Still

Still

November 21, 2017

Yesterday, as I wrote in my journal, I was feeling guilty and discouraged.  I have learned since being diagnosed with cancer that there are several things you can do that decrease your risk of getting it.  One is being at a healthy weight.  God has convicted me of my eating habits and obsession with food for years.  It is a battle I have fought for over 30 years.  Even when my weight has been in a healthy range, food was something I thought about all the time.  

Another thing that decreases your risk for cancer is having healthy vitamin D levels. 3½  years ago, I found out my vitamin D level was pretty low and haphazardly took supplements to correct it.  At the beginning of this year, God again convicted me of the need to be a good steward of my body and I regularly began taking the supplements that had been recommended to me. My vitamin D level is now on the low side of normal. I have doubled the amount of vitamin D I am taking in hopes of getting my level to the high side of normal.

So, in my journal, I was writing about how I was reaping what I had sown.  That bad stewardship of my body had increased my risk for cancer and now I had cancer because I had not obeyed God’s promptings. I had not realized that obeying God would decrease my risk for cancer and other diseases. I just thought it was some vain thing about my body image that I had to overcome.  Because there WAS vanity involved in wanting to look better.  So, weight loss was always a struggle because deep down I knew that the main reason I wanted to lose weight was because I felt better about myself when I was thinner and because I cared what other people thought of me.  No matter how hard I tried to make it about being healthy, I just couldn’t make that shift.  When on a diet, I was eating and exercising to lose weight, so I could feel better about myself, so others would think better of me.

I don’t know why I couldn’t just obey God’s promptings to steward my body well.  In hind sight, I see that He may have been trying to protect me from disease.  And because of that, I just want to kick myself (for lack of better terminology) over and over again.  And I guess I had been beating myself up because here I was lamenting again about why I couldn’t have just taken better care of myself as God has prompted for all these years.  I guess, there was some question as to whether it was God prompting me or if it was just my own selfish desires prompting.  Then maybe, just maybe, I wouldn’t have to be going through this cancer.

I prayed, “Help me, Father, for the rest of the life I have left, to sow good habits so I can reap good things in my body.  Help me to steward my body well from here on out.”  I wrote, “getting old and reaping what I’ve invested in my physical body is very discouraging and could be depressing.” 

But God prompted a friend to share something she had read with me.  And it was exactly what I needed to be reminded of.  It was about God’s precious gifts of mercy and forgiveness.http://www.rhema.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2686:all-things-really-are-possible&catid=268&Itemid=868  (I do not agree with all the theology of this website)

This is how it starts (Well it's how the picture of the article she sent to me started.  It's really halfway through the article.  I don't even think this was the part she was trying to share with me, but it was exactly what I needed to read): “Sometimes we get in trouble because of the decisions we’ve made.  We can feel that we deserve what we’re going through, because we put ourselves there.”  Though I hadn’t worded it that way, that is exactly what I have been feeling since I began reading about the risk factors of the particular type of cancer I have.  It is described as a lifestyle and environment cancer. Not all breast cancer is that type.

The article continues, “Our Heavenly Father loves us. To God it’s not about what we deserve.  It’s about providing mercy and forgiveness.  It doesn’t matter how many wrong decisions we’ve made.  Nothing can separate us from the love of God.  It doesn’t matter what a situation looks like, God can turn it around.  The word nothing means “no thing.” No thing is impossible to God if you believe.”

I repented again for not stewarding the gift of my body well.  I asked God for His mercy and forgiveness and then I said, “I receive Your mercy and forgiveness.  Thank You, Father, that You offer mercy and forgiveness when I don’t deserve it…and I never deserve it.  Thank You that You won’t hold my sin against me.  You won’t say, “I told you so. If you’d only listened to Me.  You made your bed and now you’re going to have to lie in it.”  No, instead, You say, “I forgive you.  I’m sorry you have to learn the hard way. I’ll be right with you and take care of you through this. I still love you.” And y’all, this just undoes me.  Every time I read it, I am brought to tears.  That He loves me that much!

I am not trying to infer that sickness or cancer is directly related to some personal sin or even that my own is related to my own personal sin.  (I already discussed in a previous article that all things that lead to death are a result of sin. “For the wages of sin IS death.”  Romans 6:23) Maybe, even if I had obeyed God’s promptings as far as staying at a healthy weight and also kept the vitamins, minerals, and all other levels in my blood at the target numbers, and reduced every toxin I possibly could, maybe I still would have ended up with cancer.  I can’t determine that now.  But this is something that has been bothering me since I’ve learned the risk factors of the particular cancer that I have …that maybe, just maybe there was a chance that I could have prevented it.  I couldn’t get past that.  Whether it was real guilt or false guilt, the words from that article are just what I needed to read.  That even IF the cancer is due to my own neglect (sin), THEN God STILL offers His mercy, forgiveness and love. Even IF I brought this cancer on myself, THEN He is STILL with me! I praise You, Father!!!

