Tag: cancer story

Notebook Praises Plus (a bit of) My Cancer Story

“Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say, rejoice! Let your gentleness be known to all men,” (people). “The Lord is at hand” Philippians 4:4,5.

tonirypkema.com

Today.

Yesterday.

Moving forward.

I can take joy in the Lord. I can’t always have joy in my circumstances, the weather, my location, or my past, but I can always take joy in the Lord.

He alone is good.

He’s holy. Perfect in all His ways. He’s the lover of our souls. Patient, gracious, slow to anger, kind. The Lord God Almighty.

He’s completely trustworthy, yet at times, hard for me to trust. If it wasn’t for His Word, my thoughts would believe He’s the opposite of all He is.

He allows great trial, confusion, pain.

Do I believe Him when everything falls apart?

His Word tells me He knows my name. Do I believe this in the moments when I can barely remember my own?

He hears the worries I have, my cries, my tears.

But doubt sometimes floods my being to bring me down as a sickness.

My faith fails, (past, present, and future), yet God remains faithful and true. No matter what.

“You’ve got cancer.”

My diagnosis, not someone else. This was trial number three, not one.

I lost faith, became afraid, yet in the fight, my sister told me, “Toni, the people who keep faith do best.”

Where else could I go? I looked to the Lord.

He helped me through my failures and gave me the strength to trust Him, (one day at a time) with eleven healthy, full-term births, and four miscarriages along the way.

The Lord upheld my marriage, year after year for better, worse, sickness, health, richer, and poorer.

The trials opened my eyes to the presence of the Lord, His keeping power and grace. Only one set of footprints could be found in the sand. Jesus carried me with compassion, grace, and love that bore all my “stuff.”

He brought “prayer warriors,” from all over the map. Food, gifts for the kids, desserts, cards, phone calls . . . the Lord was a present help. He was with me. He brought family, friends, songs, hymns, His Word.

I put all my eggs in one basket. The Jesus basket.

Cancer opened my eyes to many failures and sicknesses in my heart. When we pray prayers like, “Search me, God, and know my heart;
    test me and know my anxious thoughts.
 See if there is any offensive way in me,
    and lead me in the way everlasting,” you better believe, God will answer. (Psalm 139:23,24).

Cancer gave me more than it took away, it gave me an increased faith in the true and living God.

After my third chemo treatment, I came home feeling very sick. The sickness was to begin in a day and a half, not an hour and a half. The kids were spending time with a neighbor.

Laying down on the couch, eyes closed, I felt death in my bone marrow.

My body was rocked hard with the chemo. It wasn’t used to anything meds, ever. Not even for childbirth! But, fighting cancer, . . . I did the chemo.

Did they give me too much Adriamycin?

Shouldn’t I be seeing lights? It’s so dark. I thought I was going to die. Darkness was there, but then . . .

I had a vision. (I know you’ll think I’m crazy,) but a door opened in the darkness and light came through.

Two, healed, but nail-pierced hands stretched out of the open door. Then words (which I had read thousands of times from my favorite children’s book by Glen Keane), came to mind:

“Not all know Me as their King.”

That was it.

This was huge!

I had the assurance I was to live. But even more.

The Lord enlisted me in His army. He gave me work to do.

Weeks later, when I was strong enough to return to church, a guest Missionary pastor highlighted on the screen a verse from Philippians 1:25,26.

“And being confident of this, I know that I shall remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy of faith, that your rejoicing for me may be more abundant in Jesus Christ . . . “

Again, the Lord was speaking, “Toni, you’re going to make it through this horrible sickness and multiple trials, but you will now share joy and faith in My name with others.”

Yes, “Rejoice in the Lord, and again I will say, rejoice!”

I will never be ashamed to share the Good News of the One who has saved my life for salvation and every continuing day on this thorny earth.

While I have my being, I’m living for Jesus. He’s the only One Who truly, completely, perfectly Loves. (Period).

Jesus loves me, you, every human being on this planet. We all need Him.

This is not a religion. This is life, hope, peace, and love. This is what the world needs . . .

Do you know Jesus as your King? Perhaps the time is now.

