New Year-New Me
As we begin this new year, I can’t help but reflect on the previous year. The first half of 2019 held so much hope and promise. I got a promotion and began serving in a role I absolutely love. We welcomed two precious grandbabies. In the summer, Tom and I took a beautiful vacation to celebrate his 50th. It was a blessed time and the future was bright. We never would have dreamed I’d be diagnosed with cancer and that bright future we were looking so forward to would suddenly become a big question mark.
I haven’t blogged in quite a while. Being honest, I’ve not felt terribly inspired. Since diagnosis and surgery, and especially since beginning chemotherapy, my little world has been rocked. My whole being and every aspect of my life has been impacted. I don’t feel well, ever. Sure, I have good days and bad days, but what does “good” really mean now? The good I knew is gone. I’m tired often and fatigue easily. I have nose bleeds. I have developed the most annoying eye twitch. I’m battling awful, almost daily headaches. My joints are swollen and they hurt. The skin on my fingertips is cracking and peeling and they’re very sore. Nothing tastes right. I’m bloated The tissue expanders in my chest feel like rock hard boulders sitting on top of my ribs. Oh, and the skin of my chest around to my back has lost all feeling and is completely numb… Add all of this to a bald head and it certainly isn’t flattering or something to be terribly excited about. I caught a glimpse of myself getting in the shower the other day and just stood in front of the mirror staring, barely recognizing the woman looking back at me. I have changed so much in such a short period of time. I wonder what I’ll be when this is all said and done, and I know I’ll never be, feel or look the same as before. I am being completely transformed. With God’s help, I will love the new me, but right now I am grieving what has been taken away.
This breast cancer is hard stuff. It rips every bit of dignity, modesty and femininity away. It is painful and emotionally crippling at times. I have a very strong faith and truly believe that’s the only reason I can do this with any semblance of grace. I’ve said so many times “I don’t know how people go through this without the Lord.” Even with the promise I have in Christ, I struggle. I cannot imagine how dark and scary this journey must feel for people who don’t know His peace, believe something better awaits and that this messy life we know isn’t all there is. As I’ve thought of the new year and the transformation that is taking place in my body, mind, and spirit, the scripture from 2 Corinthians keeps coming to mind: “Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” I am holding to this verse and trusting that God is transforming me into the creature He designed me to be. That somehow this brutal disease is necessary to get me to where I’m supposed to be. Trusting that the new me that is being created will be far better than the old me ever could have been. It is a humbling and painful process, but I am trusting God with this transformation in 2020 and pray I am fully present so I can grow from the lessons He’s teaching me.
Happy New Year, friends! Here’s to the next 365 days. Here’s to old things gone and all things new. May we walk with the Lord each step of the way. In closing I am sharing a little poem I saw and liked today about the new year (author unknown):
Another year I enter, it’s history unknown; Oh, how my feet would tremble, to tread it’s path alone!
But I have heard a whisper, I know I shall be blessed; “My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest”
What will the new year bring me? I may not, must not know; Will it be love and rapture, or loneliness and woe?
Hush! Hush! I hear His whisper, I surely shall be blessed; “My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest”
