To be content in all situations…is that possible?

Tomorrow is my last radiation treatment.  Just typing it on this computer makes tears stream down my face.  Good thing I can type without looking.  Rejoice with me, I beg you!  For the Lord is perfect in His faithfulness.

I was supposed to experience chronic fatigue from these 7 weeks of radiation treatments.  After all, I’ve had the radiation equivalent of 1,168 typical chest X-rays.  But that never happened, and I have been telling anyone who will listen that I am covered in prayer and hedged in by God! 

Tomorrow night, Vern will remove the tape off of my 7 marks.  I’m sure that the big fat blue marker lines (still smiling with that phrase) that the tape protected will take a few weeks to come off completely, but tomorrow is sure to be an emotional day.  I am getting my body back. 

But I have been thinking, what I am I getting it back for?  Will I return to the way I was?  I don’t want to forget where I was and where I am now.  For the Lord has done a mighty work in me.  My Creator has set me free from the bondage of fear and I have learned to love Him deeper than I ever thought possible.  Sweet Jesus, may I never forget.

May I never forget the moment and spot on the road that I was driving on when Dr. Wallner called to say it was cancer. May I never forget how my friends and family flooded me with scriptures that I kept in my pockets those many months. May I never forget that day Dr. Klemow told me I would need chemotherapy.  I was so devastated and heart broken.  So fearful and numb. May I never forget jumping on the bed at 1AM after my first steroid dose. May I never forget Nurse Ida in the infusion clinic who could get me in and out in 2 hours flat. May I never forget the kids cutting off my hair because it was falling out anyway. May I never forget to encourage others in their moments of deepest fear and despair.  There have been so many I have met along the way, and I have become seasoned to recognize that fear and despair even behind the masks people wear.   We were never meant to live that way.

I’ve had the privilege last week of teaching a unit on contentment to our 5^th and 6^th graders at church based on Philippians 4:11b-12: “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. ¹² I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.”   In those verses, Paul talks about how he has learned to be content.  But it meant nothing to those kids until we read through 2 Corinthians 11:23-27 where Paul lists all the trials he had been through.  Then, the fact that he had learned to be content actually meant something to them.  I’m sure it meant something more to Paul too after he had been through some stuff. 

Jesus, carefully and tenderly showed me how to not live in fear.  He used the diagnosis of cancer to do it.  You may not think that was very caring or tender, but I am here to tell you it was the most caring and tender thing He has ever done for me.  Because now I live the way He intended—content in the circumstances, trusting Him with my ALL.   May I never forget.