Hi Everyone, I wanted to share an email I received this morning. Being a Cancer surviver of 20 years now myself, this email really hit home. I was diagnosed with Lymphoma Cancer in 1988 when I was 28 years old. It was a devastating blow for me in my prime of life but I was determined to beat the odds and I was one of the lucky ones.
This was sent to me from my cousin going through it herself and it's all so true that I wanted to share it.
It gives a different perspective to LIFE....
~~~~~~~
I am amazed every day at how many people are being diagnosed with some form of cancer... this is truly the "epidemic" of our lifetime... much more so than a swine flu. I had commented to my sister a couple of months ago (while I was proofreading PET/CT scans for work) that no one knows what we have going on inside of us... then, unfortunately, I found out.
A cancer diagnosis is like nothing else you can imagine... it's like all of a sudden you are on a speeding, out of control train with no idea if you will be able to get off in time. All of a sudden you are faced with people you've known for many years looking away when you look at them, or not calling or emailing anymore because they don't know what to say. You have to deal with having medicines with unpronounceable names and potentially harmful side-effects injected into your body... yet you know you have little choice.
On the other hand... this is a time when you truly know who your friends are, the ones who offer to come clean your house, or hold you when you cry, or hold you hair back when you are sick, or are just willing to listen... those are the ones that are truly heaven sent.
You also have a wonderful opportunity to become much closer to the God who loves you... and yet that gives you the question "if He loved me so much why did He do this?". And my answer to that is... HE didn't do it, we have free will and my cancer is a result of my life-style and genetics. When I met with my oncologist (yes I finally have one, more on that in another email), I asked her how long she thought this had been growing... she said it is very difficult to know but based on my type of cancer and where it had spread to at this point, she guessed it had been less than a year.
So I thought back over my last year, which was filled with incredible financial stress, long work hours, losing the job I loved, poor eating habits, little sleep, and I realized that there was no way I could blame GOD for this, as I said, we have free will and this is what I had chosen to do... work like a maniac and not take care of myself... does anyone doubt that I would handle it differently if I got a chance for a "do over"?.
Fortunately I have a strong faith and even though I have some bad moments I am, for the most part, incredibly at peace with what is happening. I recently told my son that none of us know when our last day will be... it could be today... but there is something amazing about knowing that the time you thought you were going to have, will be much more limited. You look at every day differently... you start each day being thankful that you are still here, you don't want to have any disagreements with those you love... or with anyone. You tremendously appreciate a sunrise or sunset... you hug those you love just a little longer... you say "I love you" much more often, you spend much more time praying for those you care about than you do for yourself, you look for ways to do things for others... not because you think you are "buying your way into heaven" but because you know this is how you should have been acting all along... like Christ. We should love others the way He loved us... not finding fault, not arguing, not judging, not lying, not having to have your own way, just love and acceptance.
If there is any one thing I could say to everyone, it would be... "love one another", nothing else is important, love others MORE than you love yourself, think of others more than you think of yourself, treat others with the same kind of love that our Father showers on us. You only get one time around... make it count.
This was sent to me from my cousin going through it herself and it's all so true that I wanted to share it.
It gives a different perspective to LIFE....
~~~~~~~
I am amazed every day at how many people are being diagnosed with some form of cancer... this is truly the "epidemic" of our lifetime... much more so than a swine flu. I had commented to my sister a couple of months ago (while I was proofreading PET/CT scans for work) that no one knows what we have going on inside of us... then, unfortunately, I found out.
A cancer diagnosis is like nothing else you can imagine... it's like all of a sudden you are on a speeding, out of control train with no idea if you will be able to get off in time. All of a sudden you are faced with people you've known for many years looking away when you look at them, or not calling or emailing anymore because they don't know what to say. You have to deal with having medicines with unpronounceable names and potentially harmful side-effects injected into your body... yet you know you have little choice.
On the other hand... this is a time when you truly know who your friends are, the ones who offer to come clean your house, or hold you when you cry, or hold you hair back when you are sick, or are just willing to listen... those are the ones that are truly heaven sent.
You also have a wonderful opportunity to become much closer to the God who loves you... and yet that gives you the question "if He loved me so much why did He do this?". And my answer to that is... HE didn't do it, we have free will and my cancer is a result of my life-style and genetics. When I met with my oncologist (yes I finally have one, more on that in another email), I asked her how long she thought this had been growing... she said it is very difficult to know but based on my type of cancer and where it had spread to at this point, she guessed it had been less than a year.
So I thought back over my last year, which was filled with incredible financial stress, long work hours, losing the job I loved, poor eating habits, little sleep, and I realized that there was no way I could blame GOD for this, as I said, we have free will and this is what I had chosen to do... work like a maniac and not take care of myself... does anyone doubt that I would handle it differently if I got a chance for a "do over"?.
Fortunately I have a strong faith and even though I have some bad moments I am, for the most part, incredibly at peace with what is happening. I recently told my son that none of us know when our last day will be... it could be today... but there is something amazing about knowing that the time you thought you were going to have, will be much more limited. You look at every day differently... you start each day being thankful that you are still here, you don't want to have any disagreements with those you love... or with anyone. You tremendously appreciate a sunrise or sunset... you hug those you love just a little longer... you say "I love you" much more often, you spend much more time praying for those you care about than you do for yourself, you look for ways to do things for others... not because you think you are "buying your way into heaven" but because you know this is how you should have been acting all along... like Christ. We should love others the way He loved us... not finding fault, not arguing, not judging, not lying, not having to have your own way, just love and acceptance.
If there is any one thing I could say to everyone, it would be... "love one another", nothing else is important, love others MORE than you love yourself, think of others more than you think of yourself, treat others with the same kind of love that our Father showers on us. You only get one time around... make it count.
