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The Journey

The creation of this blog has been in progress for over 7 years. My mom told me she believed God wanted me to write a book about my life. With the intent to obey, I started writing about some of my earliest memories. I didn’t get far before stopping and just feeling no flow to the writing. A few years passed and another revelation about this “book” came to me. I had started a prayer group at school (I was a teacher) and one of my coworkers suggested I write a devotional based on the emails I would send after our weekly meetings together. I felt like this idea made sense so I started collecting the “devotional” emails I sent to our prayer group. I started writing questions to go with my recorded thoughts, but I hit another wall. It just wasn’t flowing. So I stopped again for a couple of years, until the final revelation came.

When I was in the hospital after having my first son my dad was admitted to the ICU with AFib. This shocked all of us and it was devastating. He’s always been so active in sports and lifting weights so it just didn’t make sense. The days and weeks to follow were scary and challenging. His life was threatened. This was my Daddy. He’s the one I could never beat in one on one. He’s the one who coached me in countless basketball games. He was Superman in my eyes. He was my best friend. This couldn’t be happening. One day in the following weeks he told my mom that he felt like God told him, “Just live.” My dad knows Jesus as his Savior. He’s not afraid of death. I think what he’s more afraid of would be not fully living the life he has on earth. So these words from the Lord were pretty freeing for him.

Fast forward another two years, almost to the day, and I’m having my second son. I never would have imagined the news that came to my parents the day my son was born. It was the word no one ever wants to hear. The C word. Cancer. How? Why? Two questions that will never be answered. My parents were aware that the possibility of cancer was there probably a couple months before I gave birth, but they didn’t tell me because they wanted me to focus on getting through labor. On July 1st my mom received the official diagnosis that it was indeed breast cancer. Later that day I gave birth to my son at home. A week later my parents told me the news. My mom’s words were, “A few months ago I found a lump in my breast.” Not even a full second after, I said, “Oh my gosh, no.” That was the last thing I said for a while. I was in absolute shock. This time the attack was on my Mommy’s life. She’s the one I ran to after my first day of preschool. I jumped into her arms and she picked me up and gave me the biggest hug. She’s the one who taught me how to crochet and sew. She fostered my love of crafting. She’s been my cheerleader at basketball games. She’s “Grammy” to my boys. She’s always thinking of others and she loves Jesus.

There were decisions to be made. She didn’t want to go through chemo. She didn’t want to lose her hair or look sick. She and my dad spoke with a wonderful couple from our church who had been through the cancer journey as well. They advised her that whatever treatment she chose, she had to be “all in.” That’s when she was reminded of the verse Colossians 3:23-24 “And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ.” To be honest, I never mentally applied this verse to situations like treating cancer. I thought about it as a verse for when I’m working or serving in the church. It made sense though. My mom called me one day and told me how she received this revelation from the Lord about the two phrases that spoke to her and my dad. “Just live, all in.” The phrase energized her. It was the message for her journey and my dad’s. She came to me one day talking about sharing her journey and giving God the glory through it all in the form of a blog. She thought I could be the author of the blog and share the testimony of our family. That was the final piece of this puzzle I’ve been putting together for over 7 years. I knew it was what God wanted me to do. I felt peace about it. It’s amazing though, because I never knew that this long process of writing about my life would end up in the form of a blog, writing about a journey of cancer. But here we are. And through it all, we’re going to give God the glory. We’re going to “Just live, all in.”