I Believe Love Heals
I don’t know if it was strictly hope, or a combination of hope and determination—or just blind faith—or blind panic… or perhaps all of the above…that got me through chemo last time and convinced me I would never have to do it again.
In fact I said unequivocally, I’d never do it again.
Because honestly, if God loves me, then surely I couldn’t be expected to do such a difficult thing more than once, right?
Isn’t there some kind of God badge that says, “been there, done that, got the T-shirt”?
Well, truthfully… I’ve never believed God has anything to do with me getting cancer, and I’m grateful—oh-so-grateful for that. Because to assign God to something as horrible as cancer, well… I just don’t know how I would be able to hold onto my faith.
I am a lucky believer. I’ve always known it. Somehow, from the moment of my birth—or perhaps it happened in the womb—my heart has always known God as LOVE.
Only LOVE.
Oh, how grateful I am that I never struggle with God as any kind of “bad guy” or “trickster” or “tester” or “judgmental” or “wrathful”.
I have only ever known God as LOVE.
I credit my parents, who held devotions every night, reading the stories from a family devotions book that made the stories in the Bible come alive until those characters were so real to me, they talked to me in my head. I suppose that’s the advantage of a creative type *sheepish grin* … we just make things up.
Which leads me to my next point.
We all make things up. It’s called “context”.
When we don’t quite hear what someone has said to us, we might ask, “what?” but as often, we just fill in the blanks with what we think we heard.
We do this when we read.
We do this when we watch something on TV, computer screen, iPad, etc.
We are all storytellers—interpreters. We all have a script about ourselves, about our relationships, about the incident at work, or the neighbor’s dog…
Or, we embrace the stories of others, if theirs works better for us.
And I was oh-so-lucky because in 7th grade, my catechism teacher stood in front of us and said, “God is never responsible for anything bad.” He went on to make it as simple as simple can be. He said, “Bad exists in this world because of our choices, and the consequences of those choices. We are responsible for the choices we make. Every choice we make sets in motion a chain reaction. That’s what consequences are. Some choices have greater consequences. It isn’t God saying, ‘you did bad’ — it is simply the result of our choices.”
To be clear, he wasn’t saying we’re bad people. He was saying sometimes we make bad choices and those choices—like any choice, create consequences.
Now, pastors are not infallible, right? Yet… to me, that was such a simple, clear statement about the goodness of God, it resonated and I adopted it as my core belief.
So I never heard all the “sin” messages (I was raised Lutheran—Lutherans are big on sin). Or the “retribution” message. Or the “hell and damnation” message. They just didn’t stick.
How lucky was I!
I was never made to feel that I was small, or wicked.
All I ever felt, was loved.
There are those who believe that as infants and young children, we are able to see and hear divine energies. I was one of those children. I remember seeing and feeling light just over my head, and believing that I was a character in a book that some giant mama in the sky was reading to her children. In my imagination, I was an actor on a stage, acting out the stories this giant mama was reading.
I loved it. Everything was a stage.
It did blur the line between reality and fantasy but then, many scientists today will say that line has always been blurred, we are only just beginning to recognize this, and that what is real to some (perception) is not real to others.
It explains why we are so diverse in our beliefs, opinions, likes, dislikes, etc.
Yesterday I was having a hard day.
Some days it’s difficult to wake up and know my amazing body—the body that has taken me safely to this point in my life—is creating confused cells (or energy) as a result of a triggered gene mutation—to know that the genetic code in my body said at age X this body will start producing confused energy resulting in an ovarian cancer diagnosis.
And that it would mean I would have to return to chemo a second time.
I cannot find the words to describe what it’s taken for me to submit to chemo a second time. To have a port put into my body again. To feel nausea at the very thought of sitting in one of those rooms, smelling all the putrid smells of saline and heparin, and the horrid taste in the back of my throat as the nurses flush my port. To feel as though my energy is moving outside my body, barely tethered by a thin string to my body as “the cleanse” drips into my bloodstream. To hardly be able to move from the exhaustion and the nausea.
And to know this will drag out into the fall.
We humans, we’re kind of funny. When something bad is presented to us, we go into a sort of mental check—almost like a computer—looking for the fault. Where is the fault? Because if we find the fault, we can make the bad, right (and have the added benefit of being able to blame someone or something else, right?).
But what do you do when there is NO ONE to blame. No fault to find—as is the case with my body producing confused energy.
Lying in bed trying to think of a reason to get up, I was visited by one of the divine energies I commune with often. That energy reminded me that looking for what’s wrong to make something right, in some cases (even many cases) is not very effective.
Looking for what’s RIGHT and doing more of that, often works better.
