A Time for Everything

One year ago today I was sitting in a doctor’s office in NYC hearing the news that would change my life forever.  On November 16, 2010, Dr. Boulad, officially diagnosed me with High Grade MDS, which turned into AML (Acute Myeloid Leukemia) within weeks.  Needless to say, Matt and I were devastated.  We left the hospital that day in disbelief and silence.  When we arrived back at our hotel I began to feel a sense of hopelessness that I had never experienced before.  I remember thinking what terrible timing!  I had lived 35 years with Fanconi Anemia with no big issues.  Why now?  Why did this have to happen only months after we had adopted Eyasu and Abreham from Ethiopia.  Did God not want me to be their mother?  We had thought our lives were just beginning, but at that moment it seemed like mine was coming to an end.  

The next morning, November 17^th, Matt and I woke up and began packing for our flight back home.  I looked down at my iPhone and saw the date and mumbled flippantly to Matt, “Happy Anniversary.”  It was our 9^th wedding anniversary, but there was nothing happy about it.  We were both grieving and hurting over the news we had heard the day before.   

Looking back at the past year I have often been reminded of a passage of scripture that tells us there is a time for everything. 

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: 
a time to be born and a time to die, 
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace."
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8


There are many things that God has taught me this past year.  I have learned that He never leaves us.  I have learned that He grieves with us and that no tear goes unnoticed by Him.  I have learned how much He shows His love for us through the body of Christ. I have learned that there is a time for everything!  Life is full of many ups and downs.  If we never experience the valleys in life we won’t fully appreciate the mountain tops.

One of the greatest lessons I have learned is that God’s timing truly is perfect.  If I had gotten sick before we adopted Abreham and Eyasu they would not be our children.  God waited until we had them and then he chose to heal me.  The bone marrow transplant has healed the blood part of Fanconi Anemia, but all of the other cells in my body still have the defective gene.  I still have a very high risk of getting other cancers.  The oldest known person with Fanconi Anemia is 51.  I’d love to break that record!  I would love to live 50 more years and see my boys grow up and have families of their own.  I would love to see what God has in store for their lives and have a ringside seat to watch it all unfold! But, I have to trust that God has a plan and his timing is perfect.

Through this past year, I’ve also learned not to sweat the small stuff.  Matthew 6:34 says, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”  I never truly understood this verse until now.   I want to live each day to the fullest treasuring every moment that God gives me.  When I get to heaven I will worship and praise God with no sin to hinder, but I want to have more time to love and serve him here on earth despite my sinful state.  Unconditional love and service. 

Living with a life threatening disorder all of my life has caused me much worry and stress, but not anymore.  I’m no longer going to worry about tomorrow or five years from now.  I am no longer going to live in fear of what might happen.  I am holding my hands up in complete surrender.  I am waving the white flag.  I am giving up control.  God has much bigger plans that I could ever imagine.  I don’t have to worry about the future.  God already has it all planned.

Another thing I have understood more deeply this year is the gift that God gave me as a husband.  Matt is my best friend and I couldn’t imagine going through this past year without him.  He has been my rock and has loved me unconditionally.  I have felt the love of Christ through him.  And when I wake up tomorrow morning, November 17, I will not flippantly mumble to Matt, “Happy Anniversary.” There is a time for everything and this is a time to celebrate 10 wonderful years with the man that God chose for me.  And he chose well!

I sit here on November 16, 2011, feeling much different emotions than I did one year ago.  Instead of weeping, our house is full of laughter.  Instead of silence, there is the sound of joy.  Instead of thoughts about death, our house is full of life!  Instead of mourning, there is much dancing. There is a time for everything.  Today is a time to heal, to build, to embrace, to mend, to love and tomorrow to CELEBRATE!  

A Positive Perspective on Cancer

I never really had any desire to start a blog. In fact, I almost deleted my facebook account in early November. I am very thankful that I didn't delete it because it has been such a source of encouragement to me and a way to stay connected to the real world and people I love and miss. I am so thankful for all of your thoughts and prayers and kind words! They have lifted me up and given me strength to endure these past months!

The name of my blog is "8twenty8" because my life verse is Romans 8:28 "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." The circumstance I am in right now has really brought this verse to life for me. I desire so much for God to take a terrible situation and use it for HIS good! I want to take every opportunity to share God's story and miracles throughout this process. I can't share enough in a facebook status so I thought I would start a blog. I am finally feeling well enough to consistently share how I have seen God work and move these past few months! There have been many ups and downs (I will share both). But one thing remains true no matter the outcome! God is good!

After coming to NYC in early December we continued to receive bad news. In December, my condition went from MDS (pre-leukemia) to AML (Acute Myeloid Leukemia) in a matter of days. I was homesick. I missed my boys and didn't know if I would ever see them again. I was feeling every emotion you can imagine. At one of my lowest points, I was searching the internet one night and found "Don't Waste Your Cancer" by John Piper, who is a prostate cancer survivor. His words have brought me much encouragement and helped give me a correct perspective of my current circumstance.

