From the very first moment I knew I had cancer, my heart has been steadfast about walking this path. Not that I have a choice whether or not to walk it, but rather the attitude in which I choose to walk it.
I remember lying in the hospital bed in and out of anesthesia with a strange realization that I suddenly had cancer. It wasn't a knowing, or something I had learned, but rather just this strange...sensation. Even in the middle of the shock and fog I remember thinking about God's sovereignty. I remember lying there thinking, "God must see something good in this that I cannot see...and I will trust him." At that moment I decided, "If this is the path God has chosen for me to walk, I will walk it with as much grace as I possibly can."
That doesn't mean I don't get worn down. It doesn't mean I don't have bad days. It doesn't mean I don't wish this were over...right now. What it means for me is that I will go wherever He leads me, however He leads me, for as long as He leads me. Even if he leads me through the valley of the shadow of death. I will go!
These past few months many have questioned how I can have this attitude. I don't really have an answer, other than I believe God has granted me an enormous amount of grace. I have been strangely at peace. Oh, there are moments of anxiety. There are questions that haunt my mind every single day. There are things I cannot explain and answers I do not have. But overall, even through the hard, dark times, there is always an underlying peace...if I will quiet my heart, silence my own will and allow myself to experience it.
One of the passages I love is 1 Peter 5:5-11. "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.
And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. To him be the power for ever and ever, Amen."
That passage speaks so much to me. First, that I am called to humble myself under God's mighty hand. This path he has called me to walk I must walk in humility and in submission to His authority, not my own. I am called to cast my cares on him because He cares for me.
Second, that I am to practice self-control and stay alert. There are days when I want to whine and kick and scream and be angry. Everyone tells me this is natural and normal. However, I believe I am called to practice self-control and to deny self-pity in order to stay alert. Why? Because the enemy is prowling around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Which prey do lions look for? They hunt for and single out the weak, the wounded, the small. There is a reason we are called to be self-controlled and alert, it is so we will not be devoured.
Also, I am called to resist the enemy by standing firm in my faith. I believe God has a plan in this journey. I don't know what it is. I don't claim to understand it. I certainly don't confess to like it, but I trust the author of the plan, and I believe He has a purpose in it for me. I must stand firm in my faith that He will see it through to completion, remembering that "He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus." Phil 1:6. I'm not saying the cancer is good, but I believe the work it will complete in my life will be good.
Lastly, I am fully convinced that "...the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast." I believe that Christ has the power to heal me instantly. I do. But I also believe that sometimes he has to work things out of me that otherwise would not come undone through the instantaneous. I believe that this time of suffering has meaning. I also am fully persuaded that after it has come to an end, He will restore me and make me strong, firm and steadfast, in due time.
I don't know what that looks like right now. I don't know what it means or what else I will have to face, but I do know that His promises are true and just. I know that he has my best interest at heart. I know that He is faithful, and I will continue to walk this path with as much grace, in as much humility and by as much submission to His will as I possibly can.
Only By His Grace,
Billie
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