The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.
Exodus 14:14
I'm not sure why it takes me so long to write. I ask the Lord all the time to give me the words, and I guess sometimes I feel like I need to have something big to write about before I can actually write. What I've come to realize is that the Lord gives me something big every day. Every. Day. He gets me up each morning. He blesses me so abundantly that sometimes there are no words. But today I want to try and find those words. I want to talk about the things that weigh me down and the things that lift me up. I believe that if we continue to focus on the things that lift us up, the things that weigh us down won't seem so heavy.
I need to go back to May of last year. May is the month I have a routine mammogram. Since breast cancer, this day in May is a little stressful. I get the mammogram and then sit in the waiting area and wait for the radiologist to read it. If the doctor sees anything suspicious, I immediately have an ultrasound to check it further. Last May they saw something and I went to ultrasound. Those moments after the ultrasound when you're waiting in the room alone for the nurse to come back and tell you the results are pretty heavy moments. Those are the moments that you relive your entire cancer journey, asking yourself if you think you're strong enough to do it again; wondering, if it's cancer, if it will be worse than the time before. Yes, you pray...actually you beg. You beg God that what the doctor sees is nothing. You beg Him not to make you go down that road again. You beg Him to give you peace and to stop your hands from shaking because you can't seem to stop them on your own. All of these things go through your head in a matter of moments. The nurse is not usually gone for very long, but by the time she returns you've put yourself right back on the same path you thought you just finished. But last May the nurse returned to tell me that everything looked good, it was fine, to come back in six months instead of a year just to make sure. The relief floods all through my body as I begin to thank God for these results. I thank Him and I praise Him.
Fast forward six months to November and that mammogram check was good. I was in and out and there was nothing to worry about. But...a few weeks ago I found a new lump on my own. It was in the same breast where I had breast cancer and it felt exactly like the lump I found the first time. I immediately called my doctor and she set me up for another mammogram and ultrasound. They said it was fine, that it looked like scar tissue, but it didn't feel right to me. I love my doctor because she knows me so well. She knew before I got to her office that even though it looked good on film, it felt like the first round, and she knew I would be looking for peace. She was right. I was looking for peace. But here's the thing - where was I looking to find it? Of course I had prayed. I had asked God to make the lump be nothing and He did, but the lump was still there. Was my peace coming when I had it removed? Should I have peace in the fact that it looked okay? I knew from past experience that things can look good, but actually be cancer. So with much prayer and my doctor's advice, we decided to remove the lump to be safe and to be sure. She removed it and it was, in fact, scar tissue. It was benign. It was nothing. I needn't have worried at all. But I had worried and I had been searching for peace, and I want to talk about the moment I found it.
I am a person that loves to Praise the Lord. I love to Praise Him through music. Sometimes I love to get in my car for a long drive so I can get my praise on! My car is where I do my loudest and best singing because no one else can here me. :) There's a song by the new Gaither Vocal Band called "You Amaze Me". It talks about ways that God is amazing. It talks about how He lights the morning sky each day and how He holds creation in His hands. It talks about how the oceans crash against the sand behind the boundary of His unseen hand. That is so true...the ocean just stops right at the sand because God's hand is there. In the chorus it talks about how God created the world from nothing - a void of darkness - and how He held dust in His hand, gave it breath and called it man. My favorite line in whole song is this, "the angels that stood by His side must have cried, You amaze me". Oh, I get such a visual of a band of angels standing at the side of God watching Him transform this world from darkness into this beautiful place He gives us. I see that He holds the sun and the moon up in the sky every day and every night for us. I could go on and on about all the ways God amazes me, but what amazes me most is His unfailing, unconditional love He has for us. He sent His son to die for us on a cross. He's created a heaven that is so beautiful we cannot fathom it in our minds. He amazes me.
