Last week Thursday (Dec 18) marked one year since my breast cancer diagnosis. I didn’t actually think about it very much until after the fact. I am not much for those kinds of “anniversaries”. But it is significant to realize a whole year has gone by, a year of my life (and at my age that is nothing to sniff at), which was full of changes, significant changes. Changes which were not small but on the order of an 8.0 on the Richter scale. They got my, and our, attention.

At first I felt like I was in the fighter’s ring and took a hard stomach punch. Now, I am not a violent nor athletic person, so my abdominal muscles were not prepared for such a punch, metaphorically speaking. It sort of knocked me on my butt and took my breath away (while I am thinking, what am I doing in this boxing ring??!!). All was unreal for awhile.

It was a great comfort and strength to me to have my best friend and companion, my husband Randy, at my side, helping me make decisions, yet not running ahead of me, rather, walking with me step by step. His love and support cannot be estimated, cannot be measured. It was and is much more than I can ever put into figures or words. Really, that is what love is all about. My “cup” overflows with blessing because of him.

Many people have commented how strong I am and have been through all that has happened to me since that diagnosis of breast cancer one year ago. Let me be the first to say, I am not strong. But I thank God I know who is; Jesus Christ, the living son of God. And I just want to thank God my Father for “causing to be written” his Word for us. I go to God’s word and prayer and there is where I find strength. In communicating with the living God, reading his words, which are so deep no one will ever fully plumb their depths, I find what I need to do and grace to do it.

I distinctly remember resuming my reading in the Psalms right after my diagnosis. I was at Psalm 111 which opens, “Praise the LORD! I will give thanks to the LORD with all my heart…”, and my heart said, no I don’t . I don’t feel like praising God. I feel like I’ve just been punched. I’d rather demand “why” this is happening to me. I have a heavy weight someone just dumped on me and I definitely do not like it, especially since it can kill me.

Then, while these feelings and thoughts are steam rolling through my head and heart, I am acknowledging, “yes, I will praise the LORD, because I know that is just what I need to do, I must do”, especially since I am so hurt and don’t want to do it. How much more important that I do praise God in the face of these conflicting and dark feelings! If I praise God in the sunny meadows but refuse to praise him in the dark valley, I am a hypocrite. Before God, I fear that more than cancer itself.

That moment, I chose to praise God. A sheer act of the will. All has flowed from that choice.

It’s true, if you give God an inch, he will take a mile! And boy am I glad of that! When I chose to praise God, not for cancer but for who he is regardless of my physical state, I put myself in his arms, so to speak, like a child safe in the arms of his daddy, and all his comfort and grace for my need was then poured out on me in the days which followed. As long as I stay in that safe, dependent place, I am strengthened with “resurrection” power. When I cry tears of hurt and confusion and fear, pleading with my Abba Father, he is there to pick me up off the floor and set me down next to him, his arm around me. He gives me a “future and a hope”, and no one else can do that, no one.

If I have nothing else to praise God for other than who he is and all the mighty works he has done, surely that is enough, isn’t it? It should be. Just take a hard look at the cross.

I daily seek to “fix my eyes on Jesus” and be a faithful follower of his. This is a much better perspective to have than having my eyes on me.

May we all see Jesus in his strange disguise this Christmas season…and let him bring change to our lives.

Jacque