Author: admin

Posted in Faith

Changes

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Who likes changes? “Me, me, me!” Said no one. Ever. We have just come out of a year full of changes. Some changes are pleasant – this last year was not.

Our family, prior to 2020 had just experienced a couple of really blessed years. We had moved out of the big city; we were able to buy a home that we love. It is in the small town of Sandy in the foothills of Mt. Hood. We were blessed in our jobs. My husband was moving up the ranks of seniority and enjoying the benefits that come with that. I was given a promotion into what is really my dream job. My daughter got to attend a small-town high school, incidentally, the same high school my mother graduated from – pretty cool! These were changes too, but happy ones.

When 2020 started, I know I wondered if maybe our time of being so blessed was coming to an end. I had no idea EVERYONE’s year was going to be so challenging! But there it is. We have made it to the other side of it and here it is 2021. What can we make of it? What lessons can we learn from 2020? Changes have been a hot topic of late.

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Posted in Life Stories

Truth be Told

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Throughout this year, from time to time, people ask me how I am. I have appreciated that. But I never know how to answer it. Compared to many people I know; I am doing great. So, I generally say that I am doing good. But it does not really feel like “good” to me. Here is how I really feel, right now, today – and pretty much every day:

I feel angry. I feel frustrated. I feel defeated. I feel tired. I feel alone.

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Posted in Israel

The Faith of Abraham

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My recent trip to Israel will stay with me forever. Yet as I say that, I feel like I need to do something to help me hold onto it. To express all that I saw and experienced may take a lifetime. But I need to try. With my words and some pictures I want to try to take you there too.

Our first “tour day” started at Elon Moreh. Genesis 12 tells us this is where God first took Abram to show him “The Promise”. This is where the Abrahamic Covenant began. This is a place where God spoke to our spiritual father Abram.

Bible translations says the “oak of Moreh”, or the “plain of Moreh,” or the “great tree of Moreh”, this confused me before I saw the place. I always imagined just a place – nothing special, a big tree maybe – big whoop. So, for God to take Abram there and promise “to your descendants, I give this land” was a “so what?” to me. I did not imagine that there was much to be seen. But then I saw it.

We came at sunrise. We ate a breakfast of delicious homemade cinnamon rolls. There is an oak tree at the top, likely a descendant of the tree Abram saw. Slightly down the slope to the northeast there is another larger and more beautiful tree. A small, very picturesque cave sits behind it. There is a resting place here. You can sit and try to take it all in.

It was amazing to see what Abram saw. It is actually located at the top of a hill. It would have been quite a climb for a 75-year-old man, I’m glad we rode a bus! There are rocks and grasses everywhere. The view is astounding. The land all around is vast. To imagine being told that all of it would be your offspring’s! I walked around in awe at all there was to see. It was beautiful and spread out all before me. Just like it would have been for him. I wonder how he felt. He was childless. Yet God was promising all of this to his children’s children.

You can look down into the valley and see Shechem (Nablus), now an Arab village. There were Canaanites in the land then. Abram would have seen them as well.  I don’t know, maybe he wondered, “What about them? Someone is already here”! The Bible tells us in Romans 4:3 that “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness”. I wish I had that faith.

One of the things that impressed me as I spent time in Israel and with the Jewish people, the Orthodox Jews, is how they lived their faith. This is just not something they believe. They literally live it. They hold on to every promise, every prophesy, every command. It is written on their doorposts; it is lived in their choices. It is seen in their attitude. Here are Abrahams descendants in the land, the prophecy fulfilled. Yet still there are others in the land too. It must be re-claimed. There are prophecies being fulfilled and fulfillments still yet to be seen. But they hold on to them. Still they believe God. I see Abraham in this. I see the faith of Abraham in every one of them. And I stand amazed.

Posted in Faith

Hills and Valleys

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God of the Hills and Valleys

Have you ever known a song that just says it all? One that you feel like someone was reading your mind and heart to know just where you are? There is a song like that for me.  As my family gratefully comes out of a valley and sits for this moment on a hill, Tauren Wells sings a song called Hills and Valleys that expresses my heart exactly. I have walked the valleys, and although I feel like I may be on a mountaintop right now, I know that I have never been alone, nor have I arrived by myself.

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Posted in Faith

Lavish Love

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God’s lavish love – I am overwhelmed today, by God’s lavish love.

I have had the desire to buy a home for the last few years. We have thought that we were ready and gone looking a couple of times.  Each time we were given a definite “No, not now.”

Through an inheritance and the timely sale of a small property, we have recently been able to build a little bit of a nest egg. My baby starts high school next year (Wow, that just sounds wrong! Where did the time go?). If we are going to make a move, its now or another 4 years minimum.  It would be nice to retire sometime, and not have to pay rent. Maybe now, is this the time, God?

