The Lucky 5

Five has ALWAYS been my "lucky number" or my favorite number if you will. Not because it was the number on my soccer jersey when I was younger, not because I had 5 siblings, and not because 5 is the number that has consistently popped up in numerous occasions in my life. 

It is my favorite number for the sheer fact that I like writing it. I like the way that it looks. 

Silly I know. 

Little did I know that all these years later, 5 would have a very significant importance in my life. 

This week, July 17th, I celebrate 5 years of being CANCER FREE. 

According to Newsday.com: 

In the big scheme of things, five years isn't much time. But for people diagnosed with cancer, five years is a kind of signpost that suggests whether they're on the road to recovery.

"It's a good benchmark and gives you a sense of someone's overall prognosis," said Dr. Jules Cohen, an oncologist and assistant professor of clinical medicine at Stony Brook University Cancer Center. "It is a surrogate for 10 years and 20 years and 30 years. Although it's not a perfect surrogate, it's a good approximation of long-term outcome for people."

In other words, making it to five years is a good indication -- but not a guarantee -- that a person will survive for years or decades longer.

That's me! 5 years!

I knew when I reached five years it would be a big deal. However, I didn't quite expect it to be this big of a deal. I have to admit, this week, being the week before this anniversary that means so much, I have struggled with fear a little more than usual. I find myself reliving that day in April of 2009 when the words, "The tumor biopsy came back as malignant. It's cancerous." Being 23 years old at the time, I should have been focused on living life to the fullest, instead I was faced with whether or not I was going to live at all.

Now we are here, five years has come and gone, but that day, those words, still feel like yesterday. There are still moments of fear, there are still appointments, and there is still pain. None of that has changed. However, I can honestly say that one thing that has certainly changed in the last five years is what my idea of "living" is. I have learned how to truly live. 

"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Philippians 4:13

THAT IS HOW YOU LIVE.

The minute the words: "you have cancer" came out of my doctors mouth, I instantly felt weak. I suddenly had no power over the situation or the outcome. Then he proceeded to tell me that there was nothing I did to cause it and nothing I could have done to prevent it. So you are telling me, its not my fault, but even if I had known it was going to happen, nothing I could have done would have kept it from happening?

Weak.

From April to September,  as I endured surgery after surgery, physical therapy, and enough pain medication to fill a pharmacy; I had to rely on other people (mostly my poor mother) to help me get through life. I couldn't do anything by myself. I couldn't cook, I couldn't drive, for goodness sakes I could barely make it to the bathroom on my own. I was 23, using a walker. If I wanted a glass of water, I had to call for my mom because I couldn't carry it on my own. A glass of water. 

Weaker. 

Due to the high amount of pain medication I was on. I slept all the time. Basically I slept for 3 months straight. It became easier then relying on other people though. It became better than facing the fact that I was sick and that life was going on without me. I felt depressed. I really just wanted to hang out with my friends, to enjoy my summer, to be 23. Instead, I laid in my bed, unable to do anything that I wanted to. 

Even. More Weak. 

On July 17, 2009, my oncologist called me and told me that my cancer was gone. The ever so redeeming words, "You are officially cancer free" were some of the best words anyone has ever said to me. Now don't get me wrong, I sat for hours and cried over the joy in my heart that I would "live", but really, nothing had changed. I had not more cancer, but I still couldn't drive, couldn't walk, and couldn't get the glass of water I wanted. I felt frustrated that those words didn't bring immediate redemption to the life that I once knew. Five years later, I can drive again, I can cook, and I can certainly get my own glass of water, but there are still things that I deal with even to this day. Just yesterday, my leg was cramping so bad that I just wanted to cry, I can't run, and my shoe selection is minimum at best. There are numerous "rules" for my new foot (did I mention I lost a toe and a bone in my foot?) and my new life. Rules that I do not want to follow all of the time, but this I have learned: 

Living is not about WHAT you can and can't do. It about HOW you do it. 

I tried so hard to be strong throughout those months. Tried until my heart finally couldn't take it anymore and I learned that I don't have to be strong, that isn't my role. He is my strength. 

"I can do all things through Christ..."

ALL THINGS! When your mom told you that you could do anything you put your mind to, she was right. It didn't matter what "rules" were placed on my life by man, if the Lord was leading me to do something, and I was in his will, ANYTHING I had been called to do, he would help me do. He would pave the way, prepare my leg, and open the doors to do it. It may not look the way that I wanted it to, but it would be done. I have found that looking at things through the eyes of the Lord gives new perspective. My views are limited only to my knowledge. I see only a keyhole of the big picture. Allowing myself to be open to "not my will by your will Lord" has allowed things to happen in a way that works with those rules I have. Because the Lord doesn't bend the rules, he just bypasses them completely. When I follow God's plan for my life, I don't have to worry about breaking the rules that have been made for me, for my body on this earth, because his ways are not the ways of the world. The Lord goes before me and makes a way. 

"...who strengthens me."

