A cancer of another kind

I was expecting the words, I was actually waiting to hear, “You have cancer.”
Yet, these words never came and as crazy as it seems, I was actually disappointed.

I know wanting cancer is beyond any normal rational, yet I was hoping thyroid cancer would be the diagnoses to begin to set me free.

I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia almost 11 years ago. I have been on the roller coaster of flare days and a few good days. I have tried many medicine cocktails to eventually give up every time, as the side effects would take over any benefit. I remember falling asleep behind the wheel once while taking a new medicine. The doctors response was, “if you are so tired still, you probably won’t get over it, time to try a new one.”

Try a new one, and try I have, new diets and fads, new supplements, new oils,
new searches and new medicines.
I woke up one morning so dizzy I could not walk across the room. The dizziness had not improved so I decided to go off of all medications to make sure that they were not the culprit. Three weeks later still dizzy. This on top of leg and muscle fatigue for over two years I decided to visit the doctor, again.  Thus began the MRI’s, more blood work and ultrasounds all leading to the biopsy. 7 nodules in my thyroid, 2 were suspicious. I have seen a hematologist for blood issues, neurologist for the dizziness and muscle weakness, and now I need to see the endocrinologist and ENT specialist at the end of the summer, each answer has led to more questions.

I wanted to have the answer so bad, I didn’t care what the answer was. I wanted to have something with a hope of treating. Now I just have more questions. Thankfully none of my symptoms seem to be related but rather 5 different sources all messing with me at once. I am truly thankful nothing detrimental! However, I am still left with Fibromyalgia and symptoms unrelated and we are searching. Oh, how I was hoping for a misdiagnosis.

It is through this journey I realized I DID have cancer. I had a small depressive thought that this was my life now. This thought had grown and grown, until I had come to the point it was all I saw. This is how depression works. Just a moment, and we let it fester and fester and grow and grow just like a cancer of the body, it becomes a cancer of our mind.

I had let go of the very thing Writing For Joy became in my life. A place to focus on God’s truth and to have JOY despite my circumstances. I allowed that cancer of depression to rob me of my truths. I had been robbed of my peace, of my smile, of my hope and strength, it was slowly robbing my life.
I had allowed the infectious depression to grow rampit and it happened so strategically, just as the enemy had planned.

God’s word says that the enemy comes to kill, steal and destroy. So swiftly  had let my physical body become the destruction to take my eyes off of the Lord’s truth to my heart situation. I am His daughter that HAS HOPE IN HIM. My situations do not dictate my joy meter. JOY despite my pain is not denial but a necessity, my necessity!

So in the Name of my MIGHTY Jesus I speak for the cancer of depression to be gone. I pray for His truths to rise in my spirit and in the spirit of others that battle. We will have peace  in the morning, His peace that surpasses all understanding to cover the depression in all trials and all circumstances. Infectious depression be gone and it its place the JOY OF THE LORD. For His JOY is our strength.

I will find my answers, I will have full healing, but in the meantime, I will walk with Him side by side as He takes me deeper into His truths. I have nothing to fear, I have no reason to slumber, He is calling me to new heights. Time to get ready.

 

A treasure found this day

This was an old post I had begun and never finished. It was found in the drafts from years ago.

I felt like I had opened a treasure chest full of the Lord’s reminding in the list of drafts. There were many to open and this one I decided to share today. It is a new year. Time to abandon old things and start fresh!!

Surrender : To abandon

I am finding the more I abandon the garbage in my life, the more joy that fills my heart. When we hold onto anger and bitterness it clogs up the flow of joy just as cholesterol clogs the arteries.

When we let bitterness rise again and again and then complain that we are depressed pointing a finger at the one that offended us, it is no different from ramming our head against a brick wall over and over again and then blaming the wall for our headache.

We need to look at our own selves in the situation.  How are we holding on and what can we do to surrender it? Do we really want to keep walking around with it?

We all have our reasons to feel like we have a right to hold on to that anger. But it hurts us, not the one or the circumstance that we are angry with.

There was a person who hurt my family. I hated this person. Many days all I could do was think about how I would murder them if I could get away with it. I hated them vehemently and for what most would think was good reason. But my hatred of this person was taking over my days, consuming my every thought. There was no peace as I focused only on what they had done and how they should pay.

