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.
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