Healed.

About 16 years ago this month, I was diagnosed with Cancer. I remember that time in bits and pieces. Small memories that fit together to form one big sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Laying on the table while two women performed an ultrasound talking to each other about how "this can't be good"...Hearing my mom cry in the corner and then seeing her later track those same ladies down to try to get some answers...laying in a room by myself for days because I was too radioactive to be around anyone...being sick sick sick while being treated...waiting in the oncology and radiation office and hearing the clock tick by each minute as I waited for my scans...sitting in my Doctor's office as I heard him order a second round of radiation yet hoping beyond hope that this wasn't happening again...being wheeled back to surgery as my aunts waved good-bye...laying in my bed at home as my sweet grandmommy took care of me...trying not to cry but failing miserably the night before surgery...writing down the name of my exact diagnosis so that I could tell my friends in 14 year-old vocabulary what in the world was going on...waking up in the recovery room and realizing that it was hours after I was scheduled to be out of surgery and wondering what in the world had happened...having to go through tests that required six weeks of feeling awful to be able to get positive results...having to miss cheerleading camp for a second round of radiation, the smell of the waiting room at the Pediatric Endocrinologist. Basically, feeling like things would never be normal again...

Yet beyond all that, even now I can look back and recall amazing blessings and sweet memories from that time...Being surrounded by family and friends who loved me and were praying for me minute by minute...hospital visits and presents that thrilled my soul...celebratory meals with my mom after each scan...cards and letters that gave me hope and comfort...riding in the car with my sister and her being extra careful with me...meeting others with the same condition that I could help...a dozen of the most beautiful flowers I've ever seen that a family friend had flown in for me...the group of men who went and prayed together one weeknight at our church before my procedure...smelling the fresh air and riding home with a car full of flowers, balloons, and well wishes when released from the hospital...the prayers of my parents...a renewed passion for life and living...a more fervent love for those around me.

But more than anything, I can look back at the past 16 years, and at the next 16 years and beyond and feel PEACE.  Peace that passes all understanding.

And that is nothing of myself. That is completely of Christ.

It's taken me a long time to get here. Even up until the last few months I've lived in fear of being sick again...Of being diagnosed with Cancer again...that the effects of the radiation will cause me to have to do battle again...That I would have to burden my husband, my kids, and my friends...That maybe the next time I wouldn't be able to beat it...And that has always been my worst fear.

But over the last few months, I've come to realize (not just to KNOW, but to LIVE) that God is in control. NOTHING can come to me unless it comes from Him. I've posted this quote before but felt led to share it again:

There is no circumstance, no trouble, no testing, that can ever touch me until, first of all, it has gone past God and past Christ, right through to me. If it has come that far, it has come with a great purpose, which I may not understand at the moment. But I refuse to become panicky, as I lift up my eyes to Him and accept it as coming
from the throne of God for some great purpose of blessing to my ownheart.-Redpath

The dictionary defines healed as:  "to make healthy, whole, or sound; restore to health; free from ailment". I am so incredibly grateful that God chose to make me whole and sound, healthy, and free from ailment. 16 years of His faithfulness. And you know what?? Even if He chooses for the future to hold another illness, He will still be faithful. He is not a God of happenstance or chaos, it is ALL in His hands, in His time, and in His plan. 

Today, I celebrate 16 years of freedom, 16 years of having another birthday, 16 years of blessing. May I live each day in light of this incredible blessing and bring glory to the One who makes ALL things possible!