Test results and the plan..

We got home yesterday from our trip to UCLA.  I can’t even begin to explain to you how thrilled I am to be done with that place for awhile.  I’m so ready for life to just settle down and for us to find some sort of normal, whatever that may look like.  I don’t like that when Trent greets me in the morning, the first thing he asks me is what doctor am I going to that day.  My kids are such troopers through all of this.  I’m so thankful that I was diagnosed when Tyler was only one.  This is all he’s ever known and it’s obviously all Trent has ever known, as well.  It has never been as intense as it’s been over the past 6 months, and that has definitely taken an obvious emotional toll on our family, but we’re hoping that things will finally quiet down and we can just focus on being a family and enjoying our time together, rather than upcoming surgeries and trips to doctors, etc.

This past month, since I’ve been home from surgery has been extremely rough for me.  What I thought would only be a couple of weeks of just taking it easy and healing from surgery turned into a month of not feeling well at all and not knowing why for most of it.  After going to a few doctors, Dr. Liau suggested that I go see an ENT to check out my sinuses.  We figured out that I picked up a sinus infection, probably before surgery already, and didn’t know it.  The surgery added fuel to the fire and I now have a very large infection that we’re having a hard time clearing up.  In hindsight, there were definitely early symptoms, but when you’re recovering from brain surgery in the same area as the infection, it’s hard to know what is causing the symptoms.  Unfortunately, I waited too long to get it treated and now have a mess going on in my head.  I had a CT of my sinuses done and if the infection doesn’t clear out in a couple of weeks, then I will have to have surgery to clear out the infection because I’m high risk.  The infection is sitting right next to my surgery site.  We think the infection may be what is causing all of this numbness that is still on the right side of my face.  The ENT thinks the infection is pushing on the maxillary nerve, so it’s probably not a permanent thing.  Love that!  So needless to say, that has been beyond frustrating to not be feeling well at all for so long, and it’s not because of the surgery!  I’m feeling great with all things surgery related!!  I’m on a heavy antibiotic and praying that it clears this thing up because I’m good on the surgery thing for now, thanks.

I finally received pathology news this week from my surgeon.  The tumor has indeed upgraded to a high grade tumor.  It’s not a grade 4, but a grade 3.  The official diagnosis is an Anaplastic Oligoastrocytoma.  I can’t say that I’m too disappointed that it has upgraded.  I fully expected that it had, given the rapid amount of growth in such a short period of time.  The growth was so extreme that it seemed almost impossible that the tumor wouldn’t be a grade 4.  A grade 4 is a Glioblastoma Multiforme, one of the most devastating diagnosis in the world of cancer.  Very fast, very aggressive and very lethal.  I am so inredibly thankful that one of those is not hanging out in my noggin.  I am now only one grade below that, though, so the harder part of the battle has now begun.  There are two pieces of tumor left that are too close to eloquent parts of the brain for Dr. Liau to have been able to remove them safely.  One is close to the Thalamus, which is where she left it during the last surgery, and the other is next to the Basal Ganglia.

We were in California for only 24 hours on this trip.  We wanted to get in and get out, and so we did!  We first met with Dr. Selch.  He is the radiation oncologist at UCLA.  He explained what would need to get radiated and what the side effects might be.  Because the area where the tumor was/is, is quite large now, a very large portion of the right side of my brain will be irradiated.  That is a bummer.  The guaranteed side effect will be that I will lose my hair at the site where the beams go into my head.  Will the hair grow back?  There is a 50/50 chance that it will.  Yeesh.  The other most common side effect during treatment is fatigue, but not everybody experiences that.  I’m still working with Greg, my naturopath, doing naturopathic treatments immediately when I got home from surgery.  There are many ways to offset this fatigue naturally, diet being a big one, so we have a plan.  The long term side effects of radiating this part of the brain are short term memory loss, which I’m already accused of  (: It can also have an effect on emotions.  I’m not sure in which way, but I guess we’ll find out!  They are irradiating the hippocampus, the limbic system, so many crucial structures to my everyday functioning, so there will most likely be deficits that may be a little frustrating down the road.  It’s one of the big bummers of brain cancer.  You’re messing with a part of the body that controls every aspect of your entire body.  Everything they do in there is affecting something else in another area of my body.  These deficits from radiation usually don’t rear their ugly head until several months or maybe even years down the road.  Thankfully the brain is extremely neuroplastic and there are many software programs that have been developed to help with regaining short term memory, etc.  Where there’s a will, there’s a way.  This girl has will.

