What’s next?
I need to recover from the surgery and regain my strength for the upcoming battle.
Cancer sucks and it’s going to be a long, arduous battle that I have no choice but to fight and win.
But before I can start, there are few things I have to get out of the way. I literally took baby steps that night determined to be released from the hospital as soon as I am able. Those baby steps led to exceeding all the recovery checkpoints and I was branded an “over achiever.” I was determined and I have a mission.
So ensued, questions to asks and sometimes with little or no answers, big decisions to make that it’ll either make or break me, if I let it.
But I won’t, so no self-defeating questions were asked.
God's Plans...
I’ve always thought that I’m just one of the many; that my purpose in life the way God has planned for me was just to follow the many and that I don’t have a story to tell.
Little did I know, it’s a story that’s been over 61 years in the making.
I was a rebellious Catholic questioning who wrote the Bible, who made the rules that they follow and why do I need to follow them when I see hypocrisy from those following them.
I sought other religions, cultivated other beliefs and hardly attended Mass for over 20 years.
I still prayed, because I still believe that there is a higher power, a divine guidance far more powerful than anything in this world.
As life takes me through the ups and downs, I finally realized I can’t do it alone.
I needed help to really believe and place my trust in God.
I needed to go “home.” I can no longer be a prodigal child.
A longtime friend invited me to a 3-day retreat. I’ve halfheartedly agreed and having been to so many self-help retreats, I was not convinced that it would make a difference in my life.
You see, in my younger days, I would attend seminars full of enthusiasm at the beginning, promises myself that I'll go all the way through, and then fizzles out in the middle of it.
But I was wrong, so wrong that the first time in my life, I felt such peace and if I was destined to die that day, I was ready. This peace given to me is the peace that the world cannot give or understand. The peace that only Jesus Christ can give. A seed was sown that I needed to nurture. It strengthened my faith and my belief. I was finally welcomed “home”.
Two years ago, as faith wavers because life happens, I accidentally came upon a radio station playing Christian music. This was something I needed at the time because of the heartbreak I was going through but little did I know, it was preparing my spirituality for a greater test of faith. Ever since I started listening to K-Love radio station, I never changed or listened to any other. It encouraged me, it gave me hope and it’s where God would 'speak" to me through the lyrics and the messages conveyed in these songs. I don’t think I would have faced this devastating diagnosis if I have not been prepared to receive it all these years.