Two Grateful

For quite awhile now my life has been made up of measured events. How many days, weeks between appointments, treatments. How many days waiting for the next test results. How many times does my oxygen need supplementation or my meds need adjusting. How many days before the next lab work. On and on it goes and strangely it starts to blur together and yet at the same time it seems to drag along.  Any kind of long term health battle is truly a marathon. You try to look forward but also have to stay focused on the next small step. Some times those steps are so frustratingly small it feels like you aren’t moving at all.

I was talking with a friend tonight and sharing some of the day to day challenges and how it is a constant process of adjustment. I look back on all the information I used to read, write, create etc in my pre cancer life and now some days I can’t focus enough to do much of that. I used to work a full day and still meet up with friends for dinner or church etc and now some days I have to rest almost more than I am awake.

I don’t mean these as complaints just pointing out the minutia that adds to my “new normal.” It is this minutia that creates the aforementioned dynamic where things seem to go slow and fast at the same time.

All of this can be physically challenging but it’s also mentally, emotionally and spiritually challenging too. I have had to learn how to feed my faith without being able to attend church. I have had to figure out new ways to read my Bible and be able to comprehend it. I used to spend my quiet time in the mornings but now mornings my brain is slow to wake up and just get through chemo etc. I have had to find new ways to spend my time that also supports rest and health. The administrative and data analytics work I used to do is no longer a possible activity.

All of this sounds negative but as a I sit and write tonight my heart is full of peace and I find myself two grateful. Why did I use the word two and not too you ask. Because two years ago I was given the news that I had stage four cancer and that it was terminal. They wanted to try to keep it from growing and spreading but they didn’t know what my future looked like or if I would even have one.

So I say two because for two years I have been blessed to wake up each morning and stand on His Word. Two years of discovering what it truly means to cast all my cares on Him and to begin to understand when He says He cares for me. I thought I knew before but now I see that I had no real idea of how much He loves me. I am still learning and for that I am two grateful. Two years of finally learning who He made me to be, when all is stripped away.  Two years of opportunities to share His life with so many He has brought across my path.  Two years of learning how to rest in Him and allow Him to care for all that pertains to me. Two years of allowing Him to live thru my life in ways I didn’t understand before. Two years of marveling at His miracles or provision, strengthening and abundance! Two years of baffling doctors, nurses and anyone who knows the diagnosis I was given. Two years of loving my family, two years of precious memories, two years of prayers for so many. Two years of watching my God children grow. Yes, I am even two grateful for the hard times for it is in those times I see my Jesus carry me, comfort me and reveal even more of His love to me.

When the minutia starts to try and wear me down I take moments like these and remember all the reasons that I am two grateful.