we never walk alone

I feel like this happens every other blog post.

Something super dramatic happens and I freak out. Then a few days later, thanks to prayer and time and perspective, I calm down and have to write a "Ok, so I know I got you all pretty worried but I'm ok now, promise."

However, I am not apologizing for how I felt regarding the genetic stuff.

It is bad news. It is the last thing I wanted. I am fine getting bad news for me, but don't mess with my kids. Turns out, if you mess with my kids, I cry for days and days and sink into depression. I have cried more this last week than at any other time during this whole crazy ride.

The genetic stuff also affects my parents and siblings. I am the oldest of five kids. Chances are at least one, possibly two, of my siblings will also have CHK2. Stupid gene is messing with my whole family.

I figure we are just ahead of the curve. I figure in twenty years, they will have figured out what genes cause everything and we will all know what genetic flaws we have. I just get to know now. All in all, having a cancer gene isn't the worst possible thing. And knowledge is power. Now that we know this is a concern, we will do all the screening we need to do and hopefully no one will ever get to stage 3 or worse.

All of this calmness and perspective has come after a lot of tears and a lot of soul searching.

The Saturday before we got the results, I sent out a text to all the Young Women leaders telling them I had picked my topic for my lesson that I was going to teach on November 9th. I chose the topic "How can I find solutions to my challenges and problems." In our church, there is a program for girls ages 12-18 called Young Women's. I am a leader of the girls ages 14-15. I LOVE IT!! It is one of my favorite things about my life right now, these girls have brought me so much happiness during this difficult time. Usually I just teach the age group that I am in charge of but every 3 months or so, it is my turn to teach all of the girls. There are 4-6 topics to choose from every month and we get to pick whatever we want.

When I got the news on Monday, everything in my life was put on hold. I was quite literally in a total and complete fog. I had this weight, this sadness, this heartache that was so deep and so profound, it made every day tasks difficult and it felt like even the smallest of chores required immense energy and focus - two things that I severely lacked.

I don't usually wait so long to start preparing my lesson but I finally sat down on Thursday to read the talks that were recommended for the lesson. I had looked over the lesson when I had chosen it, but I had forgotten what the talks were. When I saw the first title, I burst into tears. "We Never Walk Alone" by the President of our church - Thomas S. Monson (https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2013/10/we-never-walk-alone?lang=eng)

"There will be times when you will walk a path strewn with thorns and marked by struggle. There may be times when you feel detached—even isolated—from the Giver of every good gift. You worry that you walk alone. Fear replaces faith." 

When I read those words, I was overcome with emotion. For months, I have been feeling guilty for having a hard time. I wanted to react to all of this in some amazing, inspiring way. I wanted to be patient in my afflictions and full of faith and I found myself - over and over again - failing to live up to these expectations. It's almost like I didn't want to acknowledge that this is hard. Like cancer would be winning if I admitted that some of this sucks. But reading a talk entirely devoted to telling me that it is ok to struggle and it's ok that I have wondered where God has been through all of this and why He is letting this happen - to hear from a prophet of God that I might feel that way, it changed everything.

My dear sisters, your Heavenly Father loves you—each of you. That love never changes. It is not influenced by your appearance, by your possessions, or by the amount of money you have in your bank account. It is not changed by your talents and abilities. It is simply there. It is there for you when you are sad or happy, discouraged or hopeful. God’s love is there for you whether or not you feel you deserve love. It is simply always there.

The next talk was titled "Like a Broken Vessel" by Jeffrey R. Holland (https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2013/10/like-a-broken-vessel?lang=eng.) Well so of course that title made me bawl too. If anyone has ever felt broken, it is me. Broken physically, emotionally, spiritually. The entire talk is about depression. Other than normal teenage angst, I had never experienced depression before I had cancer. There was something about just simply the acknowledgement from a leader in my church, the fact that he was saying there is no shame in feeling sorrowful, it helped so much to lift me out of the darkness that I had sunk into. I think I just needed to hear from faithful, incredible people - I needed them to tell me it was ok to be sad. And ok if I was struggling through a hard, painful trial. That acknowledgment healed my wounded heart.

I woke up on Friday so much better. The heartache and fog was gone and I had clarity. I felt that I had been given a gift and I am so grateful for it. I felt as though the fact that it was my turn to teach, that I had already chosen a topic that I didn't know beforehand would apply to directly to a circumstance that would just rip my heart to shreds and the fact that every word helped heal me - it was an answer to prayer. I am so thankful. This is a very personal experience and I could have just simply written "I am doing better" but I want to write this down to remind myself that my Father loves me. He knows me. He answers prayers.

I was still too emotional and too fragile to actually teach this lesson today. I changed my topic because on Friday, I still didn't see how I could possibly talk about either of these talks without crying. Not crying in sadness but crying from gratitude. I felt really good about changing my topic and truly feel like this all went just like it was supposed to.

So there it is. I am doing much better. I feel like I have an entirely new perspective. I hope it helps me get through my next round of chemo which starts tomorrow. I am really dreading tomorrow. I was super sick. I am not looking forward to feeling that awful. I think that is totally normal and it would be weird if I felt anything different. I'm just gonna try to remember that it is only by moving forward that will get this stuff all behind me and over with. And that will be pretty great.

xoxoxoxoxo