Luehrs Line --------------------: If God

Friday, July 13, 2012

If God

Before the day is over...
Today marks a year ago from when I first started chemotherapy. It is hard to imagine that this past year has gone by as quickly as it did. Looking back is bitter sweet. Chemo is just not one of those things on your bucket list of things to do in life. I can say now that I am very thankful it is in the past. Hopeful to never revisit it again. Pondering today brings me back to days of agonizing waiting, patiently praying and constantly hoping in Hope. He is faithful. Great is His faithfulness unto me.

Me one year ago! July 13th, 2011

Last year I started chemo in the middle of my church's VBS. It was a hot Wednesday morning. I remember it so vividly. I can smell it. It's funny how sounds and smells can bring you back to a previous experience. Today I stood in the same sanctuary with the VBS crew and kids. Today we sang songs, danced, played games and listened to Bible lessons. Last year I sat in the pastor's office sprawled out on his couch. I pulled myself together to lead the kids in song and direction. This year I danced with them. They may not understand why I make a complete idiot of myself dancing around to Jeff Slaughter tunes. But God knows. The simple truths we teach at VBS are the simple truths that got me through this last year.

"Love God and love others" Luke 10:27

Admit
Believe
Confess

Awesome God! Amazing Power!

I wrote this in my journal last year:

"He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord: He is my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust."

Psalm 91:1-2

This is the same place I hide in today. When life has changed, my health gives way and I have nothing left to cling to, the Shelter is the only place of solace. I have learned what the words of one of the VBS songs we sang this week really means.

If God by Jeff Slaughter

If God holds my days in His hands,

If God has power over my circumstance,

If God knows the plans he has for me,

Why should I fear? Why should I worry?

If God is for me who can be against me?

Whatever happens I know I can trust He is in control.

Cause God is for me who can be against me?

I have faced the giants. God is on my side. The struggle is part of the journey. It's what makes us into the person God wants us to be. If we never have to struggle, we wouldn't see the glory in it. Christ in me the hope of glory. That is what it is about.

"Worry does not empty tomorrow of sorrow, it empties today of it's strength" Corrie Ten Boom
Written by another women who knew how to hide...

Dustin & me July 1, 2012

1 comment:

shmilyluehrsJuly 23, 2012 at 9:15 PM
Ugh! Once again, I don't know what happened to my previous comment!! My favorite part of this is when you said the struggle is part of the journey. Life is SUPPOSED to be hard. We don't grow by learning ABOUT life, that's just when we have potential to grow. We grow by DOING what we have learned from Him and walking out the hard part of faith/long-suffering/self-control, etc. :)
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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 --------------------

Friday, July 13, 2012

If God

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