They did some genetic testing on my tumor, as well.  Based on certain genetic mutations, they can predict how well a tumor will respond to radiation or chemotherapy.  It’s not an exact science because based on the testing from my surgery three years ago, my tumor should have responded well to chemo, but didn’t.  The test on my tumor showed that I have the IDH1 mutation.  This genetic mutation has shown to be associated with a better prognosis and has been shown to have a better response to radiation.  We pray that is true.

We also met with Dr. Cloughesy, a neuro-oncologist.  He is amazing.  He is so warm and personable, much like Dr. Liau.  I feel like I’m in extremely good hands with him overseeing my local treatment.  Based upon the pathology of my tumor, he has decided that chemo is not a good option for me right now.  He doesn’t think that my tumor will respond to it, so we’ll save that as an option for down the road.  We already tried Temodar, which is just a pill and a mild chemo, but is the first choice for brain cancer, no matter the grade.  It did not work for me, so the next chemo that would be coming my way, if necessary, will be the IV heavier stuff.  I’m so thankful that time is not right now.  I’m ready for a break from heavy stuff! (:

So that is hopefully the end of many months of chaos.  I’ll probably start radiation the first week of April.  It will go for 6 1/2 weeks everyday.  We are so incredibly thankful for all of the prayers and support from all of you during this time.  We have felt it all throughout each day.  I can easily say that these past six months have been the most trying months of my life.  It has just been one thing after another for such a long period of time.  There have been so many blessings through it, but geez.  Enough, already!

Thank you, thank you for your prayers, your cards, your phone calls, for all the different ways that you have loved on us and supported us through this time.  We feel so blessed to be loved by so many!

No rest for the weary!

I received an email from Dr. Liau and there was not any additional pathology available this week from my surgery, so they will bring my case up next Wednesday at tumor board to see if there is more information.  This is what I do know, though.  At this point, we will be flying back down to UCLA in a couple of weeks to meet with a couple of new doctors.  Up until this point, my only doctor at UCLA has been Dr. Liau, who is my surgeon.  I have not done radiation, yet, for said reasons, but they are wanting that to be the next step no matter the final pathology.  Because radiation is everyday for six weeks, I will obviously be doing that here locally in Salem.  I will fly down to meet with Dr. Michael Selch, who is a radiation oncologist that specializes in brain tumors.  He will then be able to coordinate and oversee my local treatment here in Salem.  When radiating the body, there are multiple variables that are involved in calculating how much of the tissue to radiate, how many rads to throw at it, etc.  I want to make sure we’re all on the same page here before I do this!

I will also meet with Dr. Timothy Cloughesy.  He is a neuro-oncologist, and an amazing one from what I have heard and read over the years.  He will work with my local oncologist.  I found out that the genetic testing on my tumor that I had mentioned in my previous blog is only being done to decide now on the chemotherapy that will be used later, when/if it is needed.  There are several different chemothefrapies out there, now.  It’s not fool proof by any stretch, but they are finding ways to test cancer cells ahead of time and anticipate which drug they will most likely respond or not respond to.  This limits the pain and misery of the common cancer shotgun approach, which is great!

So at this point, it’s looking like radiation won’t get going until the beginning of April, which is fine with me!  They originally wanted to start in a couple of weeks.  The thought of them radiating this noggin right now just makes it hurt all the more!

Another one down…

I know I wasn’t very diligent about keeping anybody updated while I was down south.  It was killing me, but the biggest reason was that my pain factor is quite a bit more significant with this surgery than it has been with any of the past surgeries.  I was able to jabber a little bit with Facebook, but much more than that felt like more effort than I was capable of.  These surgeries have been getting so easy to bounce back from that I’m trying really hard to not get really frustrated by this limitation.

 

But, wow, what a whiner!  GOD WAS SO FAITHFUL THIS WEEK!  So incredibly faithful.  I ask myself this all the time:  why do I ever doubt?  My worries and fears coming into this surgery that have all been expressed in previous blogs were all covered.  They were ALL covered!  Dr. Liau wasn’t able to remove all of the tumor, but we knew she wouldn’t going into this, so I can’t say this was ever a fear.  My vision!!  There was rather significant swelling in my brain when she did surgery, so there is probably a similar amount of swelling now, which is always common after any surgeries.  This swelling and the tumor was pressing on my optic nerves creating several visual symptoms that have been going on for a couple of years now.  Two of those symptoms have already resolved!  At this point, the vision that she said would most certainly be damaged does not appear to be any different.  It’s not something that might not show up down the road when there is healing and scar tissue buildup, but right now I’m really trying to just hold on and claim God’s protection of that vision during surgery, that He spared it.  It may seem silly, because in the grand scheme of things, I am dealing with brain cancer, but the idea of losing so much vision in one eye was bothering more than anything coming into another surgery.  It has some significant long term implications if it limits that vision.  I consider this a miracle!

