I don't know what it is about my life, but I seem to always do things the hard way. I like challenge and I guess that has just translated into all areas of my life. Having cancer is seemingly no different. Here are the ways I have made having cancer more difficult than it has to be:
1) 3 hours after the diagnosis I hop on a plane to Madison, WI. This in and of itself, not so difficult. Being away from family during the holidays after a cancer diagnosis...somewhat difficult. The really difficulty is that it messes with my finances a bit. So, I am on a county indigent health care program called the Blue Card thru UMC. Since I'm a college student and work part time, I don't have health/life insurance. Well this Blue Card is something that must be renewed every 3 months, as you have to prove that you are still poor enough to need their help. So my Blue Card expires today 12/31/2010. I was supposed to renew it on the 23rd of December, but as you know, I was in Madison, WI. So I couldn't make that appointment, I had to reschedule a "walk in" appt on January 10th. Well, when do you think the oncologist wants to meet with me? Jan. 10th at 8 am. Crimeny. So I'll probably have to postpone meeting with the oncologist until I'm certain that I'm reapproved for the Blue Card.
1b) The Blue Card office has started a new program that if you do not pay your copay's, the next time you want to renew, you'll be denied if you owe a balance. Guess what...I owe a balance. I had a couple of ER visits that I didn't pay for at the time of service. So I owe $40 straight out, but have a couple that were sent to collections that total $150 or something.
1c) I'm overdrawn. My job had a clerical error about a month ago that ended up in me being overdrawn. I'm waiting patiently until that gets cleared up. So I have no money to pay UMC so that I can be reinstated. Unless my financial aide for this semester comes in before the 10th. Come on money...no whammies.
The summary to my first point is that I need my student loans, or God's miraculous provision of about $500, to be able to pay off old bills and get me out of being overdrawn, get reinstated on my blue card, meet with the oncologist, and have him tell me when he wants to dissect me. Great. No problem.
2) What if I don't want a hysterectomy? What if I want to do chemo instead of having surgery? What if I indeed want to make this difficult on everyone else because I don't just want to do exactly what a dr tells me to do? Of course it's not out of pure stubbornness but at the same time, people don't understand that it's my f**ing body. They are so riddled with fear about this issue. It's my body, my journey with God, my faith. Everyone else doesn't really get an opinion, unless I ask for it. Is that mean?
3) Really more like a 2a) I'm still trying to discern if I should be tenacious and fight for the ability to have kids as my destiny even if it means killing me. It just sounds absurd. But when God plants a dream inside your heart how hard to do you fight for it? Yes there's adoption, and spiritual motherhood. blah, blah, blah. If God promises something, and it doesn't look like it's going to come people tend to make other plans (ie Abraham hooking up with Hagar instead of waiting on God to impregnate Sarah). This is not a time for Ishamel's to be created in my life.
So I guess that's it. Yeah me. Nothing simple. The hard way. Yep. Great.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Anger
Well, it looks like I"m cycling through emotions on schedule. I've been incredibly angry the last couple of days. It's partly just an emotional reaction to the idea of cancer and a hysterectomy, but it's also the hormones they gave me before I came to Wisconsin. All the ladies should understand that there are days when you just want to rip the head off of small animals because of the evil hormones running through your body. That's kind of what I've been feeling the last two days. Bitch alert! Wowzers. Nothing is good enough, people piss me off in radical ways. Good times.
Specifically I am pissed that everyone seems to be so content with me having a hysterectomy as the cure. That's some serious BS. I have wanted kids my whole life, and it seems like most people are not pressing in and asking God to heal me miraculously. They are just content to let my babies be stolen from me. There is a lie that is being told to me in this process too, which is that "adoption is a consolation prize." It's not true. Children anywhere are special and I've always wanted to adopt. I've always wanted to have a multi-ethnic house, and a doorbell that plays "It's a small world". So I can still have that. And I know that I'll be incredibly happy and content. But Satan lies....and he's lying to me know about adoption.
So yes, I'm angry. I'm angry that all my dreams seem like they were in vain. I don't know how to deal with God on this. I don't know him well enough. I don't trust Him. I don't trust his intentions are for good and not for evil. I know he's not malicious, because he provides a way out.
I'm angry because I am paralyzed financially. I don't know how to survive if I'm not in school and taking out student loans. I can't imagine working full time while I have cancer. I'm scared because I don't have life insurance. I'm stressed that all the paperwork for the county indigent program I use for health care won't be approved this time for some strange reason. I fear that God would ask me to trust him financially.
