Dear friends and family,
You know how people tell you not to Google your symptoms or your diagnosis if you have been
having health troubles? The worry is
that you will become overly fearful after reading about all the terrible
illnesses you may have or the worst-case scenarios for a diagnosis you have
recently received. Well I would like to
add one more warning for you—do NOT read about your illness in American Family
Physician magazine!
Now I know that most of you are not living with 1.5
physicians like I am, and you probably don’t come across medical journals when
you flip through your mail. But as I
flipped through my mail, I found the
June issue of American Family Physician with it’s full-color cover featuring
that month’s in-depth article on, you guessed it, ovarian cancer. With a gnawing feeling that I should not read the article, I grabbed a cup of
tea and a couple of cookies and sat down to read the article, start to
finish.
I’ve heard that most of us only remember one key idea when
later reflecting back on a lecture, sermon, or article we’ve read. Here is the line that is stuck in my head
from the ovarian cancer article: “The
five-year survival rate for women with advanced-stage tumors is only 17% to
28%.”
Well, I was diagnosed with advanced-stage tumors 3-1/2 years
ago. And I probably wonder, about twenty
times a day, if I will be in the 72% to 83% who, statistically, will be dead in
another year and a half. What is a
person to do with these grim factoids swirling continually in one’s brain?
Here’s what I did, and what I do, on a daily basis. What I did,
is rip the page with that crummy statistic right out of that journal (and no,
Steve and Daniel had not read that issue of the journal yet), I folded it into
a tiny square, and opened my little container of mustard seeds. I put that tiny paper square into the mustard
seed container, put the lid back on, and set it back on my desk in the kitchen,
where I can look at it every day. And
what I do, when the fearful thoughts
creep in about 20 times a day, is look at that container, or if I’m not home,
remind myself about it, and remember that it takes only faith as small as the
tiny mustard seed to overcome huge obstacles.
Jesus said to His disciples in Matthew 17:20, “Truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you
will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and
nothing will be impossible for you.”
I am not a giant of
the faith. I am no C.S. Lewis or Martin
Luther. But I do have the tiniest
mustard seed of faith that I could be in the 17% to 28% of women who survive
longer than five years, because I belong to God and He is not bound by earthly
medical statistics. If He wants me
around, then around I will be, by a miracle of His Hands. I remind myself too, that He is the Great
Physician and even the wind and the waves, and the cancer cells and the scans,
obey Him. And when the time comes that
He calls me to my Heavenly home, my mustard seed of faith knows it will not be
one second before or after I am meant to be there. So I will continue to redirect my negative,
fearful thoughts, to the little container of mustard seeds with the folded up
piece of paper in it, and rest in the knowledge that I am in the very best of
Hands.
Love,
Gabrielle
P.S. Tomorrow (Monday, August 22nd) are
my PET and CT scans at UW Hospital. They
take place in the morning and then we meet with the doctor at 2:30 PM for the
news. Thank you for your prayers as we
go into that day, that our tiny seeds of faith will feel huge, and that we will
have God’s peace which passes all human understanding. Thank you!
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| Here are my mustard seeds and there is that article, given to God in faith that I will NOT be a statistic! |