I realized if I wanted to walk in freedom I needed to surrender all the anger, bitterness, and guilt. But the question for me was how did I start? How could I abandon the feelings and leave them  down and not pick them back up over and over again?

 

ADDED TODAY: 1/4/18  from the wisdom the years has brought me and the freedom I now get to walk in.

Question: How do yo let go of the bitterness and anger without picking it up over and over again.
1. I forgive…

Matthew 6: 14- “For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

                   Luke 17:4 – “And if he sins against you seven times a day, and returns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.”

I let go of the circumstances and take off the personal attack. I depersonalize the situation. I work to set it apart from me. It was a situation that happened it does not have to cling to me. When I find  it extremely hard to forgive I ask the Lord’s help. I ask for His peace. I ask Him to help me love my enemy.

2. I pray for my enemy…

Matthew 5:44-But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,

I use to struggle with how in the world to pray for an enemy. I would ask, ” seriously God isn’t it enough that they hurt me and they don’t care? How do I pray for them?” God said, “just start.” So now, I pray for the one that has offended me to know Jesus and to break free of the bondage that hurts people. I pray for them to have VICTORY in JESUS.

3. I rejoice that the Lord has set me free…

2 Timothy 2:26- and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.

When I walked in my wrath of bitterness I was held captive by the enemy. I am no longer bound up in the bondage of un-forgiveness and bitterness!!! That is MY reward, my gift from the Lord.

I praise, I worship, I shout and dance. Then when that ugly thing tries to rise up in me I praise louder, worship longer and dance like never before. Instead of using that reminder to take my focus, I use that reminder to take me deeper.

The year 2018 is a great opportunity to break off offenses, walk in freedom of forgiveness and grow deeper in loving.

And I say…. “YES LORD!”

 

Bitter Much?

You know that we are told it is healthy to forgive. I know I  can not walk a victorious life and have hatred and anger stirring and festering.
So when I was hurt by a friend years ago, I forgave her. I did what Jesus instructed and I forgot that sin. I did walk away from the friendship, as this person had left me raw and unable to trust them. The relationship was not healthy, to be so bold, I was almost bullied by the sly comments that tore down and then the lies and gossip against me. But I forgave and moved on, or so I thought.

You will find out the hard way that bitterness has taken root, if you had just buried the pain of a situation and moved along.

That very root will still fester its way to the top again and stare you defiantly in the face.

For me this root of bitterness, reared its ugly head through Facebook. Yep,  the lovely social network, that now tells you whenever your friends like or comment on another’s page or status. As soon as I saw this old friend’s picture on Facebook, my heart started racing, my stomach was in knots and I wanted to erase her off of Facebook! I was angry, all over again. I felt like I had years ago when this friend first wronged me over and over.  I wanted to be angry with the friend that was communicating with her.  I wanted to stomp my feet and throw a tantrum. Was I bitter much?

Often when we are face to face with our bitter roots, we want to talk all about our troubles and how we were wronged with other people. If we are talking about it, we have not truly forgiven.
Like a splash of cold water across the face, I realized, I had not forgiven.

This person still had a hold on my emotions and feelings, for only one reason, I had allowed them to.

To  forgive completely, you keep no account of wrong doings. You let them go as far as the east is from the west. You no longer hold the individuals accountable for what they had done, but pardon them instead. It is a very difficult concept to grasp when you are full of pain and hurt. It is extremely difficult in our flesh, when you have every right to be angry.

This is especially hard when individuals take no  responsibility for the way they had hurt you. And I use this past friendship as an example, but I have been injured by far greater offenses that I am leaving untouched at this time.

How do you forgive, when someone would continue to hurt you the same way given the chance? How do you forgive when you know that they have no intentions of changing, or admitting their wrong. Or how do you forgive when they ask you, but have no right to ask, for their acts were far to hurtful to deserve forgiveness.

The truth is, you forgive out of love. You forgive out of obedience. You forgive with the help of the Father, when you just can’t do it on your own. It says, He is only able to forgive us, as much as we are willing to forgive others. I will not allow someone who hurt me once, to keep me from forgiveness of the Lord. I will not allow them to consume my thoughts and steal my peace, because I want to hold on to wrong doings.

