Two Down, Four To Go

I wanted to start this post by sharing an awesome text message that we got from our friend Michael.  He said that he was walking past a group of people at church, and he overheard them praying for me.  There are tears rolling down my face now as I think about that text.  I know I have said to so many of you that I can't possibly tell you how much your prayers mean to me, and you may think it is cliche, but I assure you it is not.  With all my heart thank you.  And thank you Erin for an amazing, I say again, amazing dinner tonight.  Please send me the recipes for everything!  And thank you to my sister who came and scrubbed, sterilized, and disinfected my home today.  And thank you mom for coming with me to my treatment, and for all your sweet gifts, and for talking and praying with me.  And thank you Jonni for loving me and our children more than I could possibly fathom...and for shaving my head when we got home today.  Yes, I am officially bald bald now.  It feels great! 

I went in today for my second chemo treatment.  It was not that bad, but it took about all day.  My mom took me to get some cute scarfs at Brookwood mall afterwards, so that was fun.  During my first chemo treatment, I felt at one point really spacey, like I was having an out of body experience, but I just thought it was after effects of the amnesia from when I had surgery to put my port in.  But then again today, I had the same thing, so I asked the nurse about it, and she said that one of the drugs she was giving me to help with nausea and vomiting was small dose of a narcotic!  Crazy!!  She said I didn't have to take that one next time and we could see how I do, so I might not.  I googled it when I got home, and I think it is more to help you mentally not anticipate getting sick, so you don't get sick, rather than it physically helps you not to get sick somehow.  More proof of just how powerful our mind/body connection is huh?  Interesting.

When I was there today, the chemo room was packed, and there was only one seat left, so got to talk to alot of people.  There was a man sitting next to me who has lung cancer, and after we had small-talked a few moments, he pulled a picture out of his pocket and showed it to me.  It was his grand-daughter, and he told me that she was his inspiration.  She was born with cancer, and had tumors in her brain, and they had to remove her left eye.  The doctor's said that she was not supposed to live very long.  She is 16 years old now.  Wow.  But that is not the really good part of the story.  Tears started pouring out of my eyes as he told me that the little girl's cousin, who was 11 at the time of her birth, kept insisting that he must go and pray for her.  So finally they took him up to the hospital, and the let him in to see her briefly, and they all held hands, and he prayed this short prayer: "God, Courtney will live and not die, so she can declare the works that you have done."  (Psalm 118:17)  Yep.  I was balling like a baby.  But how awesome is that?  And she is here today.  And that little boy is my inspiration.  I later overheard the man telling one of the nurses about her and showing off her picture, and the nurse said "You know, young children are just fighters.  It's like they don't know anything but to fight.  They don't give up like grownups sometimes do."  And I thought how profound that statement was.  I wonder if that is part of what God meant when He said for us to have child-like faith.  To live a life where we don't succumb to fear, and anxiety, and worry, and despair, and hopelessness, and defeat, because we have a child-like faith that trusts fully in the Lord.  I'm not saying children are completely innocent, because I know we are all born into sin.  I just don't think their little minds have yet been defiled and polluted by the enemy when they are that young, to the extend that older children and adults' minds have been, which again draws me back to the whole mind/body connection.  There is a very powerful connection there.  The Bible has so much to say about this.  I could go into a whole schpeil (however you spell it) here, but if you are interested, just google "what does the Bible say about the power of our words" and read.  I felt some serious "merciful conviction" from the Lord, (as my life group leader liked to say), when I read verse after verse about it.  When you read through the gospels, you hear time after time how Jesus cast out demons, and healed, and forgave sins, and defeated temptation...with a word.  One of my favorite stories in the Bible is in John 18.  It is when the officers came to arrest Jesus in the garden, and Jesus said who are you looking for?  And they said Jesus of Nazareth.  And Jesus said three simple power packed words..."I am he."  And next it says "When Jesus said to them, I am he, they drew back and fell to the ground."  HOW AWESOME IS THAT?!?  It's like he went up and busted each one of them in face, and threw them down to the ground with his sheer manly physical force...but he didn't.  He just spoke the words "I am he."  Gives me goosebumps.  That same power is there for us, but we have to decide if we are going to speak life or death, blessings or curses, careless words or intentional words of life.  And out of the heart the mouth speaks.  I used to joke all the time about this freckle, or this bump, or this headache..."Oh I have a tumor!"  Hmmm.  Am I saying I gave myself cancer?  I don't know, but that's not the point really.  The point is that from now on, I am going to guard my words, and guard my thoughts, so that I am not conformed to the pattern of speaking and thinking of this world.  God please let me see through your eyes, think your thoughts (ofcourse I'll never be able to do that fully until I get to Heaven), speak your words, love with your heart, live out your purposes.  I want a heavenly perspective.  I want the things in the spiritual realm to be more real than that things that I can see and touch and hear with my body.  Do I even know what I am asking for, and what this will take?  Maybe not, but I don't want to settle for the alternative.  Please forgive me and cleanse me from all the careless words and careless thoughts, and please help me to be the person you created me to be, and to accomplish what you created me to accomplish.