Sunday, March 16, 2014
Essentially Me!
Jill is writing again, but it's not here. It's at her primary blog entitled Essentially Me. Join us there!
Thursday, January 27, 2011
hope, expectation, faithfulness
Psalm 42:5 (New International Version, ©2010)
5 Why, my soul, are you downcast?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.
Every day you will hear someone say, "I hope...happens". I hope the Packers win, I hope I made an A on the test, I hope class gets out early, etc. What happens when we put our hope in circumstances changing? Be that something small like the outcome of a football game, or the bid you place on the house you want to buy, or the health/salvation of a loved one.
Prayer requests are tough issues for me. We present God with this list of things we would like him to do or change, as if he's our secretary. Even good things: Jesus bring salvation to so-n-so, or heal so-n-so from cancer, or xyz in Africa. Rarely does the church teach/preach that our objective in prayer is to find out what God is doing in the earth, in our lives and we get to agree with what he's doing.
Lord what is your heart for Kenya? Lord what are you doing in so-n-so's life? Scripture says His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts. God's plan for dealing with me and the cancer in my life, may have nothing to do with cells growing in my uterus but more to do with the cancer of fear, control, and self-hatred.
Many of us, believing that God loves to do miracles and work in the supernatural, have expectations that circumstances will change. The physical cancer will be gone, the marriage will be restored, the debt will be erased.
If God's character is always true, how is he faithful when our circumstances don't change? When you don't get the answer to the request you made...how is it that you can still say he is faithful? Because He is faithful whether your circumstances change or not.
I fully believe God wants to know what's in our hearts, and wants us to make our requests known to him.
Philippians 4:6 (New International Version, ©2010)
6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
But it ultimately boils down to the prayer that Christ prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane:
Matthew 26:39 (New International Version, ©2010)
39 Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”
So then in all of this rambling, how do we as believers, come before God asking him to bring heaven to earth, do the work of the supernatural, perform miracles, change our circumstances, etc and not walk around disappointed feeling rejected, abandoned and deflated. How do we press in to a miraculous God and walk away still praising Him, declaring his faithfulness, when our circumstances don't change...or even when they get worse?
This is just my theory: My hope is in God....that he will be who he says he will be. I hope in the I AM. My expectation is that He will remain true to his character and the principles and plans he laid out before the foundation of the earth. He always has been and always will be a Redeemer, a Restorer. But his timing is not my timing. His ways are not my ways. His priorities are not my priorities. I will trust that He is God and is smarter than me. And when circumstances don't change and I don't understand why, when I don't get it, when my heart is hurting from the very real pain that this world brings, I will look to him and request that he gives me wisdom and understanding to why things worked out differently than I had asked for. I will tell him that though I don't understand, I will declare that He is faithful. I will say He is good.
My hope and expectation is that He is faithful. Even if my circumstances never change because He is God, not my circumstances. In that stance there is liberty, there is joy, there is peace.
5 Why, my soul, are you downcast?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.
Every day you will hear someone say, "I hope...happens". I hope the Packers win, I hope I made an A on the test, I hope class gets out early, etc. What happens when we put our hope in circumstances changing? Be that something small like the outcome of a football game, or the bid you place on the house you want to buy, or the health/salvation of a loved one.
Prayer requests are tough issues for me. We present God with this list of things we would like him to do or change, as if he's our secretary. Even good things: Jesus bring salvation to so-n-so, or heal so-n-so from cancer, or xyz in Africa. Rarely does the church teach/preach that our objective in prayer is to find out what God is doing in the earth, in our lives and we get to agree with what he's doing.
Lord what is your heart for Kenya? Lord what are you doing in so-n-so's life? Scripture says His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts. God's plan for dealing with me and the cancer in my life, may have nothing to do with cells growing in my uterus but more to do with the cancer of fear, control, and self-hatred.
Many of us, believing that God loves to do miracles and work in the supernatural, have expectations that circumstances will change. The physical cancer will be gone, the marriage will be restored, the debt will be erased.
If God's character is always true, how is he faithful when our circumstances don't change? When you don't get the answer to the request you made...how is it that you can still say he is faithful? Because He is faithful whether your circumstances change or not.
I fully believe God wants to know what's in our hearts, and wants us to make our requests known to him.
Philippians 4:6 (New International Version, ©2010)
6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
But it ultimately boils down to the prayer that Christ prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane:
Matthew 26:39 (New International Version, ©2010)
39 Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”
So then in all of this rambling, how do we as believers, come before God asking him to bring heaven to earth, do the work of the supernatural, perform miracles, change our circumstances, etc and not walk around disappointed feeling rejected, abandoned and deflated. How do we press in to a miraculous God and walk away still praising Him, declaring his faithfulness, when our circumstances don't change...or even when they get worse?
