Skip to main content

Am I All In?

Here I am day #89 cancer survivor and I am all in.  I have walked these days with much soul searching and solitude.  I never could have predicted the particular paths that I have wandered down.  So much of the journey has been in unknown territory.  I have often heard how the cancer I had "was so different, very rare, not typical, and perhaps at best a very early cancer."  I have had multiple scans, both inside and outside of my body, and a total of 3 surgeries.  All of which have brought me back full circle to the fact that I did have a Left Fallopian tube cancer, but that has been surgically removed with my total hysterectomy.  I have been all in with the various plans that have been proposed to me, but today, there were more choices for me to personally make, with the options presented.  But to choose means that I will have to be all in. . . and so I wonder, am I really all in?

 The very word of cancer brings with it shock, fear, anxiety and dread.  No one can ever be prepared to hear it fully.  Your very enemy is an unseen foe, yet harbored within your innermost self.  It often is silently doing its damage as you go somewhat naively about your days, until your body's defenses begin to react.  It's a mystery of how the cancer got there, and it is even more of mystery when it seems that "all the cancer is gone."  Cancer answers to no one, has no need to explain itself and offers no guarantees.  It is a difficult foe to embrace, it seems to be the biting serpent . . . 
I could not walk these days without recognizing God the Healer in all of this.  I am constantly reminded with the harshness and suffering in life, comes grace and salvation.  The infant nation of Israel experienced this with just a glance toward God that would rescue them from the fiery serpents that had come upon them because of their complaining and grumbling about God; the very One who had saved them, could save them and would forever save them.  I too have done my share of complaining about particular life situations, but have come to realize all that has done is to create within me an even safer harbor for the evil of cancer to spawn.  Yet, God in His mercy responds to my cries, as He did to Moses' plea of intervention for his people.  My faith too is just a look Upward.  Words lack in expressing my gratitude and thankfulness for His healing mercies, how can help but not be all in?  

I love digging out old books of my Daddio.  I usually look first to see what notes he has scribbled in the margins or what passages he has underlined with his blue fountain ink pen. I have particularly enjoyed the one now by Dr. Joseph Parker, which probably was one of my Dad's initial books for his library, as I see a much clearer signature of "Robert Strubhar" in the front of the book.  I like what Dr. Parker writes,  

"To complain is to be atheistic, to murmur is to throw down the altar, to adopt a reproachful tone regarding the necessary education of life is to challenge divine wisdom. . . Fretfulness always brings its own biting serpent along with it. . . There is always something worse than we have yet experienced. . . There is always some lower depth, always some keener bite, always some more painful sting, always some hotter hell.  Take care how you treat life." (People's Bible, p. 292)   


So am I all in?  How can I not be, realizing that the days ahead are not up to me?  Each day I awaken is one more day of grace and healing, every breath a gift.  Being all in is one more chance to look up and live . . . 
"Then the Lord said to Moses, "Make a fiery serpent and set it on a standard, and it shall come about that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he shall live."
(Numbers 21:8)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

But . . .

  I had to pause for a moment, as I began reading the text this early morning.  But they, our fathers, acted arrogantly:  they became stubborn and would not listen to Thy commandments."  (Nehemiah 9:18).    How often do I find myself verbalizing "but? what about? what then? what if? really?" All the phrases that feed doubt and angst into my life are found in that one conjunction.  Memory stands as the faithful argument against it, but when faced with future days all seems easily forgotten.  This verse comes to a people who had returned to their homeland after being ravaged and exiled by foreign powers.  Nehemiah is reminding them of who they are, and especially of their one and only God who has forever been faithful to them despite  their faithlessness and wrongdoing.  He reminds them how God is a God of forgiveness, slow to anger, longsuffering, overflowing with lovingkindness, never forsaking them even when He was totally forgott...
Post a Comment
Read more

Summer Breeze

  Gypsy Rose immediately prances to the back door as she hears her name.  We are ready for our morning walk, which has started later than usual, since I have some of these summer days off.  But it is still early enough to catch the morning breeze.  Walking south, I am refreshed by feeling the gentle wind all around me, it's a cool wrap in contrast to the summer sun.  But it all seems to disappear as I turn the corner and head west, my summer breeze is gone.  I am at a loss for it even as I continue north and east.  It's only as I begin the southern sidewalks back home that I am met with the blissful breeze.  I realize that though I wasn't feeling it for most of my steps, it was there all along, I just had to turn the right direction to get relief . . .  Sometimes, that is how my relationship with God seems.  Yes, I know He is ever near and is with me, but I don't feel that fact.  Sometimes my prayers seem to be in a vacuum, and I'm ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Brief Moments of Grace

  "But now for a brief moment grace has been shown from the Lord our God, to leave us an escaped remnant and to give us a peg in His holy place,  that our God may enlighten our eyes and grant us a  little reviving in our bondage." (Ezra 9:8)   Summer welcomes me today with a cloudy cool morning and a subtle fresh breeze.  The day is probably teasing me with moderate temperatures before it will launch into more robust sunlight and heat.  The scorching temperatures have given an abundance of tomatoes, bush beans and yellow squash in my garden, while tormenting the kale, cilantro, spinach and herbs.  My refreshment is found swimming laps in the pool and teaching or rather reminding Gypsy Rose to stay in her lane while we swim together.  Days seem to run together, slip away too fast, as I often feel locked in a routine of sleep, work, cook, repeat. I know that I need to pause and reflect, because even in that daily ritual are God's brief moments of gr...
Post a Comment
Read more