gratitude

It's been a few weeks since my last post.  Many of you have asked why.  You want to keep up with how things are going with me and treatment but realize my emoji answered text messages mean I probably don't want to talk a lot.  Please know that I appreciate all the love and support, calls and messages, food, flowers....continue to be overwhelmed with gratitude for you all.  I'm just tired.

Here's the deal.  When I write, it feels like (because it is) all about me.  ME, ME, ME.  A blog about my personal journey through breast cancer and recovery.  It was meant to be a form of communication with family and friends, a way to speak up and share what it's like so that others who are going through the same trial or may have to face it in the future might be encouraged.  And as a personal record.

Gonna be really honest here.  I'm going through a very timely getting-to-know-myself period.  I made a statement during my diagnosis stage that I have no fear about getting through this cancer stuff.  We caught it early, had it removed and now just need to do what the doctors tell us to do.  And yes, it sucks.  I hate how I feel.  But, it's just time.  A small amount of time in this 44 year old girls life. And there is the rub.  I'm 44.  I've got a lot of self reflection and soul searching to do.  I felt at the beginning and feel even stronger now about one thing.  There is something else I'm meant to learn through all of this. Something life changing.  I read something the other day that lined up with that thought.  "People of depth are enlarged by suffering.  Suffering introduces you to yourself."  That opened a door for me.

So I don't know what to write about right now.

I go to chemo once a week for the next three months starting December 2nd.  I am so grateful for all of you who reach out and encourage me, sending me words of strength and love.  We are holding it together here, and I feel deeply loved.  Can't ask for more than that.

I'd like to leave you with something.  For some of you, this will hit home. These words come from a book I'm enjoying:

"The first big thing suffering does is it drags you deeper into yourself.  People who endure suffering are taken beneath the routine busyness of life and find they are not who they believed themselves to be.  It, oddly, teaches gratitude.  It becomes a fearful gift, very different from the other gift, happiness, conventionally defined.  The latter brings pleasure, but the former cultivates character. "

Friends, there is goodness in each one of us.  God created us to enjoy His peace, live in harmony and show His grace.  To delight in the beautiful world He created for us to live in.  To live humbly, not boast, radiate His love and love those around us.  Thank you for walking with me as I keep fighting this fight and digging deep to be a better person.  The woman He intended me to be.