The Thing I've Been Avoiding

I've had a hard time blogging lately. I could blame it on a lot of things, but the real story is that I don't want to talk about the big thing in my life right now. I'm going to try, but I've tried countless times over the last 6 months and haven't really said anything about it. So, we'll see how this goes.

My mom has breast cancer. She was diagnosed over the summer and started chemo right away. After the first round of chemo she got really sick. I'm talking a 21 day hospital stay and a staph infection kind of sick. The next 5 treatments went better. Well, better than the first. Anyway, the next step in this long journey is her double mastectomy, which will happen a week from tomorrow.

When my mom suspected that something was wrong, but before the actual diagnosis, she told me that she was most worried about me if it was cancer. When I looked shocked and asked why, she told me that I was still really young and that I still had young kids, and with Rachel's appointments it's good to have extra help. I told her I loved the help that she gives me, but her help isn't the reason I don't want her to have cancer.

As I'm typing this I'm crying like I just found out. And then I'm scolding myself, because my mom is still here and the doctors have assured her that she can survive this. And let's face it, I've had my mom longer than a lot of other people I know. But it's all very unnerving to me. I'm a lot like my mom. We go a hundred miles an hour all day long, fall into bed and repeat that. To watch her energy fade and the changes that she has gone through during chemo has been harder than I thought it would be.

When Rachel was first diagnosed with congenital eye defects I felt like we had our hard thing. When we had the first miscarriage I realized that I thought God owed me smooth sailing with everything else because of the hard thing He was already asking of us with Rachel. As the years have gone on, I've realized that one of the biggest idols in my life is that I want things to be easy. Or at least easier.  And I think I've fallen in that trap again this time as well.

But the thing I love about God, and the thing I love about my life so far, is that I can look back at harder times than this and know He will redeem it. It might not happen this side of eternity, but His word promises that this is best. I'm not going to pretend to understand what He will accomplish with this particular trial, in my life, in my parent's lives, or in the rest of my family, but I know He loves me, and He loves my mom, and He loves my kids. I'm just going to try and rest in that. And I'm going to remind myself that He will never forsake me. 

And if you think of it, will you pray for her. I know the surgery is a good thing and it will remove the remaining cancer, but I also know it can't be easy to face that.