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Friday, December 19, 2014

Let`s be Honest: Tumor Update

I can be brutally honest. I prefer to be that way. Even when it hurts, I love people enough to tell them the truth and want them to do the same for me. Now, I would never insult your intelligence by claiming to never lie. I have been known to tell a white lie to preserve the feelings of friends. To spare someone heart ache, I might withhold information. On rare occasions, I`ve even told some whoppers to save my skin or the skins of others. Let`s be honest, sometimes being completely honest is hard. My life, for the most part, has been an open book. I usually lay all my cards on the table but I have a poker face when I need it. Please don`t think I condone lying. It`s pride being released by the lips. Jesus hates pride.
You were invited along a journey to a joyous destination since it first began in September. I`ve been honest about my faith and condition but this vessel is a little more broken than you might think. I`d be lying if I told you I trusted the claims of Christ followers who seem to be too happy. I don`t think they have followed Christ into the garden. So, I doubt they have picked up that cross He requires we carry to come after Him. I`m not talking about intentionally keeping your eye on the prize and forcing a positive attitude because God is good all the time. I get that. I still consider myself a richly blessed, highly favored, and deeply loved child of the one true king. So while I`m too blessed to distressed and too restored to be ignored, I`m too honest to fake it. My cup runneth over but even Jesus asked for a different cup. I`d be lying if I said I hadn`t.
The problem isn`t me feeling sorry for myself. I don`t want pity from you or myself. There`s so many here worse off than me without Jesus, pity them.
 It`s not a problem of lack of faith. Faith, hope, and love are the only things I know you can increase for yourself by sharing. Like Jesus, I too have prayed the Father`s will be done. I know it will be done. But do I want it to be done? No.
If I could have things my way, I`d be spending two months anywhere else but here. There hasn`t been much that made me squirm in my seat with this. Certainly not the cosmetic effects of my treatments cause, let`s be honest, you all hate me because I`m beautiful.  Who cares if you loose a little hair, when you have so much to spare?
Hearing the treatment might cause another kind of tumor to form, or cause me to loose my memory wasn`t what I wanted to hear. That`s SSWS (seat squirming worthy syndrome). Knowing it will destroy my pituitary gland, causing me to be on hormone replacement from then on, isn`t what I would have planned. I`d have skipped the news I got on Monday to have forgone the anxiety that set in on Tuesday.
If I`d have planned things here what I would have missed:
 Trimming the tree with moma, while listing to Christmas favorites, was more than just a little nostalgic. It was magical. It`s a shame it took getting cancer and traveling great distances to make that happen.
The Freedom Trail. It was a great tour that explained many things about our country`s birth and the unique role faith played in that. I`ll be worshipping on Christmas Eve in a large church that played a key role in ending slavery. The church started as a small group. How cool is that? Knowing they helped change the world and couldn`t have been nearly as cool as my small group at home, sets me on fire. Speaking of small groups, something else I would have missed, was an awesome worship with a small group, who laid hands on me. Beautiful prayers and songs filled the candlelit room where seven people, representing six different worship centers, offered praises to the one true God, from the one true church. After a day of hearing about great things that once took place in Boston, I honestly think I heard angels singing "greater things are still to be done in this city."
Truthfully, I`m still more than a little broken and more than a little anxious. I still want things my way but I `m so glad I`m not in charge. Funny, how I can`t honestly explain how that`s true, but it is.  I just don`t won`t to miss out on the good things just to avoid life`s  bumps in the road. The greatest gift God ever gave mankind, the brightest revelation of light the world has ever known, the resurrection, was given to us in our darkest moment. The day we would have stolen the life of Christ had He not freely given it to us. So even in this hour of doubt, I honestly can`t see how anything other than the best is yet to come.