I can't count the number of times that people have heard my life story, from my childhood to my cancer, and have told me: "Wow, you are so strong"! I would agree. I consider myself to be a strong person, I have endured a lot, but I am not ALWAYS strong. There are times that even I can only take so much and find myself to be a puddle of tears and so frustrated to the point of giving up. It is in those moments where I know, I don't have to, nor do I, do this alone. I don't have to be strong. I can lean on Him. One of the worst things I had to do in physical therapy was sitting down in front of two buckets of water: one ice cold and one hot. I had to pick up marbles with my toes and move them from bucket to bucket. It helped my toes in bending and help the swelling between the water temperatures. Seems easy enough right? False. It was the hardest thing for me to accomplish and would often times bring me to tears. It was painful beyond belief and I could not get my toes to bend to pick up those stupid marbles. Often times, between the tears, the simple prayer of, "Lord, I really need your help. I can't do this right now" would give me the strength I needed to complete the task. It didn't change the amount of difficulty or the amount of pain, but it gave me the strength I needed to endure them. 

Life is painful and certainly it is difficult, but you CAN get through it. 

"You can do ALL things through Christ, who strengthens YOU."

Suddenly being weak was ok. It wasn't so crippling. It didn't mean that something was broken in me, it meant that I was human, just as I had been created to be. My strength, your strength is not found in this body, as it fails, but in Him alone. As you stay in his will, whatever life throws at you can be endured, as he will be the strength you need to face it. So stop trying to be strong yourself. 

Be Weak.

 5 years from now...you will see that it may be your greatest Victory. 

Here is to kicking cancer's butt for 5 years in his strength! 

Unanswered Prayers

A few years back while driving with my friend, he played a song that tugged on my memory strings. I knew I had heard it before. As I began to listen to the lyrics, I suddenly found myself singing every lyric by memory. I recognized the song as one I had heard many times before as a kid.

The lyrics went like this:

"Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers
Remember when you're talkin' to the man upstairs
That just because he doesn't answer, doesn't mean he don't care.
Some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers."

(Unanswered Prayers-Garth Brooks)

Yes. I had totally heard this song before.


As I sang each lyric I realized that singing it as a child, I had no idea what the meaning of this chorus was. Even as I sung in that day in my friends car in my early twenties, I would still debate if I fully knew that depth of those words. But now, as I reminisce on those lyrics in my late twenties, I would say that I finally semi understand what they are saying.

Life didn't come easy to me growing up. And some years, it seems as though it was getting worse. I found myself often times begging for the Lord to have mercy on me.

"Please Lord, can there just be a season of rest for my life. Does it ALWAYS have to be this hard?"

I can recall countless conversations like this I had with the Lord.

A few years back I, in my anger and frustration, decided to take life into my own hands and found myself on a path of rebellion. Where I allowed myself to "experience life" the way that I believed it should be. I mean, if He couldn't get it right, I would just have to do it myself, right?

Wrong. OH...haha...so wrong.

At the end of that year and a half tyrant rebellion, I found myself before the Lord saying the same thing. "Lord, does it ALWAYS have to be this hard?" Only this time, it was my own doing. I was bruised and broken. I had been pushed to the edge of what I could handle and found myself doing everything I could to just breath. And still, after trying it on my own, nothing was going the way that I thought it should. I was twenty seven, family was still broken, I was still in pain from my cancer, I was still unmarried with no children and no perspectives, I still was unhappy in my career, and a WHOLE lot more baggage.

When I think about these lyrics I can not help but be reminded of the grace of God. That his timing is perfect and that mine, well mine is not.

In that year of trying to do things on my own, all I did was postpone what I wanted so badly. By shutting out the voice of the Lord in my life, I was ultimately shutting his will out of my life as well. I was running away from it, rather than to it. The desires of my heart were now further away from where I was.

And it was painful. Oh, was it painful.

And it was more painful to think of the fact that in that time, the things I experienced and allowed myself to do was exactly what the Lord was trying to protect me from. There are so many things, people, places during that time that I look back with the "what if" in the forefront of my mind. No, not the "what if" of "man, that could have been awesome." but the "what if" of...."what if that had been my forever?!", "what if I had married that person?!", "what if I had stayed there?!". But those prayers, those things I had begged God for, and decided that I was going to try and find on my own, those unanswered prayers...Those are the greatest gifts he could have EVER given me.

And I am thankful for the following:

"Being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus" -Philippians 1:6

I am so glad that the Lord said, "ok Amanda, are you over this so we can move on?" How great is his mercy. It is also amazing to me that the moment I decided to say "yes" to the Lord, that things began to change. Instantly. New job, new friendship, new love, back in school, WORTH, LOVE, GRACE, FOCUS, and PASSION. All of these restored to me. I know as years go by, there will be more and more blessing to come. I know there will be still be the struggle of the "when", but I now know, from experience, that the Lord is faithful, and his timing is perfect. Again, mine is not. So I don't take those  unanswered prayers as Him forgetting about me, but him loving me.

I am SO glad (SO GLAD) that the Lord was and is not done with me and that he who began a good work in me will carry it out to completion. That means the desires of my heart and all the endeavors my future holds. I have seen his faithfulness to this point and tomorrow will be no different. Waiting for the things of the Lord has now become a joy to me because I have new perspective.

What are you waiting for? Take time to pray through it, consider it, and break it apart. Could there be reasons that you do not have it yet? Is there anything in your life that YOU need to change in order for God's will to move forward? And what can you do in this season of waiting to prepare yourself for when the Lord does bring that, whatever it is, to your life?

The future is yours, written by him, and lived out together.

The best things in life are worth the wait. Don't ruin a good thing, but rushing a good thing.

He is not done with you.