Part 1

I am a gardener at heart. I have a love affair with flowers and so my gardening has always revolved around blooms. I adore flowers whether they are alive, fake or on fabric. You would know that if you have been to my house. Flowers make me happy. What has never made me happy is watering and weeding in the August heat. In the spring, I want to be planting; watering and even weeding are ok at least for a little while. When you are weeding, you cannot just cut a weed down to the ground. You have to pull it up by the roots and throw it where it will not grow back. We have to eradicate those weeds.

Eradicate

Merriam-Webster defines this word as : to do away with as completely as if by pulling up by the roots. 

When I began writing about my cancer, I asked for prayers. The most important one I requested was for God to eradicate this cancer. The word came to me as I was writing. It is not a word I use every day but I knew it was what I needed to pray for exactly. I did not know the word meant to pull up by the roots. That is exactly what God did not just for me but my husband as well. You can read Jeff’s story in part two of this blog. 

When I was diagnosed, I had never heard of Metaplastic cancer. Who the heck comes up with these words? The doctor gave us a word picture of what this cancer involves. When you spill sugar on a countertop, you wipe it away. When you wipe, there is no way to get every granule. There will inevitably be granules left on the counter, behind the cookie jar and on the floor. That is Metaplastic cancer, it will not just stay in the breast, it tends to spread around. The average breast cancer survival rate is 93% at the five year mark and most do not recur after that time. Metaplastic cancer has a survival rate of 65% at the five year mark and survival rate goes down after that. Way down. It usually comes back in the lungs or on the skin. 

I have to tell you these statistics were upsetting. What I remembered though is that I am not in control. I am not God! I remembered God loves me and is good. Oh, so very  good. Whether this cancer was the way He was bringing me to heaven or if He decided to give me a long life that was cancer free, I knew He would be with me and would give me the peace that surpasses all understanding. Jesus promised that to His people. 

Fast forward through 6 months of chemotherapy, during which God blessed me with only a small amount  of side effects. Then a lumpectomy which showed absolutely NO signs of cancer. But that had no bearing on that recurrence rate of 35% plus. That’s when God just decided to show off His control, His authority and His mercy over this world and everything in it. This cancer was meant to bring Him glory. 

My wonderful oncologist saw me after the surgery. Man, he was smiling and doing a happy dance. Rightly so as his treatments did exactly what they were supposed to do, reduce the cancer. He was still floored about my absence of side effects. I told him we had hundreds, truly hundreds, of people praying for me. That it was God and God alone that helped me through chemo. He then told me something that was just incredible. A new study had come out during the middle of my chemotherapy. He decided not to tell his current patients until after their chemo treatments were finished. The new study showed that when patients had Metaplastic cancer, and the chemotherapy worked to get rid of the cancer, as mine had, the recurrence rate is now 7%. 😳what? If chemo worked, at the five year mark, survival rate was now 93% just like most other breast cancers. An almost 30% difference. 

Only God can do that.

If you say, what do you mean only God? The medicine cured you.  I will say all day long, nope, it was God. God uses medication to heal all the time. God often works through medicine to give us victory over depression, anxiety, other mental illnesses, cancer, heart disease, I could go on forever with examples of God’s miracles through medication. 

God took my tumor away.

God took most of my side effects away.

God took away cancer in my lymph nodes.

God then gave me a 93% chance that my cancer would not come back 

God ERADICATED my cancer, just like an unwelcome weed. Pulling it up from the roots, and throwing it away where it would not grow again. God does not follow statistics, He does exactly what He wants to do. However, He will use statistics to give His children peace, hope and a story to show others His GLORY. That is my story to date, God gets all the glory. 

What do you have going on that is beyond hope?

Are you feeling stressed, upset and hopeless?

Remember God is our hope. Not only for our eternal life but for our life right here, right now. Will He always take care of your situation the way you want it to happen? Absolutely not. God said, He would never leave us nor forsake us. That means no matter how your hopeless situation turns out, God will be with you. Jesus never leaves our side. He and the Holy Spirit are constantly putting our prayers in front of the throne. God can do ANYTHING in ANY situation. Never stop praying and never stop hoping in the Lord. God takes on our burdens, making them His own. Try not to take them back!! He is stronger than you can even imagine. 

To God be all the glory!

Love Laura