Life Events, Fun Trips, & Summer Things
Change has always been hard for me. I like traditions, I like routine, and I enjoy the anticipation that comes with looking forward to the same camping trips, holiday parties and alike. But God sometimes brings about change whether we like it or not.
My parents met at Woodland Christian Church back in the 1700’s (lol okay not quite that long ago but it was in the 70’s so pretty close) when my mom was 12 and my dad was 17! They were married a few years later in the church and raised all 12 of us kids there as well! Then when Jamison moved here in 2010, he started attending there, and we’ve gone together for the last decade+ of our marriage. All that history to say, although we thought God would never call us elsewhere, He has.
The final call to make the transition to a new body of believers wasn’t easy. Like I said, change isn’t my favorite! We still love the WCC family very much and couldn’t have done the last six years of cancer treatment without them. God used the body of believers there mightily in our lives and we know that God will continue to use them in many other families lives as well as they serve God’s kingdom.
I was telling Jamison that I was anxious about having to church shop, he said “God isn’t calling us away to nothing” it’s God’s will for all believers to be in fellowship with others!
Thankfully the church hunt is easier in our modern times with the help of the internet. Jamison began to look around our area and came across Vista Community in Ridgefield, just 15 minutes from our house! Right away we both really loved Pastor Thomas’ Gospel-saturated sermons and his family a lot. We have been attending there since April of this year. It has been a huge blessing getting to know and connect with many new believers, and it’s been a surprisingly seamless transition. The people at Vista are warm, welcoming, friendly and big huggers; what's not to love about that!
Well, there’s that rather significant life update out of the way! Otherwise, the summer has been going quite swimmingly! We went on a weeklong trip to Cancun at the beginning of June with our good friends, my cousin Lane, and his wife Faith! It was over our 12th anniversary and Lanes 30th birthday! Lots to celebrate, we had a grand time! The guys went out snorkeling one day, and we did a day trip out in our rental car and explored some nearby underground caves called Cenotes. It was a refreshing way to cool off in the 90-degree weather! We stayed at the Haven Riviera resort – highly recommend! The staff would walk by as you lay pool side on your swim up suites “Why yes, I’d love another kiwi margarita thank you”
After we got back in June, we went to work on trying to get our new pesky insurance company to agree to cover the needed bloodwork and MRI that my Oncologist had put an order in for mid May. I have continued to leak protein from my kidneys at a concerning rate, and it had been months at this point since we have checked my cancer numbers or had imaging to see what’s going on.
Here we are almost the end of July and we FINALLY got both the Signatera blood results and the MRI report. This was my first time being off all cancer preventative treatments (i.e my chemo pill, and Cyramza) and guess what—I’m still in remission!!
As I reflect on the past six years, there’s part of me that is grateful that God didn’t sit me down at the beginning of this cancer journey and lay it all out up front how painful and difficult the next 6 years were going to be.
“Daughter, this is going to be a long hard road over the next 6 years with 50 rounds of chemo, 3 rounds of radiation and a lot of ER visits. Please trust and hold onto me”
I remember in the days following my diagnosis we were rapidly trying to educate ourselves about the world of cancer and what this meant for our future. I recall the moment that I heard the timeline “5 years” and thinking “Oh God, please don’t make me go through this for the next five years!!”
I know that if I had had the big picture right up front, without also knowing and tangible feeling all the grace that would be poured out, the task would have been too daunting and my outlook entirely more cynical.
The thing is, the trust in God that this trial has brought me, learning to trust in the day in and day out, without knowing for certain the outcome, is worth the death of every dream of what I thought my life would look like. It’s a constant training to engrain the truths of scripture into my heart and mind, it doesn’t just happen supernaturally. And believe it or not I am grateful that God put me under enough pressure, to be forced to know that my only choices were to buckle under the weight or to find rest in him. To truly trust him in the unknowing.
Here I sit without cancer, happily typing on my keyboard with a complicated balance to maintain in my head and heart moving forward. I feel both joy and fear. Joy in the hope of a future without cancer and God willing more children, and fear of the WHAT IFS. I’m reminding myself daily that yes, I put in effort for healing, I eat the healthy food, exercise, IV vitamin C, hyperbaric chamber, all the supplements, etc. but ultimately, my healing rests solely in the fact that God divinely and graciously chose that for me.
I’m still going to honor this gift of healing by continuing to apply all that we’ve learned about diet and health, while thanking God every day that it’s not my responsibility to maintain that healing. I am more than content to lean into his sovereign plan for me, He knows best.