The other amazing answer to prayer is that this tumor appears to be mostly low grade at this point.  With the sudden shock we received recently that the tumor we thought had only subtly grown over the last three years had really tripled in size and now showed hot spots, it only seemed inevitable that news would come that it was aggressive.  We’re still waiting for final pathology, which should come this week, but the fact that she had so many tissue samples tested during surgery that were consistent with low grade is very encouraging.

I can never just pass over lightly God’s protection through these surgeries.  It’s brain surgery.  It was a very long surgery and I am home and feeling pretty well, already.  I was doing pre-op appointments only a short week ago, although it seems much longer than that!

Now that I’m home, I’m enjoying reflecting on this past week and seeing God’s hand in the events of the week.  Oh, how I wish that everybody could go through experiences in life where it puts them in a place that allows them to reflect and relish in God’s goodness.  Not that I want you to go through brain surgery, but it’s a beautiful thing to be in a position where you are constantly looking at how God is working out details in your life.  I may only be in my 34th year of life, but I feel like He has allowed me to live  so much more life than that, already, and I have to say I’m so thankful for it.  I’m thankful for the depth of maturity that I’ve been able/forced to acquire because of it.

Our usual routine on our way down to UCLA is to visit Marvin’s family in northern California.  It’s a great way to see everybody and the by far our biggest blessing has always been the opportunity to spend a little bit of time with his Grandpa and Grandma Visser, who are Marvin’s mom’s parents.  I was originally scheduled to have surgery on February 17th.  We all came down with the flu, so the surgery was postponed a week.  If the surgery would have stayed on schedule, we would have been able to see Grandpa one last time.  By the time we had traveled down that way, he had what we thought was a really bad infection and decided not to stop in for fear of me getting sick.  Only a few days later, Grandpa passed away.  It was sad that we weren’t able to see him one last time, but since we were down in California, Marvin was able to go to the funeral, which was such a blessing for him and for his family!  So not only was he able to honor his grandpa by being there for his funeral, but he was also able to see his entire extended family because his crazy huge family had all flown in for it.  I had just gotten out of surgery 40 hours earlier, so I opted to stay behind and rest (:  The timing couldn’t have been better.  Not that I wanted to postpone the surgery one second longer than it had to be, but I have to say that I am thrilled that it was because of this.  Marvin’s uncle is a pastor and performed the service.  He spoke about God’s fingerprints in grandpa’s life, and that is exactly how I would describe this.  He had it all worked out.  There was a reason we got sick.  I’m content with this being it!

Dr. Liau is supposed to get back to me in the next day or two with the pathology of the whole tumor and the recommendations of the tumor board for what I should do next.  At this point, they seem to be really pushing radiation.  They will be doing some genetic testing on my tumor, though.  They are able to tell whether my tumor will be more sensitive to chemo or radiation depending on the results of this testing.  I will post the updated information of what life will look like over the next few months when I get it.

Meanwhile, I just want to say thank you so incredibly much for your constant outpouring of support to us!  We have been overwhelmed with love and it is really carrying us through some trying times.  This surgery has just felt different in so many ways.  It has been a lot harder and so we are so thankful for all of you that have been constantly encouraging us with cards, notes, emails, phone calls….everything!  Thank you for loving on my family.  I’ve always said that it has to be so much easier being the patient than the family member.  My husband is incredible!  My kids are troopers!  Thank you for taking care of them, as well.

I’ll be back with deets soon.  Really, this time. (-;

Day 2

its been a relatively quiet day today, as I’m sure you’ve noticed by the lack of updates. Here’s a quick update:

• Charysse was moved out of ICU and into her own room tonight around 5pm PT.
• She’s reporting that she’s had no visual effects from the surgery. That’s a miracle!
• She’s already asking if she can go home. At this point, she’ll have to wait until Sunday.
• Finally, she’s adamently against pictures being posted of her, so you’ll have to settle for a written description: imagine her with one of those stellar hospital gowns, her head wrapped in gauze, add a dose of wit and some pain from the surgery, and that’s what we see

Tomorrow, I head back to be with my family so I’ll be passing the updates back to Charysse, who will be ready to run a marathon, I’m sure.

