Our Chemo Life

Well, friends. It's been a while, per usual.

I think this blog is now just somewhere I can pour out my real feelings from time to time.

I'm not even sure anything shared will ever be of real value again.

To recap - we got orders to Florida a few months back. we were going t be stationed in the same town my in-laws live in, and we were THRILLED, to say the least, After 8 years being assigned to the same duty station, we were ready for a change - even though we were near my family.

But God had different plans.

One Sunday afternoon, we went to lay down for our usual Sunday afternoon naps.
 Ya'll know how it is, especially if you have children.
You wake up in just enough time to throw everybody together in clothes that you pick out solely on a no-iron-needed basis. Shove down whatever is the easiest and least messiest thing to eat and rush out the door in the hopes of not breaking any of the Ten Commandments, especially those about being kind to your sisters - I mean neighbors,

Anyway, we laid down and Mike suddenly began having severe abdominal cramps.It got so painful that he ended up going to the ER where he was diagnosed with kidney stones. Eventually, in the next week he was diagnosed with the unthinkable.

Cancer.

Not something we were expecting to hear.
 Not from Michael.

We earned it was stage 2 testicular cancer that had spread to his abdomen,

Today he started chemo. He's in the chair next to me right now.

You know, it's funny. People ask how we handle this all - my multiple diagnoses, June's premature birth and three month hospital stay, and now this (basically 6 years of hell on earth) - because apparently, on the outside we look calm.

But inside? We're falling apart.

We're perpetually waiting, with bated breath, for the next shoe to fall.
Who am I kidding? 
We wait for the next bomb to drop and infiltrate our lives, changing our family forever....again.

But the one thing cancer can't change?

Our souls.

It cannot change our souls.
Because our souls don't belong to cancer - they belong to Jesus.

Bombs, war, premature babies, babies too perfect for earth, wheelchairs - they can't change our souls.

Sometimes, I like to think our souls change them.

You see, I believe Satan sends all these things to attack us. But, if you stay strong and focus on the word of God, it just strengthens your soul. And then he gets mad. Oh, he gets REAL mad.

Our pastor likes to say that if you are ever in a place and you realize you don't feel like you're being attacked by even small things - then you might be in a spot you don't wan to be.

Yesterday mornings sermon was how God likes to create something out of nothing.

Cancer equals the lowest point I personally have ever been out, so for me:

Canceer = Nothing

But when God steps in...

Nothing = Something

Follow me?

We're okay with being brought down to zero so He can create more than we ever imagined.

**Now I'm home, several hours after having written this. I'm sitting at the desk in our bedroom, editing this post to publish. Mike is laying on the bed with Sara and June, reading The Bobsey Twins to them. See? I have no reason to complain about this life. To me, it's pretty perfectly imperfect.