April 26, 2024

There have been a lot of dates and steps in the last year regarding this journey. First mammo, repeat mammo, biopsy, tests, Dr. appts, surgeries...MORE surgeries, follow up appts, MORE tests. WHEW!  But the "Anniversary" for me of all this is today...April 26th, 2024. One year ago today I was diagnosed with Stage 0 DCSIS Breast Cancer. 

One year later I read my post from Apr 26 2023...It brought back memories, seemed like SO long ago yet just the other day at the same time, and I actually smiled to myself a little bit reading those initial predictions at that appointment of how things were going to go. There were curve balls over those next few months, so it was interesting "Looking Back" to see what I wrote and how I felt NOW that I'm on the other side of it and saw the whole thing play out. Surreal. 

I said at that time, I didn't want 2023 to be the "worst year of my life" or wish it away because of cancer, because things were hard.  I wanted to stay focused on my LIFE ... all the pieces of it and not let cancer define me. 

As I write this one year later, I can say I DID THAT! 2023 was FULL and busy and amazing and yes, hard at times...but when I look back now, I can honestly say that the vast majority of my year was GOOD and had nothing to do with cancer.  Even those 3-4 months from diagnosis to surgery...I really feel that I was peaceful, calm, optimistic and just kept on living my life more days than not...ball park it? 80% of the time! Why? MY FAITH! 

My friend Michele who leads our Women's Ministry at Pekin First Naz put on a Women's Conference with the help of many great ladies earlier this month...and she asked me to give my testimony and talk about my journey through cancer and how my faith sustained me. 

Preparing for that made me think back. (I thought about reading these journal entries then, but I didn't want to. I'd only written each one...never went back and read them and DIDN'T want to until it had been a full year and I could reflect.)  And as I thought back, on the other side, I could SEE the journey. I remembered, some things had faded, but a consistent thread and central guide was very apparent to me. That my faith in God, my relationship with Him that I've had all my life but only really wanted to develop in the last 12 years was SO SO SO key to me holding strong through my "storm".  I don't know how I would've coped, managed, lived my life WITHOUT my faith.

I ended my testimony talk with the lyrics to my "anthem" through the last year. I'd REALLY recommend searching Firm Foundation by Maverick City on iTunes and giving it a listen :)

Rains came,

Winds blew,

My house was built on you,

I'm safe with you,

I'm gonna make it through

Christ is my firm foundation,

The rock on which I stand,

When everything around me is shaken,

I've never been more glad,

That I put my faith in Jesus,

He's never let me down,

He's faithful through generations,

So why would he fail now?

He won't!

And he didn't...and he never will ❤️