The following Material is from Don't Waste Your Cancer by John Piper, copyright 2010

1. You will waste your cancer if you do not believe it is designed for you by God.

It will not do to say that God only uses our cancer but does not design it. What God permits, he permits for a reason. And that reason is his design. If God foresees molecular developments becoming cancer, he can stop it or not. If he does not, he has a purpose. Since he is infinitely wise, it is right to call this purpose a design. Satan is real and causes many pleasures and pains. But he is not ultimate. So when he strikes Job with boils (Job 2:7), Job attributes it ultimately to God (2:10) and the inspired writer agrees: “They . . . comforted him for all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him” (Job 42:11). If you don’t believe your cancer is designed for you by God, you will waste it.

2. You will waste your cancer if you believe it is a curse and not a gift.

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13). “There is no enchantment against Jacob, no divination against Israel” (Numbers 23:23). “The Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly” (Psalm 84:11).

3. You will waste your cancer if you seek comfort from your odds rather than from God.

The design of God in your cancer is not to train you in the rationalistic, human calculation of odds. The world gets comfort from their odds. Not Christians. Some count their chariots (percentages of survival) and some count their horses (side effects of treatment), but we trust in the name of the Lord our God (Psalm 20:7). God’s design is clear from 2 Corinthians 1:9, “We felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.” The aim of God in your cancer (among a thousand other good things) is to knock props out from under our hearts so that we rely utterly on him.

4. You will waste your cancer if you refuse to think about death.

We will all die, if Jesus postpones his return. Not to think about what it will be like to leave this life and meet God is folly. Ecclesiastes 7:2 says, “It is better to go to the house of mourning [a funeral] than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart.” How can you lay it to heart if you won’t think about it? Psalm 90:12 says, “Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” Numbering your days means thinking about how few there are and that they will end. How will you get a heart of wisdom if you refuse to think about this? What a waste, if we do not think about death.

5. You will waste your cancer if you think that “beating” cancer means staying alive rather than cherishing Christ.

Satan’s and God’s designs in your cancer are not the same. Satan designs to destroy your love for Christ. God designs to deepen your love for Christ. Cancer does not win if you die. It wins if you fail to cherish Christ. God’s design is to wean you off the breast of the world and feast you on the sufficiency of Christ. It is meant to help you say and feel, “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” And to know that therefore, “To live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 3:8; 1:21).

6. You will waste your cancer if you spend too much time reading about cancer and not enough time reading about God.

It is not wrong to know about cancer. Ignorance is not a virtue. But the lure to know more and more and the lack of zeal to know God more and more is symptomatic of unbelief. Cancer is meant to waken us to the reality of God. It is meant to put feeling and force behind the command, “Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord” (Hosea 6:3). It is meant to waken us to the truth of Daniel 11:32, “The people who know their God shall stand firm and take action.” It is meant to make unshakable, indestructible oak trees out of us: “His delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers” (Psalm 1:2). What a waste of cancer if we read day and night about cancer and not about God.

7. You will waste your cancer if you let it drive you into solitude instead of deepen your relationships with manifest affection.

When Epaphroditus brought the gifts to Paul sent by the Philippian church he became ill and almost died. Paul tells the Philippians, “He has been longing for you all and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill” (Philippians 2:26-27). What an amazing response! It does not say they were distressed that he was ill, but that he was distressed because they heard he was ill. That is the kind of heart God is aiming to create with cancer: a deeply affectionate, caring heart for people. Don’t waste your cancer by retreating into yourself.

8. You will waste your cancer if you grieve as those who have no hope.

Paul used this phrase in relation to those whose loved ones had died: “We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13). There is a grief at death. Even for the believer who dies, there is temporary loss—loss of body, and loss of loved ones here, and loss of earthly ministry. But the grief is different—it is permeated with hope. “We would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8). Don’t waste your cancer grieving as those who don’t have this hope.

9. You will waste your cancer if you treat sin as casually as before.

Are your besetting sins as attractive as they were before you had cancer? If so you are wasting your cancer. Cancer is designed to destroy the appetite for sin. Pride, greed, lust, hatred, unforgiveness, impatience, laziness, procrastination—all these are the adversaries that cancer is meant to attack. Don’t just think of battling against cancer. Also think of battling with cancer. All these things are worse enemies than cancer. Don’t waste the power of cancer to crush these foes. Let the presence of eternity make the sins of time look as futile as they really are. “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?” (Luke 9:25).

10. You will waste your cancer if you fail to use it as a means of witness to the truth and glory of Christ.

Christians are never anywhere by divine accident. There are reasons for why we wind up where we do. Consider what Jesus said about painful, unplanned circumstances: “They will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name’s sake. This will be your opportunity to bear witness” (Luke 21:12 -13). So it is with cancer. This will be an opportunity to bear witness. Christ is infinitely worthy. Here is a golden opportunity to show that he is worth more than life. Don’t waste it.

Material is from Don't Waste Your Cancer by John Piper, copyright 2010.© Desiring God