Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!  I sit here tonight keenly aware of what's going on in my home.  My kids are playing and laughing.  My husband has been in the kitchen helping me cook and get some things ready for tomorrow.  I smell food in the crock-pot.  I've called my mother a million times to ask her questions about how to cook this and that, only to hear her and my dad laugh because it's the third or fourth time I've asked exactly how long to boil an egg for potato salad.  (A chef I am not.)  I'm thankful that it won't matter tomorrow if it doesn't taste good!  :)  I talk to my sister several times today and hear my sweet niece calling my name in the background.  I love my family and my friends...all of you.  I am thankful for you and how you each enrich my life.  I am thankful for your prayers, lifting me up countless times this last year through breast cancer.  I am thankful most of all for my salvation and the promise of eternal life in Heaven praising His name!

I have a lot to be thankful for.  This last year has been a very eye-opening year for me.  I was awaiting another surgery to remove the rest of the tumor in my breast and some lymph nodes to see if the cancer had spread.  I was also awaiting results of some gene testing that would determine my next course of action when it came to my surgery and treatment.  At the time I felt like I was in a fog, just trying to get through, and not noticing what was going on around me.  I had already had one surgery, so I knew what was ahead of me, only this time I already knew I had cancer.  My first surgery was only to remove a benign lump...or so we thought.  I had no idea what kind of treatment I was facing or what my future looked like.  But I did know that God was with me and that He had a plan for me.  He was beginning to teach me to take one day at a time and be thankful for what I had in that moment.  It's a hard thing to do, and I am far from being able to always do it.  I try, though. 

There's a song that I was holding on to at that time that said "it didn't come to stay, it came to pass; the Lord will move that mountain if you ask; the trials that we see today, won't last; because it didn't come to stay, it came to pass".  I realized that suffering is for a time - it doesn't stay forever - it will pass.  What God revealed to me the most during that time is that even if it had been my time to go be with the Lord, my suffering didn't go with me, it would have left me - it would've passed.  I like that.  I like knowing that God puts trials and things in our lives in order to strengthen us and grow our faith, but just hold on because it's for a time such as this.  It will pass.  This last year has passed, and it's been the hardest, yet most rewarding year of my life.  God is teaching me that He is in control and that His word says we are to be thankful no matter our circumstances.  We can find joy and peace and comfort in the Lord no matter what comes our way.  I have been profoundly changed through my journey thus far with breast cancer.  I am trying to see God in all things and share Him and His amazing wonder!  If I could've chosen my road last year, I wouldn't have chosen cancer.  But what's odd and what's God is that I am so very thankful for it.  I would not be the same person as I am today.  I would have missed out on some glorious blessings.  I would've missed out on meeting some of you and getting to know you better.  I would've missed God turning my sorrow into joy, and letting me see His creation in a different way.  I would've missed all the little "sticky notes" God gives us that we normally don't catch, such as a rainbow that's brighter than ever, or a sunset that lights up the sky, or the clouds forming themselves into what looks like angel's wings.  If it had not been for cancer, I wouldn't know God like I do today.  So how can I not be thankful?  I wouldn't trade it.  I wouldn't change it. 

So I wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving.  I pray blessings upon each of you, that you may look at your trials with eyes of wonder...eyes of expectancy of what God is about to show you.  I have so much to learn and so many things to work on and improve in my life.  I have so far to go in being what God wants me to be.  But I am so thankful for His grace and mercy and patience.  I thank Him and praise Him for all He's done for me....for giving His life for mine, for giving me my family and friends, for making the sky so wonderfully blue and the sun so extraordinarily bright, and the faces of my children so sweet and precious.  We have a lot to be thankful for; we just need to look around and not miss it.  Happy Thanksgiving to you all.

Love,
Kacey