Luehrs Line --------------------: For Love's Sake

Sunday, November 3, 2013

For Love's Sake

It's why we mothers do what we do everyday. We love.

We love because He first loved us.

We bend over to pick up dirty clothes, lost Legos, cereal crumbs and items of unknown origination created in boys dream-lands. It is a never ending job. Just like love it never ends, never gives up and is always present. A mother's love never grows weary. There are the sleepless nights of infant feeding and stumbling in the dark to find a place to feed a hungry babe. It is tireless, thankless and relentless work. Yet love wells up in a mother's heart and is able to accomplish the task at hand.

Love never fails. 1 Corinthians 13:8

Five loads of clean laundry sit piled like a mountain on my bedroom floor waiting to be folded and tucked into drawers. The dishes clatter against themselves as the dishwasher purrs like a kitten. My list of today's to dos sits open on the kitchen counter. The dogs, cats, chickens and horse have all been feed. The baby still slumbers as I tip toe around the house before the light dawns. Love will awaken soon. My heart is drawn to sit and rest in the stillness of the morning. I sit in my big brown comfy chair and read about Love.

"And whoever gives one of these little ones only a cup of cold [water]

in the name of a disciple, assuredly, I say to you,

he shall by no means lose his reward."

Matthew 10:42

So I sit like Mary at the feet of Jesus (Love incarnate) and drink. My soul is quenched for the moment. My heart is filled once again to overflowing so I can give away love for the day. This is the epi power of the Holy Spirit. My cup sits full to the brim with love overflowing. I pray it spills out to all I come in contact with. It's what I need to survive the day. Love is at war for my mind, my Spirit, my heart and my flesh.

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength

of my heart and my portion forever.

Psalm 73:26

Love comes alive in me as I continue to sit. I draw near to Him and He draws near to me. The baby cries and I arise to fetch Love...a gift. I cuddle Love and kiss and speak Love to him. I am filled to overflowing. I think my heart is about to burst. My cup runs over.

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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 --------------------

Sunday, November 3, 2013

For Love's Sake

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