It's August Friends

Do you know what this means?

3 years! 

Unreal. But so real. 

In so many ways I want it to feel like some distant memory. In more ways I want the distance to remain close so my heart will remember and my perspective forever changed. 

Lord willing this month will mark 3 years post cancer. So much has happened these last 3 short years. The kids have sprouted, jobs have changed, friends and family have come and gone. Everyday is going faster than the one before it. I can't stand it. This summer is coming to an end way sooner than it was supposed to in my imagination.

My 3 year appointment at Penn with labs and scans, IVs and hospital gowns, is in a couple weeks. As I prepare myself I fear the worst and still expect the best. I have found myself doing better and better with these every 6 month big days. The anxiety less, the life living between is more. The fear is less, but still remains.

A friend sent this note to me today:

"Not sure if seeing the start of a "scan month" induces more anxiety for you or if it's just a steady increase until the day but I'm praying today that your mind can rest in him and that you can release yourself from any expectation or guilt of how you should or shouldn't be feeling and just bring whatever you ARE feeling to His feet. Love you friend."

-This is my tribe getting me through. I am so thankful. 

Yes that. So much of that. This is my battle.. try to be that hero, be hopeful, be optimistic. Instead I see reality, I see my life and what it was, I see how good he's been and how hope gets me through. I bring it to his feet. Every burden, every cross. But it is still so real to me, so big and so scary, so unknown. I am not un-phased. 

Then This:

"Speculating on our future is the petri dish of anxiety and fear, and it’s probably one reason why God has not called us to walk by prediction. He has called us to walk by faith." Tony Reinke

Going back to these big milestone days brings with it so much hard, all the reality of living within a maintenance phase of stage 3 high risk of return cancer.  I'm one in the  3-5% of people that are living today with stage 3 melanoma. My specific cancer has an ability to lie dormant for 15+ years and decided to rear again whenever it may please. Like your life though and mine there is no guarantee, no safe zone. There is a higher than 60% chance at any given scan I would be living with evidence of cancer again. This is my lot. This is my story. This is my reality. I am beyond thankful that my days are written in his story and no statistic. Because of my ministry, Radiant Hope, I hear stories everyday way beyond what I could imagine. I know the real and hard in this life, it all around each of us.  It is a gift that I get to spend 6 month increments living and seeking joy, learning more about who He wants me to be and how to trust him. We are to live for today and nothing more...

"Every confident expectation about tomorrow is vain before the eyes of our sovereign God" Tony Reinke

"How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone.  What you ought to say is, “If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.” Otherwise you are boasting about your own pretentious plans" James 4

This life is His perfection, and is my weakness. Without mention of these realities my doctors tell me is without seeing the everyday miracles and small victories of Gods power over my life. And this is what makes me so thankful for today. 

“Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes." Matthew 6:35 (msg)

I do believe that God has healed me and worked many miracles in my life. I do know and trust He isn't finished with my story and I want to be faithful in following him forward. There is a sweetness in this life that I get to live everyday, even days I'm scared, He meets me and I know that HE is better than all of this I see. 

This life brings so much uncertainly, really for all of us not just me. I get to really feel the weight of this uncertain un-promised life of tomorrow. 

But there is HOPE

He can lift the heaviest weight. And one day in perfection Christ promised He will lift all the weight. 

Today I'm going to celebrate and be thankful. I'm asked a couple times a week how I am doing, thank you for caring friends, that means much. For today... I am rocking VBS games with my husband at our church. It was this week 3 years ago during VBS that a doctor called me over the phone and told me that I had melanoma. He told me this tiny mole he scraped off my leg was a cancer growing deeper than he knew into my leg. Those places you go in your memories, you can't forget where you were and what you saw. The week I heard uncertainty about my future I saw with my eyes hundreds of little hearts singing to Jesus about his unfailing love. He is always there. Always loving, always working for your good. 

My oncology team that has played a huge role in my journey have made it very clear that getting to this 3 year mark is "remarkable". So this is the HOPE I am holding onto for these next 2 weeks. God has been good enough in his deep love to show me little bits and pieces of how he's been using my cancer for himself. That part of this journey is beautiful. 

In a couple weeks summer will come to a close here. Routine will begin. I am rebel against this right now but we will turn around eventually. We love summer in this house. Friends God is so good, trust Him today. His plan is perfect. His love for you is deeper than anyone on this earth that is loving you. His wisdom is further than we can see. His mercy is endless. Don't turn the page to whatever your next chapter is without considering how much better it looks like when God is in charge. 

He is in my tomorrow, I'm not sure what else is.

And that is HOPE

A few truths I know this 3rd cancerversary:

God is only good. "Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,

    for his steadfast love endures forever." Psalm 136

If He got me here, He can get you here. 

Give people grace they are mostly trying to be good

You need a village to get through life.

You learn more everyday. Be open to it. 

Just go to the doctor when you know you should. 

Sometimes the hardest part of life is the other side of the hard things in life. But there lies the most wisdom too. 

Fear isn't real, it's just wanting control. Don't let it win. 

Your body is an amazing and wonderfully complex system so help it out.

Talk about real stuff. Ask people hard questions. Give more hugs, almost everyone needs one.