I hope everyone had an amazing Christmas. I stayed home, quiet, calm, and peaceful with my cat Nicholas and Pixie my neighbor’s dog that I am watching until their return on Thursday or Friday. I made a big batch of pinto beans with a ham bone and chicken stock. Yummy! And I enjoyed the feeling I am getting walking outside with Pixie. I realize that I love dogs, I always will, but my endurance levels are still not high enough for me to have a dog and all the responsibilities. The one big blessing that Pixie has given me is the squashing of my fear of walking outside and not venturing out to build my endurance levels. I will be keeping the tradition of walking outside as part of my day long after Pixie is back with her loving parents.
This morning I read in my devotional 2 Corinthians 4:6-15 about letting the light shine out of darkness even when facing death. I have been thinking on this verse all day long as I have gone about my day. What does shining a light look like, feel like, and supposed to be like? I have been told many times that I radiate joy. Is that letting my light shine in spite of the darkness of my disease?
I have my hopes for what I want my future to look like and be like. If I don’t get it will I still be able to shine on? I think I will. Simply because as I have journeyed through this I am seeking the Kingdom of God and the simples blessings that I am able to experience as I walk on my path. I realize that my path is different than most. I have an incurable disease that often times leaves me in a lot of pain, fatigued beyond anyone’s imagining, and having to take chemo drugs that live me feeling like I am part of the Alice In Wonderland story. Every day is a constant choice of facing my challenges and carrying on. Every day is a choice to choose Jesus and the love He has for me and realizing that I can trust Him despite all the others who have failed me in my life. I am blessed. My death, my illness has not stopped me from testifying to the love and miracles that Jesus can perform. No my miracles aren’t an amazing cure, but the small things like being able to have an open throat. Surviving a lung puncture, which only 5 percent of people actually survive and being able to still move my body without a walker, wheel chair, or cane. Yes, I hurt. Yes, at times I have to take up to 140 MG of Prednisone in order to keep my inflammation under control, and chemo drugs that leave me feeling like I am on a crazy loop in my head. At least I can breathe. I can still write. I can still read my devotionals. I can still help out when I am able to. I can still talk and inspire my neighbors. I can still participate in life. I don’t have to lie in a dark place and live in fear and misery and feeling sorry for myself. I can stand up and fight back. I can smile, laugh, cook, snuggle, watch movies, listen to music, write my books, create my healing voice cards, and just be who I am fully and with amazing gratitude for another day of waking up. My testimony is not preaching Jesus to every single person I meet or thumping people in the head with my morals or my thoughts or opinions. My testimony involves loving people through the awkwardness’ of life, the challenges of life, the pitfalls of life, and the painful moments. Be the ears to listen, the arms to hug them, and the body that accepts, forgives, and endures in order for them to heal. That is exactly why Jesus was put on this earth for us. He died, He suffered in order for us to be held, forgiven, and loved and we are to do the same to the others we encounter. That is part of my journey of wellness for 2014. Sorry for the long post today. I had a ton on my mind. Below I wrote out the verses for 2 Corinthians 4:6-15. I use the amplified bible. It was a gift from my dad and very special to me.
“For God who said, Let light shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts so as to beam forth the light for the illumination of the knowledge of the majesty and glory of God as it is manifest in the person and is revealed in the face of Jesus Christ the Messiah. However, we possess this precious treasure the divine light of the earth that the grandeur and exceeding greatness of the power may be shown to be from God and not from ourselves. We are hedged in pressed on every side troubled and oppressed in every way but not cramped or crushed; we suffer embarrassments and are perplexed and unable to find a way out, but not driven to despair. We are pursued persecuted and hard driven but not deserted to stand alone we are struck down to the ground, but never struck out and destroyed. Always carrying about in the body the liability and exposure to the same putting to death that the Lord Jesus suffered, so that the resurrection of life of Jesus also may be shown forth by and in our bodies. For we who live are constantly experiencing being handed over to death for Jesus’ sake, that the resurrection of life of Jesus also may be evidenced through our flesh which is liable to death. Thus death is actively at work in us, but it is in order that our life may be actively at work in you. Yet we have the same spirit of faith as He had who wrote, I have believed and therefore have I spoken. We too, believe and therefore we speak. Assured that He who raised up the Lord Jesus will raise up us also with Jesus and bring us along with you into His presence. For all these things are taking place for your sake so that the more grace divine favor and spiritual blessing extends to more and more people and multiplies through the many, the more thanksgiving may increase and redound to the glory of God. 2 Corinthians 4: 6- 15
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