I briefly mentioned this in my update this month in way of prayer request but I’ve been experiencing some difficulty with my speech and thinking- I have been mixing up syllables in words, jumbling letters when speaking and typing, using the wrong words for common things (like calling mango “watermelon”), and having trouble thinking and reasoning clearly. This is not normal for me.
God gifted me with an incredible brain that has served me extremely well throughout my life- I have received top grades all through school, excelled at almost everything I’ve taken on, and now I get to use that brain power to serve the missionaries of Saving Grace as well as the church body. I wouldn’t say that my job is high stress, it comes in waves of extreme pressure and deadlines followed by lulls of almost nothing but it takes a lot of brain capacity to juggle all of the various responsibilities of my job. Acting as personal assistant to four pastors on top of my regular office duties means many, many details to remember and I love that God has given me the ability to do it with excellence.
However, I started to notice a consistent and frequent brain fatigue and lack of clarity about a month or two ago, coupled with the funny word mix ups. At first I didn’t think anything of it but it has persisted and gotten worse so I called the doctor to have some tests done to try to figure out what could be done. I figured it was a vitamin deficiency or hormone imbalance (which it most likely is).
When I called to set up an appointment the advice nurse who screened my call recommended that I go to urgent care immediately which I thought was unnecessary but I followed her instructions. The doctor ordered a blood test and scheduled an appointment with a neurologist for Monday, March 16th. My blood tests came back and everything seemed normal but in the back of my mind there’s this nagging fear, “what if it ISN’T just something minor. What if you have a terminal illness like cancer.”
In the midst of all of this I have been rudely confronted with the frailty of my life, especially my exemplary brain performance which I have just accepted as a gift from God and taken for granted. I have wrestled with feelings of entitlement; my entitlement to live out my life with my soon-to-be husband, my entitlement to bear and raise children (six children if Isaac gets his way), my entitlement to continue doing everything I love doing in this life and feeling well doing it.
I’ve wrestled with the fear of the unknown, not the fear of death because to live is Christ and to die is GAIN- but the whole “to live is Christ” part (Philippians 1:21). How do I lay down these desires and dreams, of living a full and happy life with those I love, to accept everything that God has for me with grace and gratitude, even if that includes cancer and an earlier call Home than what I had originally planned for?
I don’t know.
I don’t know how to do that, but by God’s grace I know He will carry me and help me no matter what the diagnosis is.
Again, I want to point out that this is an extreme- this is “worst case scenario” reasoning that I have been processing through and I pray that what’s going on in my brain is something simple and easily treated/corrected but I’m grateful for the reevaluation of my life regardless.
Even if this is something that takes my life, I’ve been reminded that cancer doesn’t have the power to do that to anyone- only God has the power of life and death and because of the cross of Jesus Christ and His resurrection, I will simply pass from this life into Eternal Life. There’s no death for the believer aside from the passage from this world into Heaven and I rejoice in that! I am not sad to go and be with my Lord in eternal peace, that brings me great joy and excitement! What saddens my heart is the thought of “missing out” on all that this life has to offer but I have been reminded that I am not being robbed of anything.
When my days are up, they’re up. There aren’t any planned after that I’m missing out on. When the Lord takes me Home that’s the end of my story on this earth and there is no missing what wasn’t planned out for me. I think we get this erroneous perspective from seeing loved ones pass and seeing our lives go on- in that sense they “missed” everything that happened after they passed, but in reality it was not part of God’s unique plan for their lives that they be there. When God takes every believer from this life into the next it is because we have reached the end of our individual races- there’s no more course to run, no more track to circle, we have reached the finish line and it’s time to receive our medals and enter into rest. Aside from that, being in heaven will FAR surpass any joy I could experience in this life! To die is great gain for the believer!
It is not so for the person who rejects Jesus Christ. For that person death is the final bell calling them to stand before God and answer for every wrong action they have ever done. That is not a joyful scene. One sin is enough to bar us from heaven because God’s standard is perfection and the only person who lived a perfect, sinless life is Jesus Christ; God in human flesh who died the sinner’s death that we all deserve to substitute His perfection for our sinfulness and give us entrance into heaven by His sacrifice and payment for our sins. Jesus paid for my entrance into heaven so that when God looks at me, all He sees is His Son’s blood and atonement (that means payment) for my sins. I am made new! I am made clean and all of my sins are washed away as if I had never committed them. This is offered to every person as a free gift, the gift of salvation, the message of the Gospel.
If you’re reading this and you don’t know Jesus, you haven’t accepted His offer for YOUR life, I encourage you to accept Him and get right with God. Our sins offend God and because of that, to use modern terms, we have beef with God but He has offered to wash it all away through the blood of Jesus. We get to either accept or reject that. The Christian life is not an easy one- it’s a life of gratitude and love and joy and peace but also of hardship and self-denial. The reason why I live a life with high moral standards is because I love God and I’m thankful for what He’s done for me and I want to please Him with the way I live. It isn’t because I have to or because God doesn’t want me to “have fun.” It’s because God knows the things that are bad for me and He wants to spare me from the heartache and misery those things bring so He says, “do not do that. Follow me and I will show you the best way to live. I will show you a life full of blessing, peace, joy, satisfaction, and security but, daughter, don’t do those things, they will only cause you harm.”
That is why I run away from sin and toward Jesus. That is why I have peace no matter what is going on with my body. That is why I trust God to know what’s best for me. He’s faithful and has always been faithful and will always be faithful no matter what disaster, disease, or pestilence ravages this world or my life.