Let's Be Real

Living with Li-Fraumeni Syndrome (LFS) and being hit with cancer after cancer, not only in yourself but within your family, you get really skilled at “stuffing”. You “stuff” down your feelings so that you can function on a day to day basis. The problem with this is that it will always catch up with you. That has been this past week for me. It was a perfect storm of trials and I just hit a wall. Since I last blogged, I have been hospitalized for various things like a rotavirus which temporarily robbed me of my independence. I had to relearn how to do even basic things like walking steadily or standing up. It was an incredibly humbling experience. After that, I got pancreatitis, an aggressive form of pneumonia, another respiratory virus that is HH-something-or-other, and on top of those things, the antibiotics they gave me caused me to have severe insomnia which caused severe anxiety which didn’t help with the insomnia…. Along with the stress and drama of being a foster parent along with other personal matters in my life? *sigh* whew. So yeah, I hit a wall in a major way. When you live with LFS, it’s so easy to question. It’s easy to feel alone, that even those closest to you don’t even understand. When you’re always getting sick, whether it be cancer or illnesses due to your weakened immune system, it’s easy to start feeling like this is your life. It’s easy to feel like there is no relief in sight. No real relief, at least. You have periods of time when you get a “break”, but even during those ‘breaks” you begin to feel like you are always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Every headache, you think “Is it a tumor?” When you feel short of breath, “Has my hemoglobin dropped? Has my leukemia come back?” When you get pneumonia and it’s hard to breathe, “Is this how it will feel if I ever get lung cancer?” Every new allergy you develop to an antibiotic or pain killer, “What on earth will I do if I ever need another surgery?” Every happy moment shared with a loved one, you wonder how many more of these moments you have left? Every time you hear, "Keep fighting! You'll beat this!" you think, "but for how long?"

It’s easy to start to question what it is that God expects of you. Why do you have to go through so much?

While thinking about these things a while back, I was reading through one of my favorite books, “Visions of Glory,” by John Pontius. There was an excerpt that hit me rather hard at the perfect moment: “I understood that I would also be called to suffer so that I, too, could be purified, completed, in Christ… and I had to submit to this process willingly.”

“Is there no other way?”

No. There is no other way. I guess it should be a “well, duh!” moment that these things are here to purify and complete me in Christ, but it doesn’t make it easier to go through. Even Christ, in Gethsemane, asked for the bitter cup to be removed. I cannot even fathom all the pain He suffered. I know what my pain feels like, alone. I just can’t imagine feeling a whole world full of pain and suffering…. I don’t want to know what that feels like. And it just makes me love Him all the more. I have so much love for Him.

Although I’ve hit this wall, I’m starting to climb it. Christ is there for me every step of the way. Through this bout with leukemia, I’ve come to know, without a shadow of a doubt, that Heavenly Father loves me. He knows me. Personally. He is in the very minutes of my life. He cares about every seemingly trivial thing. Everything He allows me to go through is for my good. Everything I go through, I wouldn’t have to go through if there was no point. There is a plan. Sometimes I get glimpses of it. 99% of the time I just have to trust.

“Jesus is the Christ, the Savior of the world. Everything depends on Him. We’d better find a way to stay close to Him, and if we can’t, there’s not much hope. He is what we need.” –L. Tom Perry