God always shows up at the most unexpected of times. It’s always a warming reminder that He is ever present and influencing the events of my daily life. This past year has been emotionally and financially difficult. I spend a lot of my time, giving and releasing my worries about money and my health troubles to Him. It’s a daily battle as a recovering cancer patient because I am still working to be content with where I am now. Ideal Ashley would love to be able to get a full-time job, have full strength in my body, depend solely on myself financially, and be out on my own. I love being able to rely on my strength. It makes me feel good and yes, even powerful. I love feeling powerful and self-reliant.
I’m learning that it’s not what God wants from me right now. He has gently reminded me over and over in prayer that He doesn’t want me comfortable. He needs me uncomfortable with life because it is the only way that I am going to trust and depend on Him completely. In an effort to be a more godly woman, I have submitted to His desire to run my life completely. No holds. In this place of life’s uncertainties, it can be scary. There is no security. The only security I have is the security that I am learning to trust in Him as He walks me through this journey.
If I were to say that I am handling it gracefully and without a proper tantrum every once in a while, well I’d be lying. It’s ten zillion times harder to trust God with every fiber of my being when everything around me whips up into the grandest storm frenzy of my life. I see the rocking waves, the strong winds stinging my skin, and as I fall over and over, I reach out to God and through the pain choose to trust Him all over again. I choose to believe that He has a plan in all this, and at this very moment He is working it out for His glory… not mine. Not anymore, anyway.
I like feeling powerful, but that’s my pride. I’m as powerless to life as a dandelion is to the stray east wind. I crumble under its pressure, but I don’t want to be lost to the winds in the process. So I trust all over again, hoping that God knows exactly where all the pieces of my soul that I perceive are lost at the moment need to be. Nothing is truly lost when God is in control of it. Yes, that is my faith speaking right now because I sure don’t “feel” it at the moment.
Yesterday, I had to go to the hospital for chest pains. I have been fighting sickness on and off for a few months. It’s winter, my body is weak and I live with three children under ten. So, it’s a part of life. However, anxiety and fears can pop up when I least expect them. They sneak in when I feel weak and try to convince me of the worst-case scenarios imaginable about my health.
I am showing signs of pre-diabetes, I’m still overweight from a slow recovery post-treatment, and I have pains in my chest on and off in similar areas that remind me of when they first found my cancer two years ago. It can develop into a difficult cocktail of what-ifs that run through my mind. I am especially susceptible to these fears when it’s late at night and my mind is racing while I am trying to convince my body to sleep.
The pain in my chest and back was sharp. I was visiting a new hospital and they don’t have my previous medical records. But they listened to me and took my concerns seriously. They immediately put me through to get a CT scan and all the other scans that come with chest pains once you have preexisting conditions. Three hours later, the doctor came in and told me that I just had a very harsh upper respiratory infection and that I was going to have to let it work through my system.
As he walked into the room, he said, “All I have is good news for you.” He then went on to tell me that I was in perfect health all things considered. My heart is strong, my lungs are strong, my bloodwork is the best he’s seen with so many pre-existing conditions, and there was nothing to be concerned with.
My immediate thought was, are you sure? Did you miss something? The pain in my chest was pretty sharp. But I took his word for it and then looked at the scans later. He was right. There was nothing out of the ordinary. I was the picture of health. So why did I feel like I was still waiting for the other shoe to drop? Had I let my fears and anxieties about worst-case scenarios get the best of my chipper outlook on life?
As we drove home, I still felt that shoe just hanging in the air. My sister, Ams reminded me that if anything this trip was a success because the CT proved once again that I was still cancer-free. I am still in remission. I am still alive. I nodded and started to cry because I was grateful. I was grateful that I had been given a second chance at living life. Fears tell lies that seem so convincing. They feel so real that reality seems to be the very thing that isn’t real if we don’t take care to put them out before they catch fire in our minds. I closed my eyes and repented to the Lord.
A moment later, the Lord whispered into my spirit, “Nothing can touch you, Ash, unless I will it.”
In that very instant a peace fell over my body as I realized that I was in the Palm of His Hand. I imagined myself just sitting in His palm while he orchestrated everything in and around my life. I wasn’t alone in that instant. Fear tells me that I am alone in this because life is difficult and lonely at times. But it is a lie. I wasn’t anywhere that God hadn’t already ordained and caused to happen. Nothing in the raging waters or east winds can truly wound me unless God allows it. Since God has allowed me to live and survive cancer, I choose to look those fears in the face each day and remind them of what God says. He is in control. He is the master of my reality and the transformer of my fears into faith. My only prayer is that I will continue to learn to trust God more than I was able to the day before.