Give God the Glory

     It's hard to explain how I feel.  Joyful, elated, ecstatic, happy, amazed, thankful...those would all be appropriate words, I think.  I give God praise first of all for working this miracle in my life.  Hearing the doctor say, as he was pointing to the ultrasound screen and looking for my tumor, "This is the area I am concerned with.  There is nothing there."  There is nothing there.  There is nothing there...  It continues to repeat itself over and over in my head.  Thank God, my tumor is gone!
     It is almost unbelievable.  Can this really be true?  Yes.  Of course, it can be.  It is!  I saw the screen myself.  There really is nothing there.  It's been almost a week, and I am still soaking in the fullness of the reality of receiving a miracle from God.  I hope I never get over it! 
     On Wednesday I will have surgery.  At that time the doctor will remove the area where my tumor was.  He will also remove some lymph nodes, and he will take out my port.  Then, sometime soon, I will start radiation therapy. 
     Thinking about all of those facts, I want to stop and give some glory to God.

     I still am not sure why he chose me for this life adventure.  Maybe it was to show me how many people love me and really care.  I said at the very beginning of this, if you want to know how much you are loved, just tell people you have cancer.  They come from everywhere to encourage you and support you.   I have a box full of cards that have come (and continue to come) at the most appropriate of times with exactly the right words that I needed.  There were text and Face Book messages that came, some long and some short, but always just when I needed to know someone was thinking about me and saying a prayer.  I received phone calls from friends I haven't talked to in ages, but who wanted to call and love on me for a little bit.  Some came to visit and just sit and talk.  Time they could have been doing something else they probably needed to do, they chose to give to me.  Yes, I have become keenly aware of how much I am loved.
     Maybe God chose me for this adventure so that I would become sensitive to the plight of others.  My journey is relatively short.  I went through a little more than four months of chemo while I know others who have been taking it for years.  Getting my port out after six months?  I know others who had to keep theirs for a whole year or more!  I just had to go one day a week for chemo.  I met others who went several days a week.  Some of them for the entire day.  I know one new friend who already knows he will have to take chemo for the rest of his life. 
     I have also become more aware of how what you do for someone ministers in ways no one but the recipient can ever understand.  People who cooked and brought meals on those days when just the thought of food did me in will never know how much they were appreciated.  Those who gave up days and days to drive me to treatment and sit there all day will always have a special place in my heart.  The ladies who are survivors and made sure to encourage me along the way have taught me to follow suit and do the same for those who will come behind me. 
     I think back to the night the church leadership came to pray over me.  It seems like so long ago, but those people will always and forever be special friends.  We bonded in a way few people do.  All because together we united our hearts in faith and trusted God to do something mighty and powerful.  We have seen his hand and experienced answers to our prayers.  As a group we placed our complete trust in God and his Word, and he has honored that with a screen on an ultrasound machine that showed me a bunch of squiggly lines where a blob of cancer cells once was.
     Through the disappointment of missing my summer trip to Haiti, I experienced the love of my friends there.  The testimony that was brought back of how the pastors and women gathered to pray for me is powerful in itself.  Seeing the video of them singing that God can do everything, that He is the Alpha and Omega, that He is in control, and knowing they were singing those things about my cancer journey, is humbling and exciting.  Hearing that after the prayer the Haitian pastors approached my pastor and said, "Vicki is going to be OK," makes me wonder about my own confidence as I approach the throne of God in prayer.
     Friends, stop and give God the glory.  He does great and mighty works.  I praise him for bringing me to this point in my journey.  I am a survivor, though my journey is not complete.  Still, I know that as I continue down this path and move on with life, my Jesus walks with me and he talks with me, and he tells me I am his own.  And the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known.