“How you climb up the mountain is just as important as how you get down the mountain, and, so it is with life, which for many of us becomes one big gigantic test followed by one big gigantic lesson. In the end it all comes down to one word, grace. It’s how you accept winning and losing, good luck and bad luck, the darkness and the light.” -Philosophy // Amazing Grace

*Post 948

Mercy. Endurance. Trust :: 11/7/17 :: Post 71

Where is the mercy….That keeps coming to mind today.

I’m so tired of not feeling well, I’m so tired of something feeling better and another thing feeling bad, I’m so tired of emotionally managing everything….I need mercy.

I want to snap my fingers and have it all be better. I don’t want to have to endure. I know You’re here but where are You?

I went back to the hospital today to get more fluids and potassium. My blood work came back and I was still low, but it was improving. I felt slightly better today and was able to go to work and be productive. I guess there is some mercy woven in to today…I just have to be far more creative to find it.

I guess the mercy I’m looking for, ultimately, is for God to just take this all away. Or at the very least, that I would be one of the lucky few without any side-effects. But I think having that expectation is where I’m going wrong. Cancer is hard and there is no escaping that so I best endure as that is my only option. Endure and trust…even when it’s hard to imagine enduring and trusting for another day.

Hit the Ground Running :: 11/7/18 :: Post 420

Pure exhaustion. Got home around midnight last night. Up early for a work meeting. Busy day. Busy night. Busy weekend ahead.

My middle kid turns 15 tomorrow. What is that about!? And she’s playing in the state volleyball tournament. What a present. 🙂

Pure exhaustion. And the trip to NYC was incredible. But we landed and had to hit the ground running…

Gratitude Month Day 7 :: 11/7/19 :: Post 783

Two years ago I wrote about endurance because I was starting to see (or maybe it’s that I was starting to accept) the writing on the wall that I wasn’t going to get the ‘magic’ of escape or rescue. That I was going to have to endure.

I’m not sure how much longer it was that I came to a realization…I’ll have to go back and keep reading past posts…But I think it was around this time that I realized that cancer was actually a win-win. I survive, I win. I die, I win. And I remember feeling weird and guilty and sad and surprised and free once I had that realization. Endurance seemed worthwhile at that point.

I had another realization today. And it’s probably only something I can get away with saying. And it’s probably something only I can justify for myself. I considered today why I didn’t have much of a reaction to my clear MRI… In light of having a brain scan and the news of RA in the same day, the reality of RA is hitting me hard. Harder than the what-if of cancer metastasizing in my brain. It actually may have been easier for me to accept that something was going on in my brain. I would have hated the journey all the same, but it would have been a somewhat known one because I know cancer now. I even wrote at one point about the companionship of it. And I know it’s a win/win, as absolutely asinine as it is to say that. RA is not. RA is a new unknown. And the high likelihood that I have RA is crushingly heavy on my spirit. To live however long (quite possibly 40+ more years) the way I feel now or to have to discern and decide what we treat it with and whatever side effects that comes with is a dreadfully hard acceptance to consider.

Gratitude Month Day 7 – I’m grateful I was given the grit to do hard things. The Lord and I had a conversation yesterday…God, clearly you have asked me to walk in hard things consistently over the course of my life…OK, I’ll endure. If your plan is for people to see You through me in the midst of the hard…OK, I’ll endure. My heart is heavy because I am tired of hurting and looking down a long future of chronic pain is astronomically hard, but OK, I’ll endure.