The greatest choice...

I have cancer. Boy, I never thought I would say that one. Me. A regular person with a regular life, a great husband, four great kids - I even have five grandchildren. Though I'm not a negative person...a few years back I thought to myself, "you better enjoy all this perfection because one day something really bad is going to happen, sweetheart." Life just doesn't go on without some kind of strife, right? Some type of pain, yearning, tragedy or illness has to be in my path. As a mother I knew that the best case scenario would be if the awful thing happened to me. I prayed every day that my kids would be spared of being that child who gets killed in a car crash in the high school. There is always one kid that you hear about in every single school. "Please, God... don't make it be one of my kids. Please?" I wanted the hit. I wanted to be the target; GIVE THE CRAP TO ME.

My husband and I have been together for more years than I can count. It has been forty-two years actually. And just like many couples, we didn't know what to do with ourselves when our wonderful children left for college; off to find their own lives. It was devastating for both of us and we didn't know what to make of the silence. We didn't talk about it and so we drifted apart a bit. I've learned to get my feelings out on paper and so I wrote a story. Fictional as it may be, there was a lot of truth to my angst and anger in our distance and there it was on paper. A novel. What the novel doesn't tell you is how I handled my relationship in prayer. I am not a religious person at all but my spiritual side is very deep, and I have an abiding faith that never leaves me. So, as I tend to do in uncomfortable situations - I prayed... I stood at the kitchen sink one day and asked God...

"Please make me understand what a decent person my husband is and make me appreciate him. Please, God... put it in my lap"

I used those very words. God does not mess around, and I should have been very careful for what I wished for because I had the answer (literally) in my "lap" in three days. I went in for a physical and they found that I needed a CT scan because something wasn't right. I had a football-size tumor in my belly. I had Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. Me. Healthy, vegetable eating, exercising, non-smoking happy-go-lucky ME. How could this be true?

It was. So over the next few weeks I will talk to you about this journey. I will share some of the good things about this cancer and some of the horrifying things as well, and also ways that I've empowered myself - at least in my own mind. There was even some humor and perspective last year. I got that more than I ever could have imagined. My family is different with me now. I wake up and look at the sunshine and blue sky in a way that I couldn't have seen before. God answered my prayers. I had some horrible bloody football put right in my lap. But God listened to me. He didn't give it to one of my precious babies, but gave it to me instead. So I am beyond thankful. Ironically, I am very grateful for this gift of the right choice.