Well, that made me grumble a bit—I don’t like it much when there isn’t just some easy finger-pointing to be done. Looking for right (or good) puts all the responsibility back on me.
And honestly, some days I can’t find anything good about my life, because the knowledge that I’m producing CONFUSED CELLS just take over my thoughts and emotions and jumbles them up until I’m in tears and feeling oh-so-sorry for myself.
But this lovely divine energy reminded me of something I’d forgotten.
It reminded me of color.
Brilliant golden-white color.
And then I remembered the light I used to see when I was a young child was golden white. It would surround me—swath me in enthralling warmth and joy. I could actually feel what the color golden white felt like—I could taste it—hear the resplendent music of it.
The energy said, “That light is Jesus.
Everything in me stilled as I thought about what I’d just heard. As a child, I had seen the light of Jesus.
“Jesus, and so many others. Buddha, archangel Chamuel, the healing energy Leigh, to name just a few. And now that light is in you, too,” the energy said.
That’s when I felt my mama’s soul energy brush my left arm—it’s her way of hugging me. Moments later, I felt a light brush against my forehead and recognized it as my healing energy “Hope” – she brushes my forehead every so often to remind me of the infinite power of HOPE. Where there is hope, there is the ability to carry on.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
So… I was 4 days in the hospital. The doctors found me to be quite the mysterious challenge (I do so love to be entertaining :).
In the end, they found a small pocket near, but not in, the lower intestine which they believe is not cancer, but is an infection. I was given antibiotics via IV, had a private room that was both quiet and pleasant, and I can’t say enough good things about the care I received.
Five doctors attended to me. The intestine specialist (surgeon), his resident, a clinician, and two oncologists. Each one treated me with kindness, dignity and great care. I felt safe and calm during my entire stay, and I believe that’s because they made it so easy, despite the fact that I was quite the mystery patient.
The infection has derailed “the cleanse”. I’ve been taking two kinds of antibiotics by mouth since I’ve been home and you know what’s coming next. Yep…they make me so incredibly sick…
A CT scan is scheduled for next Tuesday to see if the infection pocket remains.
The cleanse has been rescheduled to start up again next Thursday, pending the CT scan and reasonable resolution of the infection pocket.
So, that's the update. When I’m a little more light-hearted, I’ll try to tell the story about “Room#12” …
May the blessing of good health and soft breezes be with you. And may you know the joy and warmth of golden white light.
Love,
~Wind
In fact I said unequivocally, I’d never do it again.
Because honestly, if God loves me, then surely I couldn’t be expected to do such a difficult thing more than once, right?
Isn’t there some kind of God badge that says, “been there, done that, got the T-shirt”?
Well, truthfully… I’ve never believed God has anything to do with me getting cancer, and I’m grateful—oh-so-grateful for that. Because to assign God to something as horrible as cancer, well… I just don’t know how I would be able to hold onto my faith.
I am a lucky believer. I’ve always known it. Somehow, from the moment of my birth—or perhaps it happened in the womb—my heart has always known God as LOVE.
Only LOVE.
Oh, how grateful I am that I never struggle with God as any kind of “bad guy” or “trickster” or “tester” or “judgmental” or “wrathful”.
I have only ever known God as LOVE.
I credit my parents, who held devotions every night, reading the stories from a family devotions book that made the stories in the Bible come alive until those characters were so real to me, they talked to me in my head. I suppose that’s the advantage of a creative type *sheepish grin* … we just make things up.
Which leads me to my next point.
We all make things up. It’s called “context”.
When we don’t quite hear what someone has said to us, we might ask, “what?” but as often, we just fill in the blanks with what we think we heard.
We do this when we read.
We do this when we watch something on TV, computer screen, iPad, etc.
We are all storytellers—interpreters. We all have a script about ourselves, about our relationships, about the incident at work, or the neighbor’s dog…
Or, we embrace the stories of others, if theirs works better for us.
And I was oh-so-lucky because in 7th grade, my catechism teacher stood in front of us and said, “God is never responsible for anything bad.” He went on to make it as simple as simple can be. He said, “Bad exists in this world because of our choices, and the consequences of those choices. We are responsible for the choices we make. Every choice we make sets in motion a chain reaction. That’s what consequences are. Some choices have greater consequences. It isn’t God saying, ‘you did bad’ — it is simply the result of our choices.”
To be clear, he wasn’t saying we’re bad people. He was saying sometimes we make bad choices and those choices—like any choice, create consequences.
Now, pastors are not infallible, right? Yet… to me, that was such a simple, clear statement about the goodness of God, it resonated and I adopted it as my core belief.
