It ain't over until He says it's over

If you remember, doctors told me on February 13, 2004 I only had three months to live and to get my affairs in order. Then again in July 2008, they said they could “buy me” approximately twelve months if they did the chemo embolization. I’m typing this entry now almost ten years past my first diagnosis and five years past my twelve month chemo diagnosis. Man keeps trying to stamp me with an expiration date and God keeps wiping it off.

I began to realize that sometimes a medical diagnosis can also be a word curse. Word curses are those things that people say to us or we say to others and to ourselves. Word curses (if believed) can literally change a person’s destiny and the way they look at themselves. For example, it is said if you take a child of normal intelligence and repeatedly tell them they are stupid, they will grown up believing they are stupid. There are adults today who still struggle with the things that were said to them as a child.

The great thing about word curses though is that they are only effective if you accept them. Let me explain: I’ve lost several close friends to cancer. As I watched them go, I learned some valuable lessons on the power of the mind. Once a person is given the big “C” diagnosis, they have to make a choice. Will they fall apart and lose all hope or will they walk it out and see what God is going to do through their diagnosis.

Hope is an extremely powerful four-letter word. Hope is everything. Without hope we have nothing. With hope we are unstoppable. The enemy has come to steal, kill and destroy and he can take just about everything in our life. He can take our marriage, our children, our home, our finances… but he can’t take our hope without us willingly handing it over.

So where does Hope come from? It is rooted and anchored in the love of Christ. He is our Hope. In His love we can conquer anything. In every circumstance Christ promises to work ALL things out for His glory (Romans 8:28) and that no weapon formed against you shall prosper (Isaiah 54:17).

If we put our hope in Him, we can find total peace in the midst of the worst of storms. It’s only when we put our hope in doctors or medicines that we get frustrated and fearful. Again, I’m not saying to deny your diagnosis and not seek treatment. I’m saying keep it in perspective and keep your eyes on and your hope in Christ. The One who took a horrendous beating for your healing. Isaiah 53:5 says that it was by His stripes that we were healed.

I can almost feel people’s hair beginning to bristle and hear them screaming “I did that and my mom/dad/baby died anyways!! I believed in miracles and nothing happened! How can you say that?!” Trust me, I’ve seen enough seemingly unanswered prayers myself. The most devastating being the death of my own father.

This book is not a magic cure all, nor is it a lucky rabbit’s foot and I'm certainly not asking you to live in denial. I’m not giving you step by step directions on how to get every miracle you’ve ever asked for. God’s ways are not our ways. Sometimes what we want does not line up with what He wants. And if I can be frank ~ He’s a lot smarter than any of us will ever be.

So even when a prayer seems to go unnoticed and you’re devastated by the outcome, if you continue to keep your eyes on Him you will begin to see the plan and purpose behind it all. Jeremiah 29:11 says “I know the plans I have for you. Thoughts for peace and not evil. To give you a future and a HOPE.” Tragically, many people walk away from God when their prayers aren't answered the way they thought they should have been.

So what should we do when the miracle doesn’t come? Remember God's Love IN YOU never stops believing and never gives up! His love can't fail! His love produces hope and hope is Life. No hope ~ no life. Don't lose your hope. Stay close to His love.

A perfect example of losing hope was watching how once a cancer diagnosis was given, 50% of my friends walked it out and lived far beyond their diagnosis and 50% gave up immediately and died quicker than anyone could have imagined.

We had a close friend, Donnie who was an extreme case. Joe and I were at his bedside when the doctor came in and said “Donnie, I’m so sorry…. You have stage 4 terminal cancer.” We all stood in disbelief because Donnie wasn’t really that sick; a few aches and pains and some stomach problems. We never dreamed it would be cancer. Once the doctor said the big “C” word, everyone in the room was silent and it felt like the world had stopped.

Donnie looked at me (knowing my diagnosis) and I immediately went to his side. “Donnie” I said holding my two closed hands in front of me “If I told you I had healing in my right hand and nothing in my left hand, which hand would you choose?” Donnie looked at me for a moment and then slowly said, “I don’t know.”

Donnie’s greatest obstacle was the fear of pain. He told every nurse and doctor, “Please! Just don’t let me suffer!” Donnie was a baby Christian and knew the Lord but his diagnosis became much bigger than His Lord. The fear of suffering haunted him day and night and we were shocked as we watched our friend shrivel up and die in just a few short weeks; way before the doctors ever expected him to.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not talking about positive confession or wishing our illness away. I’m simply suggesting we keep everything in proper perspective. God first… then our circumstances. Not vice versa. The moment we make our circumstance bigger than our God, we’ve lost the battle.

If I hadn’t gone through the divorce, the loss of my father, the loss of my children, the loss of everything in my life ~ I may not have had the faith I needed to face the cancer diagnosis. Each trial I had gone through showed me His faithfulness and His love for me. So when the cancer diagnosis came along I was able to remind myself that He had never let me down and He’s not going to start now.