Goodnight from UCLA
–Kyle

ICU

We finally got to go into the ICU to see Charysse.

It didn’t take long for her snarky side to come out. About a minute after we got there, someone said something and she corrected their grammar. Attagirl.

She’s in a lot of pain—who wouldn’t be after getting a craniotomy—but they are working to get ahead of it.

I didn’t get to stay long as they only allow two visitors in the room with her at a time: Marvin and mom deserve that privilege.

Tonight, we will rest and return to be with our girl tomorrow. We are so proud of who she is, her will to fight, to beat this thing, and for her brave spirit to undergo a FOURTH craniotomy. I know you all are proud too.

We can’t say thank you enough. Please don’t let the repetition weaken the sincerity.

Goodnight from UCLA.

—Kyle (& mom, dad and Marvin)

PS. One of Charysse’s greatest sources of encouragement are your comments. She reads every single one of them. I invite you to be generous with them. They mean a lot to her and us.

Surgery is Over

Good news: the surgery went as planned and Charysse is doing well!

We just met with Dr. Liau and she told us that she was able to remove the majority of the tumor. The tumor that is left is simply inoperable. The initial reports from pathology indicate that the tumor is still low grade—yay!—however we will not have final confirmation until the middle of next week. Dr. Liau also reported that the tumor and brain both showed signs of swelling, which would contribute to Charysse’s increased seizure activity. It is her hope that the de-bulking will sharply decrease her seizures activity. We are waiting for Charysse to wake up to find out how much of her vision has been lost. Dr. Liau’s estimates that she’ll lose the peripheral vision in the lower quadrant. However, she will still be able to see out of that eye. This is what we expected and continue to hope for. Finally, they will start testing the tumor tissues to see what kind of treatment it’ll respond to best. This will help guide the treatment course going forward.

We are thankful for this good report. Of course, we wanted to hear that she was able to get 100% of the tumor, but that’s not what this surgery was for. The goal was to de-bulk the tumor and that’s exactly what happened. The best news of all, the tumor appears to be low grade still—BONUS!

Thanks for your continued thoughts and prayers. We are definitely seeing the fruit of them.

I’m taking over…

As Charysse preps for her surgery, I (Kyle, her brother) have taken control over her blog to help keep you updated on her progress. I will be posting major updates here as they come. If you’d like to know the play-by-play details, please follow her on Twitter. I will be posting more frequent updates there.

Thanks for all of your prayers and words of encouragement. She reads every one of them. They mean so much. Keep them coming!

—Kyle

Deja vu

The word that sums up these past several days perfectly.  This is the third time that we have traveled this road.  This will be the fourth surgery, but only the third here at UCLA. We arrived here late Monday night.  I had pre-op appointments on Tuseday which cleared me to have surgery tomorrow.  This includes bloodwork, chest x-rays, EKG, blahblahblah.  I’m healthy.  Well, from the neck down, anyways.

Our experiences here, really, are so rich whenever we come.  I am blessed with the most amazing soul in my neurosurgeon and she brings so much warmth and comfort whenever we meet with her.  Yesterday I had the crazy longest MRI of my entire life.  The tech was getting ready to take me back and Marvin was going to wait.  He told Marvin that it should only take me about an hour and a half to finish.  What??!!  An hour and a half??  I can’t move for that long?  I can’t scratch anything that is inevitably going to start itching because I know I can’t scratch it for an hour and a half?

The test was significantly longer than usual because it produced several images that were crucial for mapping out how the tumor would be able to be accessed when she does the surgery tomorrow.  We went over that with her today when we met with her.  One of the pictures gave us a clear view of how the tumor has intertwined with structures of my brain.  The first thing, and extremely crucial and a HUGE answer to prayer is that the tumor has remained stable in the four weeks since the last scan I had done when I was down here.  Some of you may be thinking four weeks?  That is hardly a significant period of time to allow anything to grow.  Not so in the world of brain tumors.  When these tumors become a grade 4, they are capable of doubling in size overnight.  I am not exaggerating.  Overnight.  The fact that it has remained stable definitely favors a less aggressive tumor than a grade 4, in which we are so incredibly thankful!  We won’t know for sure what the grade is until she takes the tumor out tomorrow and we get some pathology, but at this point, we’ll remain optimistic that it is a lower grade.

