I am a
cancer survivor. Found a lump on my
breast in December of 2017, right before Christmas. Merry Christmas to me! My doctors set me up for surgery and
radiation, and in the six weeks between the first images on the ultrasound and
the treatment, it more than doubled in size.
Don’t be looking at my girls, they’re still about the same size. Miracles of modern surgery. But the day you hear the words, “It’s cancer,”
that is life changing, shattering to body and soul.
Halfway
through my radiation treatments, my radiation oncologist asked me, “How are
your treatments? Are they pleasant?” I couldn’t believe it. Pleasant? Was he serious? That’s what we all want to do, strip to the
waist, go into a cold dark room, lie on a foam brace formed to our body to keep
us stable and in one position, with no deodorant, and have
someone shoot dangerous levels of radiation into our bodies. My own French beach. When I found my voice I said, “Give me a
paper and pencil and I can write down ten million things I’d rather be doing
right now.” Poor dear man. I prayed for him. Perhaps he was hoping that this horrible
treatment for a horrible disease would give me hope. But the only thing that gives me hope is:
Jesus. The only One I count on for peace
in the middle of the cancer storm is: Jesus.
Jesus said
there would be days like this. Days when
we have trouble and heartache. John
16:33 “I have said these things to you that in Me you may have peace. In the
world you will have tribulation, but take heart, I have overcome the world.”
All of us
cancer patients pray for healing. Friends
and family were prayed for me. On the
day of the surgery I had people praying in 5 counties, 4 states, and 3 foreign countries;
I told my surgeon I was probably going to levitate right off the operating
table from the spiritual support of the people of God. But cancer healing is long and arduous, and
for the rest of your life you are: a survivor.
Life is no longer measured by age, but by how long I have survived since
my diagnosis. I am: a survivor.
People came
around me not just with prayers, but with support. Don’t look to me for miracle cures or medical
advice; I am not qualified to heal anybody physically. But I will share what
people did for me, simple gifts and practical love that have made the journey
easier. A gift basket of
kindnesses.
Soon after
my surgery women from the Fayetteville Presbyterian Church in Fayetteville West
Virginia showed up at my door with wonderful gifts. The first was a set of pillows, a big
u-shaped one to go under my body, a small one to support my surgery site, and a
third one to support my arm. They were
homemade, pink, and decorated with beautiful eyelet embroidery. The second gift was after-sun lotion. Radiation caused a surface burn on my skin,
just like sunburn. My doctors
recommended the same thing, but these ladies told me to apply it lavishly. I got a sunburn in one specific area. You can’t have any lotion on your skin in the
radiation room, but after each treatment – and I had two each day – I applied
that after-sun stuff. And after the
treatments were over, eventually it turned to tan, again in one specific
area. It was March, and I had my winter
whiteness, except in one spot that nobody could see. The third gift they gave me was a prayer shawl. The ladies at that church have a group called
the Knit-wits who make beautiful prayer shawls for people; mine is pink and has
a wooden cross attached to the corner.
They make the shawls, pray over them, and send them out to people in
need of prayer – not just cancer patients.
That prayer shawl went with me to every treatment, and at the
hospitality house when I was alone in my room I wrapped it around me. It was like the prayer and arms of the people
of God to comfort me.
Jesus also
said, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” The Gospel is about life. We who are believers in Jesus are not just
survivors, we are thrivers. We thrive
because we know that this is not the end.
In this broken world we live in the journey often includes trouble,
Jesus said so. But it also includes the
hope of eternal life, that even should cancer take us through death’s door, it
can’t kill us. Our lives are hid with
God in Christ, and we will live eternally.
by Elizabeth Stone
wvlivingstone.com
#wvlivingstone #breastcancerawareness #fightlikeagirl #healinginChrist