Has it always been easy? No way! The greatest battle in a cancer diagnosis is controlling your thought life and not allowing word curses (via a diagnosis) to drain you of your faith.

Speaking of word curses. People are so peculiar sometimes! I could write a book simply using the statements that unthinking, uncaring, uncompassionate people have said to me since the beginning of this journey. I’ll give you just one of my favorites:

After receiving the chemo seeds in my liver I felt like someone had literally taken an ice cream scoop and scooped out my soul. I was in so much pain and was so sick that there was nothing else in me. I didn’t want to talk, I didn’t want to be talked to. I didn’t want to eat, I didn’t even want to see someone else eating. And you know I was sick when I silently wished everyone would just leave me alone. The talking and laughter just made my stomach turn all the more. As much as I love my grandbabies… I almost couldn’t bear to be around them. All their activity drove me crazy. (I can’t believe I even typed this because there is nothing and no one on this earth more precious than my grandbabies!!) But that’s just how sick I really was.

So there I was lying on the couch praying I would just die and a lady knocks at the front door. Now I know this lady from church. We aren’t close friends or anything; just acquaintances. She walks in with a big smile and her arms were full with a covered casserole dish, cookies and a get well card.

After sitting everything down in the kitchen, she came back into the living room and sat on the couch at my feet. We chit chatted for a few minutes and I thanked her for being so kind to bring the food and card.

Then the visit took an abrupt turn! This sweet Christian woman looked me dead in the eyes and said, “Now Brenda…. you know… not everyone gets a healing!” I was shocked and stunned and didn’t even know how to reply. I just sat there staring at her as she spewed out a list of names of people she knew (including some of my friends) who passed away with cancer and how I just needed to come to terms with the fact that I too was dying.

From the time I was a small child, I remember my mama saying “If you can’t say something nice, then don’t say nothing at all!” There were more than enough words swirling around in my brain and I fought like crazy to keep them from escaping my lips and flying out of my mouth! I sat silently in disbelief and let her go on and on and on and on. Finally I had a thought and told my unwanted visitor that I really needed to go lie down and would she mind leaving. She didn’t mind (I didn’t either). After all she felt she had said everything she needed to by then.

It took me several days (maybe even weeks)… to recover from the things she said to me that day. You know to be completely honest… I’m still not over the things she said to me that day. At first I was depressed and fearful and wondered if God had told her something about me and this was His way of preparing my heart for the looming death sentence she had given me. Then once again I turned to the Bible and worship music to build my faith back up and realized that was not a word from God ~ that was a word from a crazy woman who shouldn’t be visiting people when they are sick.

This cancer journey has had many ups and downs. One day I felt great and ready to conquer the world and the next I was fearful and depressed and wondered how much time I really had left. There have been nights when I could literally feel death looming over me and threatening to take control. My heart has ached many times when I would allow my mind to think about how my grandchildren may never remember me when they get older. At one point, I had to make a choice to stop worrying about what will happen to my grandchildren, my children, my Joe and simply start living.

In case you were never told, let me be the first to tell you (much like my unwanted visitor)… we are all ‘terminal’. No one escapes this life alive. On the very day we were born, God also had a date when our time here on earth would be done. Look at any tombstone and you’ll see a date for the birth and a date for the death. But what really matters is how the person spent the dash between the two.

After thinking about it, I decided that I wasn't going to worry about what might happen when in fact there are 100 different ways I could die. I could pull out in front of a truck today and be killed instantly. That doesn't stop me from hopping in the car and going places. So I'm not going to give a cancer diagnosis any more of my thoughts and/or time. God knows when I will leave this earth and that's good enough for me.

Cancer is so limited.... It cannot cripple love. It cannot shatter hope. It cannot corrode faith. It cannot eat away peace. It cannot destroy confidence. It cannot kill friendship. It cannot shut out memories. It cannot silence courage. It cannot reduce eternal life. It cannot quench the Spirit. ~ Author Unknown

There is great freedom in realizing that a cancer diagnosis does not take God by surprise and it does not mess up His plan for our lives. In fact, when you do Cancer God's Way, it makes you a more compassionate person, a stronger person, a more focused and praying person. My diganosis caused a paradigm shift in my life. The things that used to drive me crazy don't bother me at all now. My whole perspective has changed. The things of this world are meaningless and like a vapor. They will one day pass away. It's the things of God that will last for eternity and those are the things I choose to spend my time on.

The greatest revelation I've had so far during this journey is: I'm only responsible for me and what I do with this life that has been given to me. I can waste it on worry or I can do my best to pour into the lives of others. I choose to pour into the lives of others.

Obviously the doctors were incorrect when they told me to get my affairs in order so many years ago. However, had I grabbed ahold of that word curse and accepted it, I may not be sitting here writing this book today. A word curse is only effective if you believe it. I choose to believe the Word of God and it says that "by His stripes we were healed."

So, just to make it perfectly clear, doing cancer God's Way simply means realizing that "It ain't over until He says it's over!"