myCrosses

Today a great friend invited me to a Women's Bible Study Breakfast at her church. The message was on depression and how to recover from the heavy cloud of depression using God's word and truth. The speaker made a point that when you are clouded by depression it is easy to feel like you're the only one with troubles. This is simply paraphrased, but what I took from it is that we all have crosses to bear, which we must find ways in God's strength and plan to carry.

She referenced the book of Job, in which he endured tragedy and basically fell into a depression, feeling that even his own existence was a mistake. In the end, God showed Job how even his small life was part of the beauty that God created in the world. Job was saved because he surrendered to God's plan, and most of all surrendered to the faith that God would take care of him.

Since cancer is so hard to anticipate or control, often I have felt, and have heard others, question about why a person developed cancer. Why them? Why now? Further, since I have known several loved ones to suffer and even die from cancer, all within a short period of time, it is easy to start wondering why I am a part of this suffering.

It's just one of my crosses, I concluded today. I think I've known this a while, having been raised to believe in God's plan, but it was so simply described today. In Him, I can have help carrying this cross and someday, in the clear perspective of heaven, I'll understand why I was woven into so many others' cancer stories.

myStory

MyMom
The day after my 22nd birthday my mom and dad sat me down on our living room couch, my mom on my right and my dad on my left, and told me my mom had Breast Cancer. She would need surgery, a double mastectomy in a month, followed by chemo therapy. I was in shock, concern, and fear. But my parents assured me that the doctors said it looked early enough to treat with success.

One year later we celebrated her "Boob Birthday," as she joked; one year later, two days after my sister's 23rd birthday, my mom called me to let me know that the doctor found "a spot" in her lung. The cancer came back. Six months and a day later my mom died on Christmas Eve, 2002, from metastasized Breast Cancer; she was 50. I miss her every single day.

MyVoice
Since then, I have talked with God at length, trying to find out why this, and other trials I never imagined before the age of 30 were being put on my plate. I have decided that He must have something for me to share and needs me to have the experience so that my words mean more.

Therefore, this blog. I hope to share my own Cancer Story, as well as support, encourage, honor, and learn from other people's Cancer Stories. I know that some people find cancer a difficult topic, but my hope is that together we can become more than cancer survivors, but cancer thrivers.