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Posted in Faith, Life Stories, My Cancer Journey

After…

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We all have those times when we wonder where God is. Many of us, if not all of us, have felt deserted by Him at some time – or just always doubted His existence at all. The outcome of my surgeries, the fact of that being plural to begin with, left me feeling very abandoned.

I don’t want to dwell on the story, it’s not important. The end result was that I had to have a colostomy. The very thing I feared and prayed I would not have to have.

The real story is in the after – the weeks that have followed this life changing event. I felt so defeated. My faith was shattered. I felt alone. I did not feel good. I was weak. I cried every day. I was so tired, but dreaded sleeping because I would wake up so depressed. The worst was that I could not feel God’s presence. How could He leave me like this? So, really now, where was He? Does He exist? Am I a fool to believe?

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Posted in Faith, My Cancer Journey, Surrender

Promises, Promises

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Hello Friends and Family – Wow, what a ride this has been! I have been so blessed and so amazed that it is hard to know how to start to tell you all that is on my heart. So, I am in Leg 4 – Recovery from Treatment.

I guess first I should just begin with how I am physically. I went back to work this week. Time to get ready for the new school year and there is always lots of planning to do, but this year especially as I consider that I will not be here for some amount of time. I hit the ground running and have felt really well. My body seems, in many ways, to be healthier than before the chemo and radiation. My doctors are somewhat stunned at how well I did, and how I have recovered. There is a “BUT” though! But…I realized I MAY have overdone it a bit when Thursday afternoon came. About 1pm, I just couldn’t go no more! I ran and ran until I just couldn’t ran no more! I ran out of steam early on Friday too. So, I have tried to slow down a bit this weekend. BUT – I will be back at it tomorrow on Monday as I have another busy week ahead and still much to be done for school.

This coming week is exciting for a few reasons. I look forward to seeing more of a recovery and being able to run this race a little better this week. I have post-treatment PET CT scan scheduled for Tuesday. It will be exciting to see what God has truly done in healing me. Then I meet with my surgeon on Thursday to plan for my actual surgery. Finally, on Friday, we head out of town for a family vacation. I admit, I have been a little jealous of all the trips I have seen and heard everyone taking this year, while I have had to sit the summer out. But truly, I have been on a pretty amazing trip myself, as I realize all that God has done for me this season. Still, it will be nice to get away from home for a short time and just be a tourist.

What I am really excited to share though, is what I look forward to in the coming season. God promised to deliver me, and He has. I feel that so surely in how I came through treatment. My doctors have just been amazed at how well I have done. They do this every day – their surprise tells me something – I am a miracle!

But now there is the 3rd part of my grand plan – “You will glorify me” says God in my special verse, Psalms 50:15. Two months ago, I took that as an obligation. Something that I would be required to do. I worried that I would not be sufficient for the task, I would fail Him, after He had somehow delivered me. But now I realize, that even that is part of His promise. I WILL glorify Him. Not maybe, not try, not should – I WILL!!! Doesn’t He tell us “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.*”? So, although I may not be able on my own to fulfill this, He will bring it about by His grace and His strength, not my own. He will find the way for me to glorify Him, and by His abilities, it will happen. I don’t have to do a thing except be willing! He has a plan for my life and He will see me through to it.

So, even though there is still more to come, probably surgery for one, I have been looking at next steps. There are a few things on the horizon. I am excited about each and every one of them. I don’t want to discuss them, because they are just ideas and maybe’s right now. I don’t know which, if any, will come to fruition, but I am NOT worried. Here is another miracle. Maybe there is something I am unaware of, maybe I will never be conscience of how it is accomplished. It is much more to MY liking to find a goal and run head long into it – kind of a fool’s rush in, where angels fear kind of thing. But this time, from my lessons in surrender, I am so at peace with letting God lead where He will. I am excited and at peace at the same time. God is good. He has made a promise and kept it.  I KNOW I can trust Him with this as well.

Posted in My Cancer Journey

Leg 3 Treatment Begins!

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Leg 3 – FINALLY!!!

Okay Friends, here we go! Treatment is scheduled to begin July 6th, this Thursday. I can’t foresee any reason this will not happen at this point. This means my first chemo and my first radiation therapy sessions will begin. Chemo is once a week; the radiation is every weekday. This will continue for 5-6 weeks.

I praise God that I, Miss Worrywart, am surprisingly calm. I am trying to just be positive about it all. It is simply the means to an end. I desire the end, so I have to accept the means.  God has been teaching me to take one day (or less!) at a time. I believe that will be key to getting through the difficult times ahead. I also think that ignorance might be bliss right now too!

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