God's timing is not the same as man's. He is our provider but doesn't always, just like he is our healer but doesn't always. I don't know how to follow him that way. I've tried. I never know when it's my responsibility and when it's his. If you feel like God is taking you on a journey of faith, but the bills aren't getting paid, what does that mean? I don't think it means that God failed and I also don't necessarily think that people failed. It's just another conundrum of faith for me. We expect God to make our circumstances on this earth make sense and they never do. Sometimes I don't understand why we believe in God at all. I feel like the Western church has failed us and tricked us into believing that the purpose of God is to have an effect on our lives. I feel like most of the time it has nothing to do with our life on this earth. Like God could care less about what happens on this earth, and instead faith is more about us being pulled out of the muck and mire of this earth and being set in higher places. Those words sound so new agey.
But as I think about all those things, I think about the Lord's Prayer. Your kingdom come...your will be done...on earth as it is in heaven....
How Jesus? How? How do we do it? I need your help to understand this concept. Give me wisdom Jesus.
Specifically I am pissed that everyone seems to be so content with me having a hysterectomy as the cure. That's some serious BS. I have wanted kids my whole life, and it seems like most people are not pressing in and asking God to heal me miraculously. They are just content to let my babies be stolen from me. There is a lie that is being told to me in this process too, which is that "adoption is a consolation prize." It's not true. Children anywhere are special and I've always wanted to adopt. I've always wanted to have a multi-ethnic house, and a doorbell that plays "It's a small world". So I can still have that. And I know that I'll be incredibly happy and content. But Satan lies....and he's lying to me know about adoption.
So yes, I'm angry. I'm angry that all my dreams seem like they were in vain. I don't know how to deal with God on this. I don't know him well enough. I don't trust Him. I don't trust his intentions are for good and not for evil. I know he's not malicious, because he provides a way out.
I'm angry because I am paralyzed financially. I don't know how to survive if I'm not in school and taking out student loans. I can't imagine working full time while I have cancer. I'm scared because I don't have life insurance. I'm stressed that all the paperwork for the county indigent program I use for health care won't be approved this time for some strange reason. I fear that God would ask me to trust him financially.
God's timing is not the same as man's. He is our provider but doesn't always, just like he is our healer but doesn't always. I don't know how to follow him that way. I've tried. I never know when it's my responsibility and when it's his. If you feel like God is taking you on a journey of faith, but the bills aren't getting paid, what does that mean? I don't think it means that God failed and I also don't necessarily think that people failed. It's just another conundrum of faith for me. We expect God to make our circumstances on this earth make sense and they never do. Sometimes I don't understand why we believe in God at all. I feel like the Western church has failed us and tricked us into believing that the purpose of God is to have an effect on our lives. I feel like most of the time it has nothing to do with our life on this earth. Like God could care less about what happens on this earth, and instead faith is more about us being pulled out of the muck and mire of this earth and being set in higher places. Those words sound so new agey.
But as I think about all those things, I think about the Lord's Prayer. Your kingdom come...your will be done...on earth as it is in heaven....
How Jesus? How? How do we do it? I need your help to understand this concept. Give me wisdom Jesus.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Self hatred and disappointment
These are the two main ingredients in a recipe for misery. I have lived with them daily for years. I just had lunch with my dear friend Wendy Andrews, and shared with her my journey and particularly the journey that has been revealed through this cancer diagnosis. So much of the emotions going on in my heart right now revolve around self hatred and disappointment.
I think back to high school and then days when life was just beginning and what you dreamed life would look like. I dreamed of being a wife, motherhood, traveling the nations as a prophetic intercessor/missionary/teacher. I thought to myself by the time I am 35, I will be thin, married with at least 5 kiddos, teaching in YWAM (a missions school) traveling the nations, national platform as a brilliant speaker/teacher. Dreams of grandeur to the Nth degree. I was made to rock the world, but I'm just boring Jill. I know that the people in my life don't see me that way...boring, but that is definitely the lens I have looked through for the last 20 years. As each marker of life passed and I wasn't married, with child, in another nation, or on a public stage, new levels of disappointment were planted in my heart. I have felt more and more worthless, useless, and just plain pointless with each passing year.
So then, as a cancer diagnosis is given, and a hysterectomy is prescribed, and the potential loss of biological motherhood is gone, I am grieved and hate myself all the more. I honestly think about having men approach me in the future, and I think why would they want to marry me if I can't have kids. I see no value in myself.
I am fully aware that this is brokenness in my heart that God needs to heal. Maybe as this spiritual/emotional poison is drained from my system, then the physical healing will accompany it.
I started to read the first book I have mentioned here. There are some great parts, but I never get very far. I've never read the second but hear it's great.
