Cancer. It's such an ugly word. It comes with such a negative connotation. It brings fear, anxiety, sadness and really just all around sucks. Monday, March 16, 2020 as I sat in a small doctor's office exam room, I was told it was cancer. Chronic myeloid leukemia to be exact. That was my diagnosis. I sat there just taking in what the doctor was telling me, almost in disbelief. After she continued to speak to what I was about to face, it finally hit me. The tears started and they didn't stop. The emotion continued off and on throughout the rest of that day as I called my husband, Rob, my mom, explained cancer to my children and made some of the hardest phone calls of my life. Never in my life did I think that at the age of 34 I would be facing cancer.
I was scheduled the next day to have a bone marrow biopsy. Not because it was a pressing situation, but because it conveniently fit into my busy schedule. My busy schedule. Wow! All of the sudden I was being forced to insert something into my schedule that I did not choose. What a reality check. Tuesday commenced and the procedure went well. Emotions were still high but I spent most of the day sleeping. I think my body desperately needed it. I woke up late that day. I started processing more through the whole situation. As I processed, pondered and considered what the next few weeks, months and years would look like, I paused. I realized as I was going through the thoughts in my head that fear had left me. Anxiety had left me. Emotion had left me. In that moment I felt a sense of peace. It was just as overwhelming as the grief I had felt less than 24 hours before. God had brought me peace. The peace I prayed and hoped for. I was faced with a decision to choose negativity or positivity and my soul chose to be positive. Being positive doesn't mean I'm not going to face uncertainty. It doesn't mean that I won't feel scared at times or even hopeless. What it does mean is that with all that I have in me, I will always stand on the certainty that God holds. When I am scared, God will bring me security. When I am hopeless, God will sustain the hope within me. That is the faith that I am choosing to have with each step of this journey. I know it won't always be easy, but I am thankful for a God who holds my world in his hands, who is not surprised by my diagnosis and who created me with a plan and a purpose to live out, to beat cancer, to have a story to share through this and reach the hurting and broken. In a world of uncertain times and uncontrollable chaos, I pray that you will find hope. Sometimes that's all we've got.