Addendum

Romans 8:37-39

No, in all things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I consider our sin (if we are already forgiven by the blood of Jesus and have become one of His followers) to be part of the “nor anything else in all creation.”  I have written in the margin of my Bible by these verses, “nor my own sin” to remind me of this fact that has just penetrated my heart in a new way. Nothing, not even our sin, keeps God from loving us, if we are in Christ Jesus.  It reminds me of Romans 5:8, “But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  I have “still sinning” written in the margin to remind me that because God is timeless, and exists in all time, Christ died while I was still sinning against Him.  I was sinning at the very moment He was dying for me. How can I resist a love like that?  Why would I want to resist a love like that?

You Will

written on

October 31, 2017

So, today I had a meeting with my surgeon/oncologist.  Over the past month I have done a lot of research regarding hormone receptor positive breast cancer.  There is a lot of food and lifestyle choices you can make to decrease your risk of breast cancer.  I have employed a lot of those changes.  God has given me the power to eat in a very strict manner that I have never had the power to do before this time.  I have gotten rid of and replaced makeup, shampoo, toothpaste, dish soap & laundry detergent.  I have done all of this in hopes of starving this cancer.  I know that God has the power to kill this cancer with a Word and He can kill it whether I make any changes or not.  Usually, however, God likes us to work with Him in doing things, so I believe He wants me to do something.  What that something is, has not been made clear to me.

I told my doctor that I believed God heals in 4 ways.  1. He just heals…without any other intervention being done.  He says, “Be healed” and the healing occurs immediately.  2. He heals through the way He created our bodies to work and through natural elements He has created.  As we take care of our bodies by eliminating toxins, eating foods with life giving power, exercise and prayer, He uses our cooperation with the fearfully and wonderfully way He created our bodies to heal.  3. He uses the medical community and medical advances and intervention to perform healing.  4. Or He gives perfect and complete healing once we get to heaven.  I believe that ALL healing comes from God, The Great Physician, regardless of the means He uses to perform it.

My doctor is very passionate about helping those that can be helped through the knowledge and skill with which God has gifted her.  I think it breaks her heart to think that while my cancer has been caught relatively early with a good chance for complete recovery, that I would choose to refuse healing, when healing is possible.  She does not believe that changing my diet will make a difference in the cancer. I had hoped she would give me 3 to 6 months, but she is giving me 4 weeks.  

I am not hearing God clearly as to which method He wants to use to heal me, I have had great peace in changing my diet and lifestyle…and like I previously mentioned, God has given me the power to do so.  I don’t know why I can’t be like normal people who just takes the doctor’s word for something and does it. I just did not want to regret rushing in to surgery and not giving Him the opportunity to heal without medical intervention.  My desire is that He would receive much glory in whatever manner He chooses to heal.  But, I don’t know in which manner He can receive the MOST glory.  I must leave that up to Him.

As I drove home, I talked with God.  And the best “plan” I could come up with is to not worry and go about doing what I know to do as far as eating, exercising and continuing to serve in the capacity He has provided for me to serve.  Continue to pray and seek Him.  And if He doesn’t miraculously heal, to go ahead with the surgery at the beginning of December.  As His child, I can’t be worried about what He is doing or where He is leading. 

Our Sunday school class is studying the book of Ruth. One thing that God made clear to me in Ruth 2 was that when Ruth went to glean, she wasn’t worried about the field she would glean in.  As she walked, God directed her steps.  So, all I know to do is walk and trust that He WILL direct my steps. Proverbs 16:9 says “In his heart a man plans His course, but the Lord determines his steps.”

Here are a few verses God has used to encourage me today.

From my devotional this morning:

John 14:27 “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.  I do not give as the world gives.  Do not let your hearts be troubles and do not be afraid.” These are Jesus’ words.  I hear Him saying, “Don’t you fret now!”  What am I fretting about?  What if I should have already done the surgery?  What if I’m waiting too long and it gets in the skin or other organs of my body?  What if He does heal and I only find out after the surgery and surgery is done for nothing?

A text from a dear friend.
“I pray He opens doors that He wants you to walk in and closes others, that you hear “this is the way, walk in it” and that His perfect peace be your guide in the uncharted seas.”

Isaiah 30:21 Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, “This is the way, walk in it.”

And another text that she forwarded from her daughter-in-law that is going through a storm herself, and it is Nahum 1:7 “The Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble.  He cares for those who trust in Him.”

So, as I drove home, I prayed, “Father, I’m just going to have to trust that as I go, You will direct my steps or that I will “hear a voice behind me saying ‘this is the way, walk in it.’” To the best of my ability, I have sought you and have listened for You to direct me. I must trust that You will take care of me as a good Father does.  I must trust that whatever You allow, You have a purpose for. And that if I take refuge in You, (and I am trying to do that) then You WILL take care of me. Help me not to fret, but to have a calm, quiet, confident trust in You. You are good and all You do is good and all You allow You will use for good. I believe. Help my unbelief.”

I continue to need and long for your prayers.