Cancer with Faith......The Final Frontier

Once you have been diagnosed with cancer, your life and everything around it changes. You are thrown into a different world and there is so much to learn about the cancer you have and amidst the education you have all of this fear and uncertainty. Everything that you experience is normal, but it does not make it any easier. Do I have these fears & anxieties? Absolutely. I have faith in Jesus that he can move mountains, but I am still 100% human flesh.  The thoughts of my future are always on the edge of my mind. I think about living to see Katie, Matt and Megan get married and have babies. I want to live to see my nieces & nephews grow and I want to grow old with Lamar. This is what it is like for me in the midst of my battle. I was diagnosed a month ago and my life is completely different. Because of my last surgery, I am unable to drive and cannot walk stairs, so I am having to depend on my family and friends to help me keep the house running. My mom comes over everyday to help clean and get groceries and she gets all of the meals together that have been faithfully brought in by our church families and neighbors . I simply have to call her name and she's there. Katie is my angel. She sits with me when I need her too . She reads me devotionals everyday and we pray. She gets me water when I've drained the latest glass and cleans the house and does laundry. She has taken over well as Lady of the Manor. Poor Lamar cowers when he sees her coming in fear of what she will have him do next. (Love you Kate) She hugs me when I need one! That's everyday!

People are great but some don't always know what to say to me and that's ok, I understand.

They unintentionally make me feel fragile and that if I touch them, somehow I will give them what's growing inside me. I'm not contagious!

I have no idea what my future with this cancer holds but I am walking through this journey with my sweet Jesus by my side.

Every minute of everyday is emotionally different but during the times that I don't think I can do this anymore, God is there holding me along with my family & friends.

I'm full of questions and concern, I am even scared, but I am content! I am content in this new normal.

How am I content in the middle of this storm?

Jesus

There are many things in this life that I am passionate about, but the one thing that stands above them all is my love for Jesus.  He is the only stability amid my ever changing crazy life. He is the one that knew me before my conception and he knows the day when I will leave this earth to spend eternity with him.

"For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, everyone of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them." Psalm 139:13-16

 

My Jesus came to this earth in human form "and she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger." Luke 2:7

 

He went to the cross, taking all of the sins of the world on himself during his death on the cross, saving me from an eternity in hell. I can't ever repay what he did for me. That should have been me on that cross. "It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, while the sun's light failed, and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit! And having said this he breathed his last." Luke 23:45-46

My Jesus never leaves me. He walks with me all of the time and he carries me when I cannot walk.
I wish I could say that it's always been that way, but my faith has not always been what it is today.
I went through high school, college and my twenties not really knowing who Jesus is. Lamar and I moved here in 2002 and attended church with my grandparents. It was our family bloodline because my great grandma started the church. It was fine, but more obligation. I was working at Elmore chiropractic at the time and I would keep the radio tuned to WDLM. www.moodyradioqc.fm
Everyday I would listen to Walk in the Word with pastor James Macdonald  www.walkintheword.org and his sermons would move me spiritually and make me want to dig deeper into my bible.  I began to pray that James Macdonald would start a church here in our area. Lamar was not thrilled with the idea of church every weekend in Chicago. One day at work, Dr. Lipes, told me about a church that him and his wife were attending. They were currently meeting at Bettendorf HS and it was Harvest Bible Chapel, a church born from James Macdonald's church in Chicago. I was so excited that my prayers had been answered. It wouldn't be pastored by James but that was ok, this was still God moving in my heart.  www.harvestdavenport.org
Lamar and I prayed fervently because this was going to be a tough move. We loved our small church with all of our friends, but the more we prayed, the more we felt that this was Gods will.
We made the move and it was life changing. I'm ever grateful that we were obedient and made that move because God had big plans in store for us.
I got involved with women's ministry and we went through Henry Blackaby's study Experiencing God, and God worked a huge transformation in my life. I truly experienced God. My bible was opened & I learned the difference between religion and a relationship with God. God started really moving in my life and the changes ran deep.
My perspective on life changed and I realized that your life is not about your individuality or about the accumulation of your treasures on this earth. It is not about the letters after your name that tell of your important education, nor is it about your standing in society. It's not about your story or even about how people will think of you after you are gone. Rather, it's about how your story is swallowed up in Gods story, how people remember and think of Jesus Christ because of how you lived and reflected him. That is what leaving a legacy is all about, and that is what our lives are to be consumed with. We need to live to exalt him and to teach others how to glorify him in their lives as well.
I'm so grateful for his saving grace and the love that he has for me.
It is with all of this faith in him that I can stay content through this scary journey. Please don't for a second forget that I am 100% human. I have cried many tears because I have felt useless and I still often feel sorry for myself.  I have been angry at God for having to experience this disease and I have screamed at him that it is just not fair that I have to do all of this suffering. I have yelled at myself for wanting to be tan all of those years and laying outside without sunscreen or tanning in the tanning beds, dear God, I could have prevented this!!!!!!  I relive the moment the doctor called and  told me the words that so often echo in my ears. "You have Cancer".  I see me standing in the back yard, by the pool where I have tanned for so many years, holding onto Lamar as tightly as I could, and sobbing uncontrollably. Seeing his pain, wiping his tears. Seeing Katie's pain. Watching my parents as they contently look at me, wondering if I am going to win this battle.
None of us know how this journey will end, but God does. No matter what the outcome from the Lymph Node Biopsy,  I am still Heather. I am still the same woman who loves Jesus and is reading my bible everyday and praying. I am still the same woman that will never deny my relationship with Jesus or ever deny who he is. I am still the same woman that will live out the rest of my days on this earth serving him in every single capacity of my life that I am able. I am still............Me!