When we came back to the States, my life-vision suddenly narrowed...simply survive.
In cancer time, the peripheral vision of my heart was completely lost. Most of my prayers sounded something like,
"... and please let me live past ...
My dreams vaporized like a morning dew
in the flaming heat of the sun.
Earth continues in its orbit.
Time passes on.
Chemicals metabolize and hair grows back.
God cares for us.
My hopes grow.
I graduate, somehow, into a place of greater faith...
...each treatment finished,
...each consequence mitigated.
We fill the hearts and minds of our children with
precious family memories along the way.
And yet...
I have only just come to realize that I have lacked the reaching forward,
stretch-out-on-your-tip-toes-and-take-a-chance
pulse of life.
I am too young to be this old, my best years behind me.
Breath.
Talk.
Rage.
Work.
Sing.
Wonder.
Rest.
Teach.
Love.
Worry.
Wait...
Wait...
Wait...
Wait...
WHAT AM I WAITING FOR?!?
Admittance to Eternity?
Yes; but... that's not
grateful or faith-filled.
Twenty cancer-free years?
If they were coins in my pocket
to save and spend
To get my life back.
from whence? and how?
Is there not more?
God, my Father, did you not
REDEEM
and
PRESERVE
unto life abundantly?
My five year day is coming.
This is my year.
I am weaker than I once was; but stronger than I have been.
I don't know quite what it means some days.
This is the year that I stop
living "life after cancer" and start
living "life without cancer."
May my Healer Redeemer be glorified in my expenditure of the time and strength He's given.
May I be found worthy of the endowment.
