I sure wish life came with a remote control. I would hit the pause button immediately. I would hit the fast forward button and skip right over the next couple of days. Or better yet ~ I would hit the rewind button and go back. But where would I go back to? Before Eric was diagnosed? Before cancer? Back to the day our children were born or to our wedding day? Maybe the day I met Brian, graduated from college or high school. So many huge milestones in life.
There was also suffering involved with these milestones. Before I was able to graduate from high school I had to survive the high school years. I know some people loved school ~ I was not one of them. I dreaded every single day. When I was given my diploma I was not celebrating all my hard work to get to that place. I was celebrating the fact that I never had to return to that school again. I was looking forward to starting a new chapter in life. I was so glad that I could go to college where nobody knew me - a chance to start fresh.
College wasn't exactly what I expected it to be though. I was still "me". Same story, next chapter. I had more life lessons to learn. I did graduate though and this time I was celebrating my accomplishments.
Our wedding day was an amazing day but we had to first travel down the road of planning for this day. There is a lot of joy in planning a wedding but there is also stress. A lot of it! The birth of each of our children was a miraculous moment where nothing else in the world mattered. The physical pain that I endured prior to them entering this world - I don't think there is a word to describe it. It was a physical pain like nothing I had ever experienced.
And then there is the cancer. That word has forever changed our lives. As much as I hate cancer I can't deny the blessings we have received because of it. During the hardest days the words "light and momentary troubles" was a very difficult concept for me to understand.
I guess it is good that I don't have a remote for life. I would skip through all the suffering which would be nice. It would take away from the joy though that we experience after the pain. It would take away the courage that we find after going through a battle. We would not know the true feeling of victory if we didn't first feel the sting of pain.
In Rob Bell's book Velvet Elvis he wrote "Ultimately our gift to the world around us is hope. Not blind hope that pretends everything is fine and refuses to acknowledge how things are. But the kind of hope that comes from staring pain and suffering right in the eyes and refusing to believe that this is all there is. It is what we all need - hope that comes not from going around suffering but from going through it."
During these next couple of days I will stare this pain in the eyes and look right through it to where I find my hope.
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18
I'm going to end this post the same way Brian ended his last one . . . . bring it on Satan ~ bring it!