This is just my theory: My hope is in God....that he will be who he says he will be. I hope in the I AM. My expectation is that He will remain true to his character and the principles and plans he laid out before the foundation of the earth. He always has been and always will be a Redeemer, a Restorer. But his timing is not my timing. His ways are not my ways. His priorities are not my priorities. I will trust that He is God and is smarter than me. And when circumstances don't change and I don't understand why, when I don't get it, when my heart is hurting from the very real pain that this world brings, I will look to him and request that he gives me wisdom and understanding to why things worked out differently than I had asked for. I will tell him that though I don't understand, I will declare that He is faithful. I will say He is good.
My hope and expectation is that He is faithful. Even if my circumstances never change because He is God, not my circumstances. In that stance there is liberty, there is joy, there is peace.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
What does it mean to be a woman?
According to Webster, a woman is:
–noun
2. an adult female person.
3. a female attendant to a lady of rank.
4. a wife.
5. the nature, characteristics, or feelings often attributed to women; womanliness.
6. a sweetheart or paramour; mistress.
7. a female employee or representative: A woman from the real estate agency called.
8. a female person who cleans house, cooks, etc.; housekeeper: The woman will be in to clean today.
9. women collectively: Woman is no longer subordinate to man.
Female:
–noun
1. a person bearing two X chromosomes in the cell nuclei and normally having a vagina, a uterus and ovaries, and developing at puberty a relatively rounded body and enlarged breasts, and retaining a beardless face; a girl or woman.
2. an organism of the sex or sexual phase that normally produces egg cells.
3 Botany . a pistillate plant.
Feminine:
–adjective
1. pertaining to a woman or girl: feminine beauty; feminine dress.
2. having qualities traditionally ascribed to women, as sensitivity or gentleness.
So with the prospect of loosing my uterus, ovaries and now who knows maybe even a breast, the thought looms in my mind what does it mean to be a woman?
For years, I have had all these organs and/or appendages (however you want to describe them) and because of being overweight and having a stocky frame, and as of late having a very short haircut, I have not felt feminine at all. I have high levels of testosterone which makes me excessively hairy. I just to feel feminine. I remember the days when I loved wearing makeup and doing my hair. I've always loved jewelry.
I have these mental images of the same short, fat me walking around missing one boob and feeling all hollow. Not a pretty picture. Talk about needing to get my shit together. There's this urgency to get my self esteem fixed/healed before this cancer and surgeries get out of control.
When Beth got arrested, Andrea and I talked about the fire/fear of the Lord urging us to "get our shit together". I told God multiple times, I don't want to go to prison. Cancer is my prison.
I don't know how to be a woman. I don't know how to be weak and soft. I desperately long for a man to come and hold me and tell me it will be ok.
What does it mean to be a woman?
Mammograms and CT scans
Today was my day for both. A first for the mammogram but not the CT scan. I was extremely nervous about getting a mammogram. I had heard that it felt like a tire was backing up over your boob. That's not what it felt like to me. It was awkward for sure to have a strange lady feeling me up and there were a couple of positions that were "ooh, that's uncomfortable/painful". But nothing like " holy crap that hurts". They took an initial 6 pics, 3 of each breast. Then after seeing some spots on the right side, we took a few more pics. Then we decided to do an additional sonogram on the right side just to be safe. Needless to say I'm a little freaked out. Then I went to my CT scan. No biggie. They give you an IV and they scan you several times and you're done. So I'm done I go back to the room to change and notice that where the IV was is bleeding out of control. So I awkwardly put on my jeans and bra and grab my shirt as a mock-cover-up and run back to the room where they scanned me. And I'm like "hello, sir....I'm bleeding". And he jumps up and starts wiping me off, and I start crying. He's trying to be comforting, "blood normally freaks people out, but there's nothing to worry about." Except that I know I have a high platelet count which means a high clotting factor. I don't bleed profusely. Never....so I tried to hold back the tears but I was scared. He got me cleaned up, it quit bleeding and then he realizes that I'm standing there in my bra with my shirt barely covering me. So they shut the door and closed the blinds so I could get dressed. Then I left and cried as I walked to the car. And it's been an hour since then, and I still keep looking at my arm like it's going to start bleeding again at any minute.
It kind of creeps me out, because I've never had nose bleeds either in my life, but I swear the last two weeks I have started having them. Not full on nose bleeds, but about 3 times a day I have this burning sensation in my nose, but no blood. I sleep at night and wake up with a lot of drainage, and when I blow my nose it's bloody. So I'm just creeped out. I don't know if it has to do with cancer or not.
The nurse lady at the mammogram office talked with me about my impending hysterectomy and told me that she's been contemplating having an elective hysterectomy because she bleeds a lot. She told me she hasn't done it because she's scared. She's had 4 kids and 11 surgeries, and she's scared. WTF. She said on her last C-section that they didn't sew her up with the right sutures and so it got infected. WTF.
It kind of creeps me out, because I've never had nose bleeds either in my life, but I swear the last two weeks I have started having them. Not full on nose bleeds, but about 3 times a day I have this burning sensation in my nose, but no blood. I sleep at night and wake up with a lot of drainage, and when I blow my nose it's bloody. So I'm just creeped out. I don't know if it has to do with cancer or not.
