Luehrs Line --------------------: Ocean of Love

Monday, July 4, 2011

Ocean of Love

My journal entry for July 2nd, 2011 -- in San Diego, CA with my family on the beach!

Standing at the oceans edge brings to surface many deep thoughts. My mind races all over. Mostly it makes me ponder the mighty power of God and your relentless love. As the waves keep coming, crashing over my feet, tide running in then out, a pulling I can feel. The same pulling, nagging in my heart. It's an awareness to your presence. So strong, with a tight grip I feel you. It's that crazy jealous love. Rushing over me like the waves on the sand. Nothing can hold back the waves. Nothing can stop the force behind them. With the sand beneath my toes, I sink into the ground, bracing for another swell to hit. It is cold. Yet it is refreshing to my mind, my heart and my spirit. It awakens me once again. Reminding me of you power and ultimate control in all things. My life, my situation, you cause the oceans to stay with in their boundaries, you know the deepest depths of the sea. So it is with me. You know my limits -- my boundaries. You know what lies deep with in me. Oh how you love me, I am completely and utterly overwhelmed. Such love I do not deserve, yet you freely gave it to me. I thank you for saving me, for letting your grace wash over me like a wave. Washing me clean and carrying my sins far far away cast into the depths of the sea, never to be remembered anymore. Such love is too marvelous so hard to grasp...I will lean not on my own understanding. Yet I know it is real. It wells up with in me, now overflowing. I can not help but give it away.
Enjoy a favorite song of mine...Oh How He Loves!

2 comments:

shmilyluehrsJuly 5, 2011 at 11:11 AM
Amen, sister! :) So happy you got to get away and refresh!!
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UnknownJuly 5, 2011 at 6:21 PM
Anna, Even as a little girl, you would stand at the shoreline and squeal with delight when the waves would touch you! Happy that you were able to escape and enjoyed the time together. Can't wait...see you soon...mom
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My Cancer Story

Many have asked me how long have you been sick? When did this all begin? Tough questions even for me to answer...all I can say at this point is I finally found some Doctors who listened to all my symptoms and did something about it. Late in April 2011 I went to see a family practitioner who sent me to a GI specialist for a colonoscopy. This resulted in a diagnosis on May 13th, 2011 of cancer in the colon. The extent was unknown at that point in time. I had to wait until Monday May 16th, 2011 for a CT scan. Then wait till Tuesday for an appointment with the surgeon, who would later remove the colon. I was informed of the biopsy results: adenocarcinoma. The CT did not show any signs of the cancer spreading to other organs (praise the Lord). In fact the CT did not even show the tumor. It was estimated by the GI Doctor to be the size of a golf ball. So surgery was scheduled for May 31st, 2011. Surgery was successful. They removed about a foot of the sigmoid colon and 20 lympnodes. I had to wait again for lab results. On June 2nd, 2011 I was told about the lab results. The tumor had evaded through the colon wall. Two out of the twenty lymph nodes tested positive for cancer. This elevated the stage of my cancer to 3 B. This is when I knew chemotherapy would be necessary. Recovery from surgery went well. GI functions are returning on their own and pain was easily controlled. I had my first appointment with the oncology team at MSTI (Twin Falls) on Friday June 17th, 2011.

I started chemotherapy on July 13th. The plan was set to give every two weeks for infusion treatments of poison. Sounds great on paper. The reality is this: chemo drugs deplete the body of healthy cells as well as potential rouge cancer cells. Keeping this schedule of every two weeks has proven to be difficult. On my off weeks I get my blood levels checked. This is to determine if it is "safe" enough for me to get chemo again. Safe...uh...it's poison right? Anyway chemo treatments have come and gone now, twelve in all. I finished up with my last round on January 27th.

On January 29th 2012 I had a CT scan. My oncology doctor said everything looked fine. No cancer detected. Doing the party dance! I am officially on the other side of living cancer free. I am celebrating in many ways. This has been the hardest thing in my life to do. Not to mention to try to balance so called "normal" life at home on the farm.

As far as the future goes with my health I have a few more doctor appointments scheduled. I will have another colonoscpy in May. For now, it is just watch and monitor my blood work and pray cancer doesn't return. Prognosis is good and I am believing and trusting in a mighty God. He is faithful!

Fast forward seven years -- 2018! Still cancer free! After many lab tests, blood work and CT scans so far no cancer detected. Miracles still happen everyone!

Favorite Quotes

Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow. It's what sunflowers do. Helen Keller

"Every good work should be a revelation of the glory of God. What makes the good deed an act of love is not the raw act, but the passion and the sacrifice to make God himself known as glorious. Not to aim to show God is not to love, because God is what we need most deeply. And to have all else without him is to perish in the end. The Bible says that you can give away all that you have and deliver your body to be burned and have not love (1 Corinthians 13:3). If you don't point people to God for everlasting joy, you don't love. You waste your life." John Piper ---Don't Waste Your Life

"Surrender is the key that unlocks the vault of God's best and deepest treasures." Charles Swindoll

"You can't move people to action unless you first move them with emotion. The heart comes before the head." John Maxwell

Spiritual growth is a conundrum. The key to spiritual growth is developing healthy and holy routines called spiritual disciplines. But once routine becomes routine we need to change the routine. Why? Because sacred routines become empty rituals if we do them out of left-brain memory instead of right-brain imagination. When we learn how and forget why we start going through the motions spiritually. Mark Batterson

Serenity Prayer

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time; accepting hardship as a pathway to peace; taking as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have; trusting that You will make all things right if I surrender to Your will; so that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with you forever in the next. --Reinhold Niebuhr

Luehrs Line --------------------

Monday, July 4, 2011

Ocean of Love

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