"For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved." 2 Peter 2:19b
I've been wondering lately if I am not somehow being more "overcome" by the situation of my sickness than I should be. I can't help when I am on chemo how horrible I feel, or how sick I get, but I can control the fact that I am getting chemo. We've said before (see yesterday's post for a link to my first day of chemo where I quote a friend) that God has given gifted men and women the intelligence to create chemo and treat the sickness in me, but I find myself wondering if the whole situation has made me something of a chemo "addict"?
People lived and died by the grace of God before chemo, people live and die in third world countries without chemo. People are miraculously healed in places where they don't have chemo. We've been praying for four years that God would heal me. Maybe I need to do something else. These desires and passions I have to be doing something else, to follow the dreams I have, maybe that is what God is calling me to do. Maybe this chemo has reached a point where it has overcome me and I am depending not on God for rescue and redemption, but in chemicals. Maybe they have been obfuscating God's voice in my life.
What if I am being asked to step out in faith that God will take care of me as long as I pursue the dreams and the mission He has set before me. Because, as I wrote about yesterday, THAT is where I want to be. Not here.
And of course, doubts cling to my mind: "What are you crazy? The thing you are most afraid of in the world will happen if you do that! [Slow death by tumor] You're here in Houston, there are solutions here, experts that 'know' what they are doing. You're safe here. Do you really want to do something like like to Lisa?"
I remember the last time I was faced with something like this... it was a lot less "life and deathy" then this time around. The question was, "Do we move to Colorado and pursue a life there despite my recent "recovery" from cancer?" We did though. We left the families, the friends, the cities we knew and moved to a place we didn't know to pursue a job that I have always wanted to pursue. It was exciting, it was challenging on many levels, we were learning and we were growing. We were pretty sure that we were where we needed to be. And then I got sick again. Now we've made this move to Houston to try and find a permeant solution to my sickness.
Where do I draw the line? When does the desire in me to be pursuing the things I have been gifted in simply outweigh the weekly unknown of drugs, scans and doctors? No offense to those that are older in the crowd, but without this cancer I might be looking at another forty to fifty years of life to do what I'm excited about. A lot of the cancer patients I see tend to be at the end of this spectrum. All ready at 70 or 80 the fight is part of retirement. That isn't me. I haven't done and I have this fire in me to DO the things God has laid on my heart, this cancer I consider evil because of that hindrance.
Yesterday I was telling a nurse about where the tumors were and I got an image in my mind of a snake with an open mouth behind my heart, his body coiled around my throat/ trachea area and his tail dangling down behind my right ribs. This is how I am going to visualize them, and they need to die.
A lot of questions, retrospection, and not a lot of answers. I guess I need prayers, and honestly I also would be interested to hear what you think of this ramble.
~B.
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