The nurse lady at the mammogram office talked with me about my impending hysterectomy and told me that she's been contemplating having an elective hysterectomy because she bleeds a lot. She told me she hasn't done it because she's scared. She's had 4 kids and 11 surgeries, and she's scared. WTF. She said on her last C-section that they didn't sew her up with the right sutures and so it got infected. WTF.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
If it weren't for bad luck......
I really don't know what to say. I feel like the truly amazing grace I was feeling the first few weeks of this diagnosis left as soon as the doctor told me there is no hope to save my uterus. I feel like it's super hard to look to the future and have any sense of hope or dreams for what life could look like. I don't want to dream of adopting children. I feel like I'm being punished/sentenced/damned to a life of perpetual singleness and barrenness. I know this is NOT what God says about me and my life, but it's what it feels like. It's what I have the capacity to see at the moment. I'm angry, I'm frustrated, I feel alone. I want to talk and yet have no words. It is overwhelmingly hopeless. The vortex of destruction is cycling around me. I can't see my way out. It's hard to hear/listen to what God has to say when you're in the vortex. It's hard to believe "he has good plans for you." It's hard to believe. This is why this is called warfare. When the proverbial shit hits the fan, you have to be vigilant and steadfast to keep your eyes focused on Jesus (who is the Truth, the Life and the Way). Being a believer is a militant stance that must be determined each and every day. I get it. Sometimes you're just to damned exhausted to get involved. I desperately long for intimacy and comfort but simultaneously want to hit people. Being emotional is hard. Being vulnerable and dependent is hard. Waiting is hard. I know why people drink and do drugs. The temptation to escape is strong. For some reason it seems quite ideal that I could be in a drunken stupor for the next two-four weeks, then have surgery, and wake up feeling all better. I'm scared of having surgery. I hate going to the dentist. I am seriously considering asking them for Valium or something to calm this anxiety that I'm feeling about surgery. I hate pain. Speaking of pain...there's the mammogram that I'm having in a couple of days. Not looking forward to that. In looking for vision for the future, it's hard to listen to any prophetic voices that know me. It's like the vision is cloudy. I'm longing to hear from someone who doesn't know me. We'll see if that happens.
Friday, January 7, 2011
Identity Ink
There's a tattoo joint in Lubbock called Identity Ink. It's not necessarily the premier location to get tatted but it's got a feel about it that is interesting. I really like their name. It says something about the permanence of getting a tattoo, about how what we put on our body is a branch of how we define ourselves.
I say all of this to say, that there is something that happens when we define ourselves with permanent features. Marriage, Death, Divorce, Pregnant, Parent, etc. The permanent decision that you made or that happened in your life, defines you. Your identity is forever changed. You can never be un-married again. Even if you get divorced, it's not like you really go back to being single. Especially if kids are involved. You are always linked together.
As a Christian, ideally the main thing that would permanently identify my life is, well, Christian. I know that.
But I am really amazed at the process in which Cancer has taken over. It's similar to the "Scarlet Letter" feeling I had for so many years. Every conversation, every financial decision, every twinge or new body dynamic consistently reminds me of the "C" word. Even when conversation isn't about me having cancer, it hangs in the air like an elephant in the room. I cannot think of one single thing that I go through each day that isn't somehow defined by cancer. Peeing in the morning, showering in the morning, getting a haircut the other day...all filtered through the cancer lens.
If only my life could have been so permeated by Christ. The other "C" word.
I think when I hear the word "remission", I'm going to get a tattoo. I just won't tell my daddy, cause he would disown me. I've got an image in my mind already, I just need to have someone draw it up.
I say all of this to say, that there is something that happens when we define ourselves with permanent features. Marriage, Death, Divorce, Pregnant, Parent, etc. The permanent decision that you made or that happened in your life, defines you. Your identity is forever changed. You can never be un-married again. Even if you get divorced, it's not like you really go back to being single. Especially if kids are involved. You are always linked together.
As a Christian, ideally the main thing that would permanently identify my life is, well, Christian. I know that.
But I am really amazed at the process in which Cancer has taken over. It's similar to the "Scarlet Letter" feeling I had for so many years. Every conversation, every financial decision, every twinge or new body dynamic consistently reminds me of the "C" word. Even when conversation isn't about me having cancer, it hangs in the air like an elephant in the room. I cannot think of one single thing that I go through each day that isn't somehow defined by cancer. Peeing in the morning, showering in the morning, getting a haircut the other day...all filtered through the cancer lens.
If only my life could have been so permeated by Christ. The other "C" word.
I think when I hear the word "remission", I'm going to get a tattoo. I just won't tell my daddy, cause he would disown me. I've got an image in my mind already, I just need to have someone draw it up.
Friday, December 31, 2010
the hard way
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.
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.
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