Gratitude

This is not so much an update on my health as a need to put on "virtual" paper my thoughts.

Yesterday, as we sat in church with 2,000 of our closest friends (Port City Community Church has quite a following) I was [once again] moved to tears. Here is why:

The service was about all of our church's missions around the world, especially in Kenya. The church has a program where members can sponsor a street child in Kenya and help pay for food, clothing, shelter and schooling. Nothing surprising about any of that and I was thinking to myself, this service is not applicable to me because I have no business taking on a child to sponsor and certainly will not be going on any missions to Kenya anytime soon.

But then, our pastor started explaining why we need to be concerned about these issues around the world. He admitted to watching the commercials on television about starving children in Africa and changing the channel so that he wouldn't have to get upset by the sight of such misery. After all, don't we have enough problems of our own to focus on? I was thinking to myself: "I hurt today. Maybe I should think about getting accupuncture. Poor me. I'm feeling lousy and it's just not fair." Then he made this statement:

"Our Souls Shrink to the Size of our Greatest Concern!" I began to feel guilty.

Am I seriously in this bad of shape that my soul is nothing more than a pile of self-pity?! That's when I started crying. I started thinking back to "my one word" for the year. Our church encourages us to find one word to focus on at the beginning of the year instead of making a New Years' resolution. What was my word, what was my word [memory has been bad lately]. Oh yeah, it is GRATITUDE!!!!

Shame on me for feeling sorry for myself. Shame on all of us. No, I've not decided to take on a child in Africa for sponsorship. But I can at least look outside of the box and thank God for all that I do have. I have a lot, we all have a lot.

Is it fair that I've got stage IV cancer and two young girls that I may not live to see graduate from high school? No. But is it fair that there's 26,500 men, women and children starving in Africa every day. NO! We may not be able to go on a mission trip and fix this problem individually but at least we can have GRATITUDE for what we have.

I thank God for having two beautiful, healthy children that sometimes make me crazy, but always make my heart swell.

I thank God that the genetic testing for both the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes showed that I don't carry those genetic mutations for having a genetic risk of getting breast and ovarian cancer and, more importantly, my girls do not either.

I thank God for having a wonderful, loving husband who continues to make me laugh even in the darkest of moments and who lets me be who I want to be.

I thank God for walks on the beach watching the waves crash on shore, just like they do EVERY DAY no matter what is going on in my life.

I thank God for being self-employed so that, when I feel like doing no work [like today :) ] I can do what I want and not worry about upsetting an employer.

I think God for all that we have been blessed with because we have food to eat and even more than one place to sleep at night.

I pray that anyone reading this can find something to be grateful for, even when the walls seem to be caving in.

Now, I really plan to wait until after my treatment next week to post again!