Four Years Ago

I have been feeling introspective over the past week, knowing that this day was drawing near, but I am especially so today – exactly four years since I was diagnosed with breast cancer.  The Bible says that, "A man's heart plans his way, but the Lord determines his steps" (Prov. 16:9).  Maybe that should be my life verse.  I make my plans; God makes His.  The two rarely overlap.  Why we can’t get on the same page, I don’t know.  God is all-knowing, not me.  

The first time I had things go drastically different than I had planned, it was ROUGH.  That time of my life inspired an entire blog.  I won’t go into all that here.  But that experience primed me for the next time things wouldn’t go the way I had planned.  God grew my faith during that trial, so that I could trust that He would walk with me through the next one.  

The past four years have been full of ups and downs.  Thanks to the diagnosis of a mutated BRCA2 gene, I know that the risk of cancer will follow me much longer than I would have liked.  There are happy days, when the doctors clear me for another six months, and discouraging days, when the doctors tell me that certain levels aren’t where they should be.  There are highs, when the door man at the cancer center says hi and tells me I’m looking great, and lows, when I look at my post-cancer body and wish that wasn’t me in the mirror.  There is constant uncertainty, and every ache, pain, bump, or blood test leaves tiny fears in my heart and mind.

And yet I wouldn’t say, “I wish that day four years ago had never happened.”  God’s ways are higher and wiser.  He has taken my story in a direction I never thought it would take and my life is richer for it.  I know more people; I can empathize with more people.  Surviving a common tragedy builds bonds that can be forged no other way – I can now relate to the divorce support group, the infertility support group, the cancer survivors support group, and the BRCA+ support group.  God has “blessed me and enlarged my territory” (1 Chron. 4:10) of influence for His name, just like I asked Him to.  I just didn’t realize this was the way He was going to do it!

So I both envy and feel sorry for my friends who have had most of their lives go the way they themselves planned them to go.  What must it be like to actually grow up to be the teacher/doctor/mother/missionary you always wanted to be?  I’ll never know.  Every time I’ve gotten close to fulfilling my childhood dreams, something happens to redirect me.  It’s hard to see others whose lives look just like what I wanted and think that that wasn’t what God wanted for me.  And yet I also feel sorry for my friends who have had all their hopes and dreams fulfilled.  They haven’t known the heartbreak of finding their lives in pieces all around them, thinking there is no way anything good could possibly come from this, being granted the gift of faith to turn to God, continue trusting Him, and then experiencing the great joy of seeing God redeem it all.  

While my journey with Him is far from over, I know I can trust Him to walk with me through whatever may come.  I hold my plans more lightly now; leaving room for God to direct my steps without having to throw up major roadblocks or giant detour signs.  I can trust that He will give me faith to get through whatever seems too difficult for me, and “on that day when my strength is failing, the end draws near, and my time has come – still my soul will sing Your praise unending, ten thousand years and then forevermore.”