Unexpected news!

It's been quite a week! I have missed my blogging, & I feel I have some significant things to tell you...

In an earlier blog, I wrote that I suffer from anxiety, my daily companion. In the past, when I came out of a medical procedure, I was always fearful & wimpy, usually crying. Last Monday, I awakened from a long & dreaded surgery in a completely peaceful state. The moment the nurse looked in my face & said "Wake up, Susie, you are in recovery," I felt connected completely to God. I was overcome with gratitude to be alive & not in immense pain.

Now, almost a week out of surgery, I look back at the past few months & rethink my expectations. My world has been full of uncertainties. I have learned to numb myself to get through unwanted procedures & to receive test results. My life has had more unpleasant experiences & unwanted tests since my diagnosis last August than I can count in my lifetime.

When faced with a  difficult appointment, I go to God, & ask Him, "How am I going to get through this?" The answer that always comes back to me is GRACE. I am convinced that God's grace can get you through anything, no matter how horrible. How does this work? For me, it begins with the asking (the admitting of fear). Next, I hear His voice reassuring me that His grace is sufficient. I have no trouble accepting His answer once I hear it. Then... I know, it's surrender, stop fearing & fighting, & just go with it, just trust.

So that has been my prayer these last few months... to trust Him, & not to fight His will for me. One puzzle I couldn't put together was if my life would glorify Him more in living or in dying. We all want a miracle, don't we? (for ourselves or for our loved ones)  From our point of view, a miracle glorifies God. We reach the bottom of our barrel, & God shows Himself as He heals us. That is the healing that occurs this side of Heaven that is tangible. Others can see it.

What about the healing that occurs in the lives of the person & his/her loved ones who are not physically healed in this life? As we all know, sometimes people don't receive the answers they request. They pray for physical healing but instead receive the grace to get them through their journey. I have come to peace with this being God's answer to my journey. I prayed that whatever the outcome, He would be glorified.

Yesterday... my unexpected results came by telephone. I was expecting the cancer to be in significantly more lymph nodes & possibly worse. For every 3 lymph nodes added to the count, your prognosis worsens. I was ready for this. We would deal with whatever news we got & continue this journey leaning on God & on each other. My results were not what I expected. There was no cancer found in any lymph nodes. 10 out of 10 were clean, no cancer. The tumor had shrunk from 1/2 dollar size to a spec of sand. I couldn't even process all of this good news! In the hospital, I celebrated the preliminaries in the middle of the night with a pepsi & a bag of chips, basking in my thankfulness. Now what do I do? I'm asking God that question. "Please, God, use me & let my life draw others closer to you."