Faith Through the Journey

This morning when I woke up, I remembered what day it was…and how my life changed on this date a year ago. As I was downloading my daughter’s wedding pictures to my laptop computer on August 15, 2017, I got a call at 11:36 from the doctor who had just taken a biopsy of the “growth” under my tongue.  Learning about squamous cell carcinoma of the mouth suddenly became my greatest focus and I wondered how this was ultimately going to alter my mouth and quite possibly other parts of my body as well.

After having surgery on my tongue, my neck and my right hand, I was pronounced free of any other squamous cell carcinoma sites. Follow-up has become a routine part of our lives, and each scan has become an exercise in faith that the cancer is indeed gone.

There’s a passage in the Bible, the book of Joshua, that tells about the time when the children of Israel were getting ready to enter the Promised Land. The only thing standing between them and the land was the Jordan River–at flood stage. There were no bridges in those days, and the only way to the land was through the river, obviously a HUGE problem! God performed a miracle and split the river so that the people went through the river on dry land!! Joshua had instructed that one man from each of Israel’s tribes were to pick up a stone and carry it to the other side, in the new land, and build a monument to the God who made it possible for them to get there. This was to remind them FOREVER that God ALONE made it possible for them to be there.

As much as my altered speech can bother me at times, and the scar on my neck stands out to me with its accompanying numbness, they have become my “stones of remembrance”. They remind me that I had cancer but that, because it was found and there was a solution available to treat it, there isn’t any cancer now present in my body. As hard as it was to hear the words and go through the treatment necessary to be rid of it, I’ve had multiple opportunities to see God’s power at work. His provision of medical experts to diagnose and treat each site where cancer was discovered was the demonstration of His ability to heal me. While I am not so naive as to believe that there’s no chance of it ever returning, I am rejoicing today that, one year later, I AM CANCER FREE!!!

“O my soul, bless God, don’t forget a single blessing!” Psalm 103:2