I want God to heal this self hatred and disappointment in my heart. I want to see myself the way God sees me. I want to believe in his unconditional love in my heart and not just my head. I need God's revelation to bring this healing. I don't think people talking will help. It needs to be God the surgeon dealing with my heart. Will you join me in praying that God will heal my heart and that I will trust him in the journey.
I think back to high school and then days when life was just beginning and what you dreamed life would look like. I dreamed of being a wife, motherhood, traveling the nations as a prophetic intercessor/missionary/teacher. I thought to myself by the time I am 35, I will be thin, married with at least 5 kiddos, teaching in YWAM (a missions school) traveling the nations, national platform as a brilliant speaker/teacher. Dreams of grandeur to the Nth degree. I was made to rock the world, but I'm just boring Jill. I know that the people in my life don't see me that way...boring, but that is definitely the lens I have looked through for the last 20 years. As each marker of life passed and I wasn't married, with child, in another nation, or on a public stage, new levels of disappointment were planted in my heart. I have felt more and more worthless, useless, and just plain pointless with each passing year.
So then, as a cancer diagnosis is given, and a hysterectomy is prescribed, and the potential loss of biological motherhood is gone, I am grieved and hate myself all the more. I honestly think about having men approach me in the future, and I think why would they want to marry me if I can't have kids. I see no value in myself.
I am fully aware that this is brokenness in my heart that God needs to heal. Maybe as this spiritual/emotional poison is drained from my system, then the physical healing will accompany it.
I started to read the first book I have mentioned here. There are some great parts, but I never get very far. I've never read the second but hear it's great.
I want God to heal this self hatred and disappointment in my heart. I want to see myself the way God sees me. I want to believe in his unconditional love in my heart and not just my head. I need God's revelation to bring this healing. I don't think people talking will help. It needs to be God the surgeon dealing with my heart. Will you join me in praying that God will heal my heart and that I will trust him in the journey.
12/18/10,,,,Faith & Cancer a Conundrum
So clearly I'm asking everyone to pray for me and everyone wants to pray for me that God will heal me. That seems obvious at this point. The tension comes in, when you get down to the brass taxes of healing. Do you believe God actually heals people today? I do. But that comes in lots of different packages. I define healing as being returned back to the original state of design or made new. So when I pray for someone to be healed I am believing that God will grow limbs, remove tumors, takes pain away, etc. I believe that God wants healing for all people. Then why don't people get healed, you may be asking. Well I believe that while healing is in God's will, it may not be his highest will. Think back with me to the New Testament. God the Father, crucified his own son, and then calls us son's and daughters as well. How are we co-heirs with Christ if we are not children of God. I believe God's highest and best will for my life is that I am made to look like his son. Which sometimes means being crucified. Suffering through cancer is my way of sharing the sufferings of Christ and being made to look like him. I say all of this to say that life is hard and it's not black and white. So many times when we go into prayer, we go telling God our agenda and lists of things we want him to do, as if we can hand God a "honey-do" list. Prayer is not about us getting God to do the things we want done. Prayer is about us asking God how we can be a part of what He is doing in the world. What is His agenda. And when he tells us His agenda, and it hurts and it's hard to agree with, we understand that He is wisdom and love, and his ways are better and higher, and we say Lord, change me so that I can agree with your will. So when/if you pray for me......take a few moments and ask the Lord, what does he want to do in my life and how will he be glorified in my life. Ask him how you can agree with what he's doing today in my life. Then, because it's a relationship and he loves you, he will say "what is on your heart"? And then you can say, I want my friend Jill to be healed. And you can talk to him about me and my life. It's not that God doesn't care about what we want, he just wants us to be and act like Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane....Not my will, but your will be done. That's a hard prayer to pray.
I feel so incredibly prepared for this. There are moments when I wish I could crawl in bed and sleep all day, but cancer is in my dreams too, so that doesn't help a whole lot.
I also have to say that this season is really going to change my relationships. Everyone will become incredibly secondary to Jesus. That's rarely been the case in my life. As people want to be a part of this and want to be there for me, it will have to be an invitation only kind of thing. Some friends are already trying to control this situation and are putting me on diets and exercise regiments. That's a quick way to get cut off. I know there heart is to help, but thinking you can control this situation is not helpful. Likewise, what people believe and speak about will be critical. It's not just positive thinkers that I will want around me, but people who are on the same page that I am. I don't have the resources to fight theological debates on healing right now. And it is too painful to listen to the Pollyanna version of Christianity and want to hope that it's true, while your circumstances look quite different. I kind of wish all the preachers of wealth and health would go spend time in Africa or Haiti or Asia, and see if they can still preach that message. As soon as I say that though, I don't want them to be filled with a possible false hope either.