The Polar Express? Believe? Yes, just like that.

We live in a fallen world.
But we’re not left orphans on this earth. But there are times when we feel like we are.

Jesus said, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you” John 14:18.

Perhaps, there was a young day, when the soil of the heart was soft and receiving, and the journey was abundant with blessing and joy, but

what happens through the the course of time when the clay soil overtakes the soft top ground, the cold scorches the life from the leaves, the wind of trouble choke joy all around.

Because of circumstances, temptations of doubt and fear blow in like a harsh blizzard. Hearts, grown dark and cold, think of Jesus, the Light of the world, that He’s some distance away, somewhere.

We think a-miss. We trust our feelings and heart. Then we separate from the Word, and begin to trust elsewhere.

And we look around, and the name of God’s Son, Jesus,  is taken from every place.  It’s not in the schools, in the towns, or the books children are allowed to read. It’s used as a curse, even on TV.

“Who’s Jesus? Why should I care what He says?”

The winter is long, hard, and cold, and we ask, “What’s happened to this place?”

Quite honestly, I have failed God often through unbelief, and lack of faith. And, there are people in my life who have witnessed failure at times in walking the faith I claim to have.

But there is not one day, that, even though I didn’t have a hold on God, He had a hold on me.

Yes, I believe!

There was a day, that I have written about before, when I thought I was going to die. But I didn’t. I was sick, outwardly afraid, and weak. I’m reminded of it often, but, again today because of a verse I read this morning:

“After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this” Revelation 1:4.

My eyes were closed, and I saw a door open. Out of all the things I could have possibly see, I saw the two scarred, but healed, hands of Jesus presented palms up before me. And the impression of the words from a favorite child’s book, “Not all know Me as their King.”

“Oh, I’ve heard this before,” you might be saying to yourself. Yes, perhaps, but today, I’m reminded of a question I was asked from Sunday’s message from church,

“What is living, to you?”

Quite honestly, through all that God has allowed for me to be part of, great treasure and riches in family and friends, great gifts, and joys, as well as deep, and excruciating loss and sadness, I would like to answer the pastor,

“to live is Christ.”

Yes, as in the Book of Philippians,  “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” Philippians 1:21. 

I feel the light enter my heart at the very proclamation.

He knows every little thing about us. Even before we were born, the Bible says God knew:

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart;” Jeremiah 1:5.

Do I believe God? Yes, the choice is mine.  I choose right now, with each minute of time, to believe God’s Word to illuminate and vitalize my mind.

God knows my name. He knows yours too. He has a plan for each of us. He is Almighty God, and  He is good.

The Bible proclaims that God sees us now. He knew what went on yesterday, and He knows our tomorrow as well:

“You know when I sit and when I rise;
    you perceive my thoughts from afar.
 You discern my going out and my lying down;
    you are familiar with all my ways.
 Before a word is on my tongue
    you, Lord, know it completely” Psalm 139:2-4.

The number of our days is already written in a book: “My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made in the secret place,
    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
    all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.
 How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
    How vast is the sum of them!” Psalm 139:15-17.

Am I living to live long? Is the purpose of my life my family? my job? serving in the church?

What is all this living for anyway? Who am I believing to show me the way?

Do I believe God?

I guess the main issue, when it all comes down to it, is, God is God. Whether we believe Him or not.

I don’t need to worry what this one thinks or that, for that matter, but I must be concerned about God’s heart and thoughts. Do I believe?

He’s like the Polar Express coming at some point in our lives,  and the door opens, and He calls, “All Aboard.”

He gives every single human being a call at some time or another.  I believe every house is visited.

He’s big enough when we don’t believe.
Yes, He is. He let’s us be.

But today, I will proclaim Him, and best I can, receive His great love, which is beyond my understanding. And I pray to the God of the Universe, that He help those who believe to be like little samples of His grace.

Hey, the Express is here,

“Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me” Revelation 3:20.

Let’s choose Jesus, the Christ today. The journey northward to heaven will be directed by the Conductor. He’s got the plan all written down.

 “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne” Revelation 3:21.

Amen. God help our unbelief. We’re taking the big step to forever, with God at the helm.