Life after cancer

 

Kaleidoscope by inkspired and KaleidoCam 

It’s been just over 2 years now since my first cancer diagnosis. 25 months. Life circumstances have certainly turned me topsy-turvy, upside-down and every which way in between. Some days I question who I am. Am I still me?

Of course, yes, I am. But yet, somehow, different. I think that’s a good thing. I never want to remain in a holding pattern - stagnate. Never changing. I think change is good. God gave me an active, creative brain and I need to use it - or lose it! (Aren’t idioms fun?). I think the difference now is that the core me is still me, but so many new events have shaped and changed my perceptions, opinions and reactions. Different things are more important now.

Cancer cannot change the innermost me. I will not allow it to define who I am. Cancer likes to be center stage. It is an attention hog. Cancer wants nothing else to compete with it. It likes to dictate all of my reactions, my thoughts, my focus. Nope. Not gonna’ happen.

You see, I have a God Who loves me. Me! I have done nothing to deserve this love. Yet God tells me over and over and over that He loves me;  that He cares about me, and that no matter what or who or when He will stay beside me.

Wow.

God also tells me (through His Word, the Bible) that He is a jealous God. I am to have no other gods above Him. He is my one and only priority. This is not what cancer tries to tell me. Cancer may not love me but by golly I better think of nothing else but it. It shouts! It shoves! It demands! Good news? I have a choice of what to listen to.

And that is what love truly is. It gives me a choice. God’s love does not tie me down or force me to do ‘good things’ or to think only one way. God’s love has set me free from fear, free from bullying, free from shame and worry. God has accepted me just as I am. He loves me. Me - flaws and all.

Cancer has changed me. I am not saying I am the same as I was even 3 years ago. My focus perhaps has changed. I hope I have changed for the better. My desire to be more like Jesus has deepened. I definitely have more of a sense of urgency. My life line feels shorter. Much more finite. That ‘I’m going to live forever’ view from my twenties is gone. Absolutely gone. I do not know how much time I have left on this earth. I am okay with that. Even though I have always known that I do not know when death might take me, it seems more personal now.

God has numbered my days since before I was born. What a concept! It’s hard to wrap my head around that one. Yet it is so comforting. My life will never be ‘cut short’. My death will never be a shame as I was taken too early. I will have lived the exact number of days that God had planned for me since the beginning of time. What I do with those days - now that’s a different matter!

So I return to cancer. Has it interrupted my life? Will it cut short my days here on earth? Will I survive cancer? The answer for me must be No! No! and No! Cancer does not have the power to determine my days. It does not have the power to cut short my life. I will not survive it, as it could never cause my death to begin with. Has it interrupted my life? No! With God’s love guiding me, what I can do is go through cancer, just as I have gone through some dark tunnels before this. I could not see the end in some of those tunnels, and I certainly could not see the rocks I tripped over inside of them. As all tunnels are however, there has always been a light up ahead. I was never alone, and I am not alone now. There has always been a light guiding me forward. Encouraging me, telling me if I keep my eyes on that light I will reach the end of that tunnel. There is always a light if I believe in a God Who has said He will never leave me. Never abandon me. Never leave me alone.

Cancer tries to tell me I am alone. It is the only focus and the only purpose I can possibly have. Nothing else matters. Cancer is wrong. It is a mere blip on my screen. My focus must only be  on glorifying God. Hasn’t that been my goal all along? My life’s purpose? To become more like Jesus is not just a religious buzz phrase. It is who I am. Cancer is not in that equation. 

Some days I let life lose that focus. Those are my ‘bad’ days. I wanted to do -fill-in-the-blank-. I can’t do ____ because cancer made me weak. Tired. Cancer made me…and therein is the problem. I have allowed cancer to become the loudest voice in my head. Fortunately I am a child of a very patient God. Very patient. I will wallow in self-pity (usually never for more than a day) before that inner voice says “SNAP OUT OF IT!”. 

I wanted to let you know how I am physically after 2 years of cancer travel. Funny that what became uppermost in my mind has been my attitude readjustment. Maybe not so surprising however. Things of the spirit are always more important than physical things. God tells us that often enough in the New Testament (Bible). Perhaps that sums up me. Who I am now, after traveling the cancer path for a time. Is cancer done with me? I have no idea. What I do know is that it will never be the boss of me. It will never dictate who I am - unless I let it. While I may skip off the correct path for a few feet, I never want to stay on that path of selfishness and self-destruction. My eyes must remain on my God.

Life after cancer? Why, my life has remained, and will remain, in the hands of God. Cancer has just been a reminder lesson of how much God loves me, and of what is truly important in this brief journey I have here on earth. I really can’t wait to see what God has planned for me next!

- inkspired

“For God loved me so much that He gave His one and only Son, that if I believe in Him I will not die but have everlasting life.”

- John 3:16, New Testament, Bible 

“…and we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”

- Romans 8:28, New Testament, Bible

“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.”

- Romans 8:38-39, New Testament, Bible