So I never heard all the “sin” messages (I was raised Lutheran—Lutherans are big on sin). Or the “retribution” message. Or the “hell and damnation” message. They just didn’t stick.
How lucky was I!
I was never made to feel that I was small, or wicked.
All I ever felt, was loved.
There are those who believe that as infants and young children, we are able to see and hear divine energies. I was one of those children. I remember seeing and feeling light just over my head, and believing that I was a character in a book that some giant mama in the sky was reading to her children. In my imagination, I was an actor on a stage, acting out the stories this giant mama was reading.
I loved it. Everything was a stage.
It did blur the line between reality and fantasy but then, many scientists today will say that line has always been blurred, we are only just beginning to recognize this, and that what is real to some (perception) is not real to others.
It explains why we are so diverse in our beliefs, opinions, likes, dislikes, etc.
Yesterday I was having a hard day.
Some days it’s difficult to wake up and know my amazing body—the body that has taken me safely to this point in my life—is creating confused cells (or energy) as a result of a triggered gene mutation—to know that the genetic code in my body said at age X this body will start producing confused energy resulting in an ovarian cancer diagnosis.
And that it would mean I would have to return to chemo a second time.
I cannot find the words to describe what it’s taken for me to submit to chemo a second time. To have a port put into my body again. To feel nausea at the very thought of sitting in one of those rooms, smelling all the putrid smells of saline and heparin, and the horrid taste in the back of my throat as the nurses flush my port. To feel as though my energy is moving outside my body, barely tethered by a thin string to my body as “the cleanse” drips into my bloodstream. To hardly be able to move from the exhaustion and the nausea.
And to know this will drag out into the fall.
We humans, we’re kind of funny. When something bad is presented to us, we go into a sort of mental check—almost like a computer—looking for the fault. Where is the fault? Because if we find the fault, we can make the bad, right (and have the added benefit of being able to blame someone or something else, right?).
But what do you do when there is NO ONE to blame. No fault to find—as is the case with my body producing confused energy.
Lying in bed trying to think of a reason to get up, I was visited by one of the divine energies I commune with often. That energy reminded me that looking for what’s wrong to make something right, in some cases (even many cases) is not very effective.
Looking for what’s RIGHT and doing more of that, often works better.
Well, that made me grumble a bit—I don’t like it much when there isn’t just some easy finger-pointing to be done. Looking for right (or good) puts all the responsibility back on me.
And honestly, some days I can’t find anything good about my life, because the knowledge that I’m producing CONFUSED CELLS just take over my thoughts and emotions and jumbles them up until I’m in tears and feeling oh-so-sorry for myself.
But this lovely divine energy reminded me of something I’d forgotten.
It reminded me of color.
Brilliant golden-white color.
And then I remembered the light I used to see when I was a young child was golden white. It would surround me—swath me in enthralling warmth and joy. I could actually feel what the color golden white felt like—I could taste it—hear the resplendent music of it.
The energy said, “That light is Jesus.
Everything in me stilled as I thought about what I’d just heard. As a child, I had seen the light of Jesus.
“Jesus, and so many others. Buddha, archangel Chamuel, the healing energy Leigh, to name just a few. And now that light is in you, too,” the energy said.
That’s when I felt my mama’s soul energy brush my left arm—it’s her way of hugging me. Moments later, I felt a light brush against my forehead and recognized it as my healing energy “Hope” – she brushes my forehead every so often to remind me of the infinite power of HOPE. Where there is hope, there is the ability to carry on.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
So… I was 4 days in the hospital. The doctors found me to be quite the mysterious challenge (I do so love to be entertaining :).
In the end, they found a small pocket near, but not in, the lower intestine which they believe is not cancer, but is an infection. I was given antibiotics via IV, had a private room that was both quiet and pleasant, and I can’t say enough good things about the care I received.
Five doctors attended to me. The intestine specialist (surgeon), his resident, a clinician, and two oncologists. Each one treated me with kindness, dignity and great care. I felt safe and calm during my entire stay, and I believe that’s because they made it so easy, despite the fact that I was quite the mystery patient.
The infection has derailed “the cleanse”. I’ve been taking two kinds of antibiotics by mouth since I’ve been home and you know what’s coming next. Yep…they make me so incredibly sick…
A CT scan is scheduled for next Tuesday to see if the infection pocket remains.
The cleanse has been rescheduled to start up again next Thursday, pending the CT scan and reasonable resolution of the infection pocket.
So, that's the update. When I’m a little more light-hearted, I’ll try to tell the story about “Room#12” …
May the blessing of good health and soft breezes be with you. And may you know the joy and warmth of golden white light.
Love,
~Wind
