Redeeming November

Feels like a longtime before my surgery will happen now that I’ve had to reschedule due to being sick. I’m reminding myself that God is in control of the details that I can’t control. How in control actually blows our minds! 

I was originally taken to surgery to remove a growth in my episiotomy scar. We weren’t concerned that it was cancer at all because my body grew lots of strange things in my 20’s. Dermgoid tumors, adhesions, endometriosis, cysts. All had been benign. 

November 9th 2010 they removed this new growth. A couple days later I went back to the office for work, moving on with life. 

November 15th 2010 the nurse called and said the doctor wanted to see me in his office. This screamed abnormal. I called Billy and asked him to meet me at the doctor’s office. That afternoon we learned I had a very rare type of cancer called vaginal adenocarcinoma. Only 50 women in the U.S. were diagnosed per year. There was no standard treatment regimen known. 

Fast forward to now - 12 years later! 

November 9th 2022 I will go have a new CT Scan and preop for my rescheduled surgery. 

November 14th 2012 I will have my rescheduled surgery to remove the last known active cancer and spend the night in the hospital. 

November 15th 2022 I will have my first day cancer free! And maybe get to come home! 

Who, but God, puts this schedule together?!? 

Luke 8:43-44 “Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years; and though she had spent all she had on physicians, no one could cure her. She came up behind Jesus and touched the fringe of his clothes, and immediately her hemorrhage stopped.

8:48 Then He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you.  Go in peace.”

Join me in praying for healing from cancer here on earth by means of this surgery in OKC exactly 12 years later from diagnosis. 

The Anchor of Our Soul

Hope is an anchor of our soul, both sure and steadfast, according to Hebrews 6:19.  If a boat floats on the water not anchored, what happens? It is pushed every which way the waves and wind wants to blow it.  It has nothing to steady it.  Nothing to keep it on course for its destination.  Nothing keeping it safe from attack and destruction. This is just like us.  As the world blows in one hard storm after another, if we are not anchored to something sure and steadfast, we'll be tossed about until we are lost, or worse yet, destroyed.  

What is your soul anchored to?  

Two years ago at the beginning of the covid pandemic of 2020, I was watching church on TV one day and the pastor was talking about how God told the Isrealites they had wandered long enough in the desert. They'd been wandering lost for 38 years.  I was certain that this was a message straight to my heart from God that my time had come to leave the desert and I'd get to see the promised land where God would restore the years the locust had eaten.  This was coming out of a year and a half of cancer spots being found because of immense pain in my body.  These spots had to be radiated for treatment and I'd been pushing through pain, sickness from treatment and doing life with our very busy family of 5.  Chris had just gotten married and we'd moved he and his bride to Arizona.  Alyssa was doing pageants and had won for Arkansas and then competed at the National level in California over Thanksgiving. She was doing school cheer and track.  Isaiah was a high school senior and we were busy enjoying all the things that come along with the lasts of Senior year, plus preparing for college. I was doing it all and loving it all, but so weary deep into my bones.  When I heard that message of leaving the desert, it spoke straight to my heart.   Oh the hope that overflowed my heart! 

Not 2 months later, we entered into one of the hardest seasons of our life as a family.  Satan wanted to destroy us.  He brought a darkness into our home that we'd never even imagined. There was no one we knew who could understand our situation.  No one who could truly help carry the burdens and fear we began to face.  The deep in your soul suffering was something I'd never experienced before. Close family couldn't help us.  The Christian community who knew didn't know how to engage and serve us.  Someday, maybe, God will ask us to share the details of this time, but for now it is enough to know that Satan wanted to see us lose our faith. He wanted us to fall facedown on the ground cursing the God we'd loved and trusted endlessly.  

Some days the darkness swallowed us up whole leaving us paralyzed in our own minds. Questioning what God was allowing and why we felt abandoned and so alone. Other times I could find no words to pray except to repeat, help us God. One summer day I decided to sit on the back porch and listen to "The Blessing" by Kari Jobe.  I could only pray as I listened to the lyrics accounting how God would turn His face toward us, be gracious to us and give us peace. (Numbers 6:24-26).  It goes on to express God's favor to our family for a thousand generations, for our children, and our children's children. ( Deuteronomy 7:9)  It reminded me that God is with me and He is for me. (Deuteronomy 31:8).  These purely sang scriptures, literally written and released in 2020, became my prayer anthem every single morning.  I would listen, meditating on the words and then pray out Satan in the power of Jesus blood.  Slowly, day by day, I felt my anchor becoming steadfast and sure again. 

How long would this continue though, Lord?  We whined and complained just like the Isrealites.  We knew nothing else to do, but to desperately grip the rope that kept us tied to the anchor of our souls.  Without this, we knew we'd drown and our family be destroyed. Our family began to take tiny steps forward in healing, understanding, foregiveness and grace.  There are still so many bruises and scrapes being tended to, but the promise stands true.  Here we are 2 years later, just like the Isrealites in their 40th year.  God says, now is the time! We can almost taste and see the promised land. Not only coming out of this unbelievably dark and painful season as a family, but also in my cancer battle.  Stay tuned for more about this because its going to blow your mind.  Never untie your anchor, friends, for it is our only hope.