I heard this song the week I knew I was having this lump removed. I kept playing it over and over and finally I knew what God was trying to tell me. As the verse I've shared above says, "The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still." (Exodus 14:14), He does fight for us. I knew He was fighting for me. I needed to be still and wait on Him. Zephaniah 3:17 says, "The LORD your God in your midst, the Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing". Wow! I love this verse! It says so much about our God, the Mighty One! He loves us. He rejoices over us. He quiets us with His love. This was it...this was my answer...this was my peace. I found it. I pulled into my garage that morning after listening to this song and I just knew - I was ready and prepared to take the journey again if the Lord wanted me to. I surrendered. I surrendered because He is fighting for me. He is by my side every moment of every day. I surrendered because I want to be in His will more than I want anything else, and I knew if that were true, I had to be prepared to walk through that cancer journey again if that was His will. I sat there in the car for a while thanking Him for the ways He loves me. I knew that no matter what, whether another journey through cancer or a cancer free diagnosis, God had it under His wings. Psalm 91:4 is a favorite verse of mine and it says, "He will cover you with his feathers, and under His wings you will find refuge; His faithfulness will be your shield and rampart." His faithfulness! He is faithful and His ways are higher than my ways and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that if God chose to send me on another cancer journey He would equip me with what I needed to travel it. And there was my peace. That was the moment I felt His presence and the moment joy flooded through me. I got my peace and my joy back because God is bigger than anything else. He is Jesus Messiah, Name above all Names, Blessed Redeemer, Emmanuel. This surgery was the most peaceful surgery I've had thus far. I knew I was under the wings of God.
I look at all the ways God amazes me every day. I see God in the smiles of my children because He made me their mom, but I see their daddy and their aunt and their grandparents in them at times. That's God. I see God in the love of my husband. I see His hand upon my life in little ways like putting someone in my path to make me smile. I see God in big ways like being able to look at a situation and literally see His hand resting upon it. I see Him in the sunshine and in the birds singing. I see how He changes flowers into snow and back again time after time. There are countless ways every single day that God can amaze us. We need only to be still and look for them.
I hope you know the Lord as your Savior. I don't want you to miss all the bountiful blessings He gives us. I want you to be amazed. I want you to find your peace in knowing that He fights for you because He does. He shines down on us and He loves us and He fights for us. He adores us and His will is perfect. I am thankful and I am grateful for the results I got, that cancer has not returned. I praise Him for this. I rejoice in this news. But I also find myself so very grateful for the way He helped me find my peace. I will follow Him anywhere because He knows best. He's radiant and mighty and quiet and loving and I love Him with all that I am. He amazes me!!
I love you all,
Kacey
I heard this song the week I knew I was having this lump removed. I kept playing it over and over and finally I knew what God was trying to tell me. As the verse I've shared above says, "The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still." (Exodus 14:14), He does fight for us. I knew He was fighting for me. I needed to be still and wait on Him. Zephaniah 3:17 says, "The LORD your God in your midst, the Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing". Wow! I love this verse! It says so much about our God, the Mighty One! He loves us. He rejoices over us. He quiets us with His love. This was it...this was my answer...this was my peace. I found it. I pulled into my garage that morning after listening to this song and I just knew - I was ready and prepared to take the journey again if the Lord wanted me to. I surrendered. I surrendered because He is fighting for me. He is by my side every moment of every day. I surrendered because I want to be in His will more than I want anything else, and I knew if that were true, I had to be prepared to walk through that cancer journey again if that was His will. I sat there in the car for a while thanking Him for the ways He loves me. I knew that no matter what, whether another journey through cancer or a cancer free diagnosis, God had it under His wings. Psalm 91:4 is a favorite verse of mine and it says, "He will cover you with his feathers, and under His wings you will find refuge; His faithfulness will be your shield and rampart." His faithfulness! He is faithful and His ways are higher than my ways and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that if God chose to send me on another cancer journey He would equip me with what I needed to travel it. And there was my peace. That was the moment I felt His presence and the moment joy flooded through me. I got my peace and my joy back because God is bigger than anything else. He is Jesus Messiah, Name above all Names, Blessed Redeemer, Emmanuel. This surgery was the most peaceful surgery I've had thus far. I knew I was under the wings of God.
I look at all the ways God amazes me every day. I see God in the smiles of my children because He made me their mom, but I see their daddy and their aunt and their grandparents in them at times. That's God. I see God in the love of my husband. I see His hand upon my life in little ways like putting someone in my path to make me smile. I see God in big ways like being able to look at a situation and literally see His hand resting upon it. I see Him in the sunshine and in the birds singing. I see how He changes flowers into snow and back again time after time. There are countless ways every single day that God can amaze us. We need only to be still and look for them.
I hope you know the Lord as your Savior. I don't want you to miss all the bountiful blessings He gives us. I want you to be amazed. I want you to find your peace in knowing that He fights for you because He does. He shines down on us and He loves us and He fights for us. He adores us and His will is perfect. I am thankful and I am grateful for the results I got, that cancer has not returned. I praise Him for this. I rejoice in this news. But I also find myself so very grateful for the way He helped me find my peace. I will follow Him anywhere because He knows best. He's radiant and mighty and quiet and loving and I love Him with all that I am. He amazes me!!
I love you all,
Kacey
