destroying the very enemy that sent me to the ER in July.
I have to ask myself moment by moment in this brain cancer if I trust God more than I trust myself. Sometimes I fail like the first night of HDC. Or when I start to get a headache, or think too much on my last MRI. When I look at how drastically different and limited my life is today than just a few months ago. He is who He says He is and He does not change. And because I am His in Christ Jesus I absolutely believe He causes ALL things to work together for good for those who love Him and are CALLED according to His purpose. When I think on the times I have grown and changed it has always, always been through adversity and pain. Most people can claim this truth in their lives, as well. From the beginning I knew this path was chosen for me and for Craig.

"For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it." Romans 8:18-25