Rejoice!

The sky was brilliant blue yesterday, in spite of the arctic freeze. It reminded me of the February day in 2013 when I first heard the words, "It's cancer." The sky had been blue that day, too ~ so achingly beautiful that I couldn't reconcile it with the terrible news I had just received. 

I couldn't help but wonder if history was about to repeat itself.

The period between undergoing tests and receiving the results is the hardest, as anyone who has awaited a diagnosis can attest. I did pretty well the first few days; but as the week went by, my anxiety grew. 

It was kind of like cranking a jack-in-the-box. Every day I just kept cranking and cranking, knowing that on Thursday something was going to pop out at me.

Like my youngest daughter said, "It's the initial that scares me. I can handle what comes afterwards." She was remembering both times that we had come home from the hospital with grim faces and a cancer diagnosis.

By the time we sat in the doctor's office yesterday, I think Greg and I had both convinced ourselves that it was cancer again. So when the oncologist came in and, after some small talk about how the procedure had gone, said, "Well, it was benign findings," we didn't really know how to respond. I wouldn't say I was flooded with relief ~ more like calm gratefulness. And maybe a bit of disbelief: All that worry . . . for this? Are you sure?

Yes. We've come through another test with good results. I can breathe! Well, until the next test. I wish I could master the trick of waiting. But as my Canadian oncologist once said, "There's no trick. It's just hard!" And God has used this past week to continue teaching me, patiently pressing His promises into my heart again.

Last Sunday in adult Bible fellowship, we discussed this interesting paradox:  
". . . we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."¹ Our teacher explained it like this: "The more we endure, the more we are able to endure." I think he's right.

So this is what I've learned this week: suffering produces endurance . . . which produces character . . . which produces hope . . . because God loves us. And I'm going to enjoy each day that He gives me in the "breathing half."

¹The Bible, Romans 5:3-5