The Lord is faithful!  My 1 year post transplant bone marrow biopsy is totally free from cancer and leukemia!  The praise and glory goes to Him and Him alone!  However, it would not have been possible without your help and prayers.

My immune system has not fully regained it’s strength.  All of my childhood vaccines and antibodies were erased when I underwent the stem cell transplant.  The new vaccines have failed to graft.  Our God has his own pace and wants me to wait.  I have learned to be faithful to Him with patience and perserverence. Most of the time, I feel that I have good strength; but yet, have not ventured to work. My faith is strong, spiritually and emotionally I am doing well.  Praise God!

The 4 motivations for a life of believing God are:
*Incomparable power (see Eph. 1:19)
*The pleasure of God (see Heb. 11:6a)
*Reward (see Heb. 11:6b)
*God will often act according to our faith (Matt. 9:29)

Christ performed miracles-
*because He saw great faith (contrast Matt. 13:58)
*because He saw great need;
*because He was moved with compassion;
*because God Sovereignly appointed it;
*for reasons beyond our understanding.

I am learning to be “still and know that He is God.”

Thank you for your continued support and prayers.

On December 10, 2010, -a quiet Friday afternoon-within seconds, my life on this earth changed drastically!  I diagnosed myself with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia; by a random blood sample while checking my Thyroid profile.  This diagnosis is a medical emergency, as the cancer may spread to the brain rapidly. The survival rate for this cancer is only 3 to 5%.  On the following Tuesday (December 13, 2010), my family and I left for University of Chicago for treatment-feeling hopeless, fearful, dejected, and tearful.  Yet in the center of our pain was God-comforting, guiding, encouraging, teaching and sustaining us.

At the University of Chicago, my bone marrow was completely sucked out and bombarded with 17 different chemotherapy agents.  I received multiple blood and platelet transfusions.  I had 6 IV lines, multiple spinal taps and bone marrow biopsies.  I stayed in the Hospital on multiple occasions during a span of 9 months.  The Lord appeared to me 3 times.  I kept a journal every day.  I don’t recall a major part of my treatment.  All I recall is a large clock on the wall ticking away, day after day, night after night as I was unable to sleep day after day. I was preparing myself to die, never expecting to come home and live.  I was ridden with fear, terror, discouragement, despondency, and self-pity.  In a state of shock, I realized that all the years in medicine, I had witnessed miracles and there is a Healer who performs them,  Trust me, I have experienced Him. Today, I have been impacted by HIS HEALING!  My cancer is gone and the “Philadelphia Chromosome”-which caused it- is no longer detected.  Who, except the Great Physician, has the knowledge and wisdom to explain this?

God hates everything that causes us pain but Great Works are done in deep pain.  In all of this, we have come to know God, His Son, and the Spirit in ways we have never experienced before.  Jesus heals and continues to do so.  No one has ever said that it would be easy in the midst of storms but He is the Comforter and the Blessed Controller of all things.  He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. He has the “big picture” for me.  I think of my cancer as a rebirth.  Cancer stripped me of my pride, arrogance, my earthly pleasures, degrees, and made me humble. Cancer gave me time to sit at the Lord’s feet for long periods of time that I did not have or spare before.  Cancer ruptured my sin of the disobedience to my husband, who was disappointed in my behavior as I rarely respected him.  I was loud, abrasive and was always wanting to be a winner; especially when it came to arguments.  My three sons have been greatly affected by cancer also. Soon after my diagnosis, David and his wife walked out of our lives. There is no communication from them to us.  This is an emotional cancer, that I grieve everyday in my life.  I urge you all to pray that I would get a glimpse of my firstborn grandchild due in 1 week.   Zachary went to work in Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Medical Center and Luke started medical school.  I am still recovering, everyday, thanking Him for the gift of life.  I have been home now for 5 months and I want to share with you where I am at in my journey.  What I see, hear, and feel is transitory.  It is subject to change; however, the Word of God is true, unchanging, and eternal! I resist doubt.  I remain standing on the Word of God, remembering that I have “Christ in me, the hope of glory. –Colossians 1:27.  I decided once and for all to uproot the destructive spirit of fear from my life.  Doing that requires a quality decision.

It says in Psalm 118:6 “The LORD is on my side; I will not fear: what can man do unto me?”  I got into fear by an act of my will; but receiving fear and getting rid of fear require my cooperation and my will.  I now choose to reject fear the moment I am attacked by it.  By doing that, I move from the edge of fear into having a faith-filled, Holy-Spirit filled life.  I have begun to condition myself to immediately shut out words or images that the devil uses to attempt to produce fear in me.  Once I believed that God was and is on my side, I become calm, confident, and relaxed.  This is an ongoing process.

Waking up every morning is a strange experience.  There is a part of me that thinks this must all be a really, bad dream.  While God has given me peace, it has not kept me from grieving.  2 Corinthian 10:3-5 says it best: “For though I live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does.  The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world.  On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.  We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” Suddenly, I was questioning the validity of all those promises in Scripture.  It makes sense in my head that I should leave this-Cancer- in God’s hands, and yet inside I desperately want to take control.

Life and death are not in my hands, but victory is my birthright in Christ.  Jesus bought it for me!  I do not have to cave in to selfishness or fear or depression.  These are all tools of Satan.  God defeated him on the cross of Christ, and HIS victory is mine!

I will not just survive; I will do it triumphantly, just like Jesus.  There is great joy that God has in store for me-joy that is greater than any earthly pleasure.  God is taking away my earthly dependencies in order to give me Himself.  What an unbelievable gift!

Cancer would seem like an incredible waste if there were not more of God to be had through it.  As it is, the things of this world are looking less and less attractive.  I have an insatiable hunger for God-to see more of Him, to experience more of His love, more of his power, more His blessings.  I want to be in the middle of what He is doing-to have a life, a marriage, a family, a ministry that is blessed by Him, marked by His presence and power.  I am so helpless to bring this about, but according to Psalm 91 and Psalm 116-all I need to do is simply call on Him.  This is the solution to every challenge, every difficulty, every trial, and every problem.

It has become obvious to me on December 10, 2010 that cancer was not my greatest enemy. My greatest foe was anything that would keep me from living in intimacy with the Lord.  The unbelief, the lack of trust, the self-sufficiency, the un-surrendered fears, the self-centered habits and patterns of thinking-these were the things God wanted me to deal with.  Cancer simply seemed to be a tool in His hand to cause me to STOP and LISTEN to HIM.  To really listen to HIM. In that sense, it was an incredible blessing from God.  There is no rest without surrender.  We don’t doubt that God has His best in store for us; we wonder how painful His best might be.  This is exactly where I am.

I thank the LORD for calling me his beloved.  I thank Him for the trial of cancer that has shown me that He is enough for joy. His power and love are so great that not even cancer can remove His joy from my life.  I thank Him for communicating His heart to me through His Word.  He is a wonderful, powerful Savior.  To walk with Him has been the greatest adventure of my life.

I open my hands to the LORD.  What He desires is my desire.  What HE wants is so much better than what I would seek to provide myself.  I want to receive from HIM. I am choosing to rest and stop trying to meet my own needs.  He is my provider, my Master, my Lord and Savior, and I trust Him.  He has His way in me.

I don’t know how long I’ll live, but in reality, neither do you.  I’ll plead with you if you’ve never put your hope in God, don’t wait another day!  Life is too short to waste it on cheap thrills, nice stuff, and meaningless accomplishments.  I can honestly say that I have never had so much joy as I have had since being diagnosed with cancer.  All that is meaningless has been stripped away.  Loving God and loving people have become paramount.  Life is drastically different but it has never been so good.