One year later

You know me, always remember anniversaries of events.  Sometimes it can be a good thing and sometimes it can be a very difficult thing.
Life is not a fairy tail.  Oh in my dream land or perfect world it is.  But if we are all honest, it's not.  As I think over the last week, it's been a tough one.  The transition of not only Isaac going back to school and getting in the routine but now adding Noah to the mix has been difficult.  Wait, who am I kidding it has been hard.  It has been a struggle for all of us for a variety of reasons.  I think we have all shed some tears over the past week.  My baby is growing up.  He's not a baby anymore.  I think the hardest thing has been that Noah is polar opposite than Isaac.  We've known this since about 5 minutes after his birth.  They are completely and totally opposite in every way.  Noah loves school, but unfortunately Noah got his Momma's worry wort tendencies.  It's amazing how I see all my flaws in my children and it really bothers me.  Seeing this tendency in Noah, I just want to save him the pain of worrying about every situation that might arise.  It's been a rough week.
But, I look back at this time last year. This week is not even a comparison to last year.  Last year, Noah has stitches, Isaac started school, I left work for 6 weeks and was on the way to have major surgery.  Talk about lots of events in the matter of a few days.   One year ago about right now we were headed to Vanderbilt facing a huge surgery that we most likely knew would end in a cancer diagnosis.  I remember laying out all of the "what if" plans with Bill and giving him specific directions for every possible scenario. Password, account numbers and everything.  I remember saying as they wheeled me into surgery, here's another password.  I am crazy.  Now there is no doubt where Noah gets it ;-)
A year ago, I was so unsure of what the future held.  So unsure of what would happen next.  However, I was filled with peace.  Only a peace that God could give.  When I lost my Dad, his college friend Ross told me that God gives you a peace in times of distress that you don't really understand while you are going through it.  This was true when my Dad passed away and again last summer. For 6 long weeks last summer that is how I felt.  There were days of fear and concern and disbelief.  In the end in knew God had it under control.  Looking back now, it was a difficult time, emotionally, physically, spiritually and in every other way possible.  It was just hard.  But out of that difficult time I truly believe God had bigger plans.  Do I know all of those plans?  No, not at all.  I do believe one of His plans was for me to rest.  Resting is extremely hard for me.  I think that's one of the factors of why I am so tired all the time.  God taught me a lot through that time of resting and making it almost impossible, for a short time, to do anything other than walk down the stairs.  He taught me it's okay to rest and okay to let the house be messy and the laundry go undone.  Now of course there are time I take advantage of this part of the resting.  I think the biggest thing He taught me was how much of a control freak I really am.  Normally if things aren't done the way I want them to be done I just do it myself.  It's easier that way.  If I do it myself it's done right.  I had no other choice than to realize I had to let other people do thing for me.  This is still a daily struggle.  I don't like to depend on other people.  Not because I've been hurt or scared in a tragic event, I just like to do it myself.  This also bleeds into my relationship with Christ.  Because I like to do it myself and show I am capable, instead of turning to Him in the beginning, I turn to Him when I have exhausted all my options and have nowhere else to turn.
To wrap up my rambling thoughts, yes this story in my life had a happy ending.  Going through this experience was difficult, but I had great news in the end.  No cancer.  Unfortunately I have friends who were going through similar experiences at the same time and they did not have the happy ending that I did.  Day in and day out they are dealing with the reality that they are in their mid 30's and have cancer or another illness that will affect them in some way every day.  Hopefully this can be an encouragement that even though this story in my life had a happy ending, not all of them do.  I am not sure that anyway can truly say every story in their life has a happy ending.  Life is hard.  Life is really hard at times. God will give you more than you can handle.  Why?  Because He wants to be handle it for you and so that we can give Him the glory even when it's not a happy ending.