How do you forgive? You let go. You truly release the pain, the anger, the wrong doings and say, I forgive them. I am choosing to wipe it from my memory. I am choosing to walk in love which is kind, long-suffering and keeping no records of wrongs. And for my most bravest of days, I pray for them.

The moment I truly forgave, was freeing for me. When I am tempted to pick it back up, I remind the offense that I let go and will not hold on to it.

Bitterness is not only spiritually strangling, but wreaks havoc on the physical body as well. I want no part of those nasty roots and will pluck them out one by one….. with the Lord’s help.

** This is the next topic for ladies’ group … A Sister’s Pursuit of Joy. I will be conducting a study on what the scriptures state about forgiveness. We will be sharing our hearts and praying for one another to let go of the roots of bitterness.

Me a murderer?

So the last blog I mentioned having joy and joy that may be FULL.
So here is that scripture I referred to.

John 15:10-11

10.If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.  11. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

Do you notice the words ‘if you keep my commandments’? I can honestly say that in my heart of the deepest depression, I thought I was keeping the commandments of the Lord. But during self-examination I saw first hand where I was not. As I completely rooted out disobedience in my life in one area, I would then have to root out another area.

It is very clear that obedience to the Lord leads to life to the full!

So let’s look at the commandment…. Thou shalt not kill.
This is a big one, what many would consider the biggest, even though not one sin is bigger than another. But you know what, I dealt with this one!

I would say to myself. I have not killed anyone! But is it not true that God looks at the condition of the heart? In my heart was I a murderer? To put it simply, yes I was.

I was so angry and hurt by an individual that was in our life for a season, I would have murdered them if it was not a sin, if I could get away with it, and the majority of the world would completely understand how I could, and may even justify such a thing for me.

Now I was walking around blindly thinking that I was not a murderer, yet in my heart the same darkness was there. Yes I could not ever act on it, but that desire drove me farther away from joy.

I had to recognize it for what it was; rebellion, hatred, bitterness, anger, unforgiveness and despair.

It does not matter the heinous act this individual had committed against our family. I could not focus on what I felt they deserved. I had to let it go.

How did I do this? Well, it was two-fold. One, I had to imagine this individual as a little child facing the same kind of terror that formed them into what they had become in adulthood. I had to recognize that they were empty, without a relationship with the Lord.

Two, I had to recognize that God loves ALL. And even though He loves all, ALL have sinned. This individual continuing in their life of sin, I know the word says vengeance is mine saith the Lord. I had to recognize that God was in control of this individual. He would be held accountable for his actions. I did not have to ‘do’ anything. I did not have to hold on to anything. I could let it go and it was okay, actually healthy to do so.

Be aware my friends there may be times in your life that you think you are blameless in a certain obedience to the Lord, but the very root of it is still there, zapping the joy from you.

Let’s look at some of the commandments to obey…

Love the Lord with all your heart.

Seek first the kingdom of God.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

How about the 10 commandments ???

I am not bringing these things to attention to condemn. But to make us more aware. To open our eyes to areas that we may have strongholds holding us back from fullness of joy. And to be very real with you, that I am human, I have struggled, I have hated…and I have repented and turned away from that grief and heartache. The Joy has returned. This was the start but each day there was another lesson in the journey 🙂

Go to the right source

Often when my boys were young, they would cry and get angry because their brother(s) had picked on them or offended them.

They would let that anger brew and fester until there was a full on war going on in their young hearts. They very rarely looked at the option of going to mom and dad.

With mom and dad they could have brain stormed, had their voice heard, or just gotten a good hug and perspective.

As I go through my own attacks in life I see exactly where my boys had gotten their brooding, tantrum throwing nature. Sadly, my first flesh reaction can be to throw a big ol’ fit!

During life’s frustrations my gut reaction may be to scream, kick and stomp and pull out my hair. But upon reflection, this does not accomplish anything productive just makes me bald.

I need to remember to stop and turn to the right source. Yes my friends will sympathise and possibly have some great wisdom. But I can not neglect turning to my heavenly father. The one that will give me the hug and lend an ear, and if I let Him, He will whisper into mine and let me know where to go next.

Forgiveness is usually that very first step He leads me in. But no matter what I can take a breath and know… He has me and all is good!

Challenge this day my friend, step back and consider going to the Father with those things that are brooding in your heart. Let go of that tantrum throwing nature and allow peace, and joy to bubble forth.