How Cancer Saved My Life By Ruining It.

Cancer is a term used for diseases in which abnormal cells divide without control and are able to invade other tissues.

It will invade the body.
It will invade the human spirit.
It will invade your home.
It will invade your world and tear it apart from the inside out.

Cancer can not be contained or controlled.

Cancer ruined my life and because of that, my life was saved.

My dad has cancer.
He has the disease, but his family carries it too.

Cancer affects everyone and everything.

I see my father in physical pain.
I see my mother in emotional turmoil.
I see my grandfather care for him because the rest of us just can't.

My father who used to throw me up in the air so high my tiny fingertips would dance across the ceiling now gets out of breath walking to the mailbox.
My mother now has to worry about bills, plane tickets to see my father & sleeps alone at night.
My sister watches her new son grow up without being held by his grandfather as often as he should.
I feel consistently and constantly helpless to the point of incontrollable sobbing at night.

Sounds awful doesn't it?
How could I be so ridiculous to say that this hideous disease that has so many in pain, saved my life?

I was selfish.
So selfish.
I cared about the latest shoes, the cutest dress, having a lot of friends & always having it all together.

I cared that my hair didn't lay right.
I cared that the rain soaked my socks.
I cared that my piece of crap car kept breaking down.
I cared what people thought of what I did and what they said about me behind closed doors.
I cared about how many people liked my Facebook status.
I cared about the weather.
I cared about being late because of all the traffic jams. 
I cared about my nose being stuffed up, preventing me from sleeping all 8 glorious hours.

I cared about a lot of things.
A lot of complete crap.

I don't care about any of that.
My dad can barely sleep some times because of physical pain.
My dad doesn't have hair to comb.
My dad doesn't have the ability to even drive a car right now because of weakness.
My dad is on his way to doctor visits and scans and needle poking sessions, not the mall.

I wasted a huge part of my life over thinking such little things.
Things that I now no longer even remember.

My dear friend just lost her father to the same disease that plagues mine.
While you were obsessing over getting a coach purse, an Xbox or whatever expensive gift that you'll forget about by next year, she was holding onto her father's hand for the last time.

My father was sitting on a hospital bed with my mother in a cancer center this Christmas, not by a tree surrounded by lights and laughter like he should have been.

Cancer changed my life.
I notice things like sunshine; 
things like a child's fingerprints.

I don't even see the people on the street the same, holding their "homeless and hungry signs."
I used to be that person, you know, the one who doesn't hand out that extra change in my cup holder because they'll "...probably just spend it on drugs." 

Who cares?
That is not my place.

I am here for a very short time, part of that time already dissipated into a pile of worthless rubble.
I now give the change I have.
I hold a child who cries out for attention.
I don't care if it rains.
I don't care about Christmas gift lists or birthday wishes.

I care about life.
I care about people.
I care about hugging my kid's neck and telling them I care.
I care about rubbing my husband's shoulders just because I might not be able to tomorrow.
I care about laughing at dumb jokes.
I care about giving my time to anyone who asks of it.
I care about investing in a life that nobody else cares to notice.
I care about working hard.
I care about apologizing first, forgiving always.
I care about Grace and Mercy, not being right.
I care about slow dancing in my living room.
I care about getting on the floor and playing with Cannon when he asks for someone to play with.

Cancer made me see so much suffering that it eventually allowed me to see hope, kindness and what my tiny life is all about.

Without darkness, nobody would notice the light.

Cancer ruined my life;
but I'm so glad it did.

Stitches and Butterflies

When I was a child, running in my garage (when my mother specifically told me not to) with my best friend I was a huge mess waiting to happen.

You know when grown ups always used the "you'll bust your head open" gig to get you to stop doing something really stupid?
This time, the gig was for real.
I ran full speed straight into my friends forehead.

I looked down at my hand after holding the wound and it was covered in blood.
Of course at the age of 5 I thought I was about to surely die.
My parents rushed me to the hospital with a wet rag holding my head together.
I remember hearing my mom and the nurse murmur back and forth about options, one of them being a "butterfly."
For those of you not educated in gaping wounds a butterfly is a quick fix for wounds not so serious.
I started crying, "not stitches! Butterfly! Butterfly! Please!"

Guess what I had to get?
Stitches.
A butterfly would be a quick fix but would never close this gaping wound.
My parents knew I would suffer through a period of pain, but that the wound would be shut correctly.
There were three options for their baby girl:
1. Let me bleed to death.
2. Give me a quick fix and let the wound break open again eventually and let me bleed to death.
3. Watch me suffer for a short time but eventually find true healing.

As a child I was angry with my parents for putting me through pain when there was this other option that would get me out of this mess just the same, but my parents knew such was not the case.

They knew the only way to see their sweet child be back to where she was meant to be, she had to suffer some.


Sometimes the only option to get you out of the muck is still painful.

Sometimes Jesus sees His kid's gaping wound and knows the only way to healing is a painful way.

You may have to suffer through thorns for some time to get out, but your suffering will lead you from your own destruction.

Sometimes suffering is really salvation in a cloak.

Sometimes we are thrown into a den of lions and sold as a slave to lead us to our destiny, one which we would have never went to without the catalyst of suffering to push us there.

Sometimes we are swallowed by a fish to puke us to the place God called us to but we ran from for so long.

Sometimes we must weather a storm on a battered ship so that God can get us alone enough to finally walk on the water with Him.

Sometimes plagues come before the parting of the seas.

Sometimes when we think we have been destroyed, it is really a detour to safety from devastation.

Sometimes God throws us into the waves because we have been clinging to everything but Him and it's time for that to change.

Sometimes suffering is a gift of Grace in disguise.

You will not come out shiny, polished and new.
You will come out with scars from fighting through bigger than life thorns.


I will always carry a scar above my eye from those stitches, but better a healed scar from suffering than on a death bed from a butterfly kiss.