This journey will not be easy or simple, but it could be the choice between lesser evils. Cancer could be contained in my uterus and a hysterectomy may take care of it and I will live happily ever after, never knowing what it's like to be a biological mother. Or the cancer could have spread and could have been here for a while, making it a significant opponent. They may want to do chemo or radiation, which I don't want to do. They may have to do more surgeries. I may die. Idk. Right now I ready to not be tired and to not cramp all the time.
I think that's all i have to say today.
I feel so incredibly prepared for this. There are moments when I wish I could crawl in bed and sleep all day, but cancer is in my dreams too, so that doesn't help a whole lot.
I also have to say that this season is really going to change my relationships. Everyone will become incredibly secondary to Jesus. That's rarely been the case in my life. As people want to be a part of this and want to be there for me, it will have to be an invitation only kind of thing. Some friends are already trying to control this situation and are putting me on diets and exercise regiments. That's a quick way to get cut off. I know there heart is to help, but thinking you can control this situation is not helpful. Likewise, what people believe and speak about will be critical. It's not just positive thinkers that I will want around me, but people who are on the same page that I am. I don't have the resources to fight theological debates on healing right now. And it is too painful to listen to the Pollyanna version of Christianity and want to hope that it's true, while your circumstances look quite different. I kind of wish all the preachers of wealth and health would go spend time in Africa or Haiti or Asia, and see if they can still preach that message. As soon as I say that though, I don't want them to be filled with a possible false hope either.
This journey will not be easy or simple, but it could be the choice between lesser evils. Cancer could be contained in my uterus and a hysterectomy may take care of it and I will live happily ever after, never knowing what it's like to be a biological mother. Or the cancer could have spread and could have been here for a while, making it a significant opponent. They may want to do chemo or radiation, which I don't want to do. They may have to do more surgeries. I may die. Idk. Right now I ready to not be tired and to not cramp all the time.
I think that's all i have to say today.
12/17/10 So they say I have Cancer.............
I just found out on Wednesday that I have endometrial cancer. I don't know what stage it is or if it's spread elsewhere. I know that I'll likely end up having a hysterectomy, and that I will find out more details in January. I know that they gave me lots of progesterone to slow the growth. So far it has been successful at making me weepy. There's a great song that Misty Edwards sang during her bought with cancer that will likely be my theme song in ways that I never planned. I have always loved it...."It's only a shadow." Misty sings about walking through the valley of the shadow of death, with a realization that it's only a shadow. Shadows can't hurt you. If Jesus really defeated death, then there is no death that this physical world can bring. She sings, "try and take my body, try, try and take all of me...but my soul he keeps. My soul he keeps." That's a higher truth. Death here is nothing, it's not permanent. That being said, this is scary as hell. And not at all in the same breath. I can't help but wonder if this is my last journey on earth. I'm honestly ok if it is. I pray that he will give my family and friends the grace and strength to see me go. On the flip side, if this isn't an ending journey but just a birthing into a new season, then I'm ok with that too. I felt like God told me, "There's health on the other side of this mountain." That doesn't answer what kind of a journey this is going to be, at least the way I understand it.
Some people will want to pray for me to be healed, which is of course what I want as well. Whether that is miraculous healing, or via the hand of a dr and some meds, I have no preference. But my friend Mike told me yesterday that he is praying that God's will is accomplished in this season of my life. I like that prayer the best. So that's what I'm asking people to pray for...that God's will is accomplished in my life and in the life of those around me through this journey.
I don't want to have to go through chemo and radiation. I would like to think that I can be one of those kick ass people who completely overhauls their life and starts eating organic vegetables and dirt and kicks cancer in the face. But if that's going to happen, that will be miraculous. God's going to have to give me a whole lot of strength.
So for this day, I will trust in God, not listen to the enemy try to scare me, and I will have fun with my friends. Today is the day the Lord has made, I will rejoice in it. I will thank God for this adventure.
Some people will want to pray for me to be healed, which is of course what I want as well. Whether that is miraculous healing, or via the hand of a dr and some meds, I have no preference. But my friend Mike told me yesterday that he is praying that God's will is accomplished in this season of my life. I like that prayer the best. So that's what I'm asking people to pray for...that God's will is accomplished in my life and in the life of those around me through this journey.
I don't want to have to go through chemo and radiation. I would like to think that I can be one of those kick ass people who completely overhauls their life and starts eating organic vegetables and dirt and kicks cancer in the face. But if that's going to happen, that will be miraculous. God's going to have to give me a whole lot of strength.
So for this day, I will trust in God, not listen to the enemy try to scare me, and I will have fun with my friends. Today is the day the Lord has made, I will rejoice in it. I will thank God for this adventure.
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