The bummer part of this tumor is where it lies and what it is wrapped around.  Because it has been a low grade tumor for so long and because these tumors don’t grow as round balls like most cancers do, they grow tentacles and this one has had time to wrap it’s tentacles around brain structures and nerve fibers.  Unfortunately it has wrapped itself around my optic nerve fibers.  I have already had some peripheral visual loss in the left eye in the upper quadrant.  With the removal of the tumor that has wrapped itself around those nerves, I will almost certainly lose the rest of my peripheral vision in my lower quadrant.  This means that I will have no peripheral vision at all in my left eye.  It is definitely a noticeable deficit, as it is, already, but it’s not anything that I can’t get used to.  My body will eventually learn to compensate for it by learning to turn my head more, etc. to see what I would normally see without having to do that.  She does recommend not driving for several months, which pretty much sucks.  No other way to put that.  I’m used to getting my driving privileges removed, but not for several months at a time.

The other bummer is the amount of tumor that can’t be removed.  The original part of the tumor that was left behind from the surgery 3 years ago because it was too close to the brainstem will still remain, as well as some tumor that is too close to the motor strip.  They will have some needles connected all along the left side of my body to monitor twitching movement while she is operating around this area.  If she gets too close to a motor area, the left side (because the tumor is one the right) will start to twitch, so she will know that she’s too close and needs to leave that tissue alone.

I have to say, though, with the what-if’s that we were facing coming into this appointment today, that I’m so thankful and feel like God has really answered so many of our prayers!  I’m so excited for surgery tomorrow.  I have so much peace about it.  God has proven faithful continuously, of course, and I eagerly wait to see how He’s going to continue to use my circumstances for His glory.  It’s hard, yes.  I struggle to hold it together, especially lately, yes.  But in the end, God reminds me that He’s still in control and I can’t help but be thankful for this journey and the things I am learning and the blessings that I have received because of it.  We are so grateful to so many of you that  are praying us through this.  You have know idea what you mean to us.  I wish I could hug each of you personally and tell you how much you mean to me, how much I appreciate you.  I pray that God blesses you for it!

It is late.  I have some stuff going on tomorrow, so I’m signing off, but just wanted to update you all.  Thank you so much for loving us.  We love you.  I’ll be back so soon to tell you how great I’m doing and what the next step is.  Until then…

Rest.

“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” – Matthew 11:28

Rest.  It’s such a simple word.  It’s a beautiful word that just draws me in to grab hold of, but I struggle to do that on a continual basis.  I’m not speaking of physical rest.  I have mastered that one quite well.  I am talking about every other aspect of rest:  mental rest, emotional rest, spiritual rest.  It is a word that has been mentioned to me by so many various people in my life over the past whirlwind of a month, to just rest in Him during this time.  What?  How is that possible?  There is so much to be done!  It seems completely irresponsible to “just rest”.  There are appointments to be made, and dare I say, make the list of all the possible “what-if” scenarios after the surgery is over and we know what we’re dealing with.  I’m a type A, which makes me a planner.  I plan A-Z.  I have back-up plans just in case A-Z don’t work out.  I guess one could interpret that in a way that I am a complete control freak.  It’s amazing that I still question the reasons why God is bringing me through these trials.  What is He trying to teach me?  Anyone, anyone?  (hint: I just said it)

If you read my last blog, you will see the point in time in which I was finally at peace with all of this and for the first time understood what it was like to just let go and rest in Him.  It seems like it should be so easy and so inviting, to just lay down my burdens.  He’ll take them!  He’ll take the weight off of my shoulders so that I don’t have to carry the load!  How can I resist that invitation of rest, especially in the middle of what seems like complete chaos right now?

Well, yesterday was a very convicting day for me.  It was such a productive day for me and I was so proud of the work that I accomplished through the gathering of information in preparation of what the future might hold with this tumor.  I made plans!  And I think they are great!  Ridiculous.  Completely ridiculous.  Did I pray about it?  Did I seek Him first?  Are they His plans?  I don’t know!  I didn’t ask!  Don’t get me wrong, you guys.  God gives us resources and I believe it is our responsibility to utilize those resources to do what you can to take care of business.  But seek. Him. first.  That is the lesson that I have not been able to learn seven years into this.  My time right now should be spent pressing into Him and seeking His face.  The scripture in Matthew I quoted at the beginning of this blog calls for action: “Come to me”.  He wants me to come to Him, seek Him, spend time with Him.  How do I do that?  Meditate on His word and commune with Him in prayer.  I can’t think of anything more restful than that.

I’ll be in surgery exactly one week from right now.  I feel like God has blessed me with the peace of mind to know that He is the perfect plan for the what-if scenarios that might come up next week.  I don’t even need a back-up plan.  He’s already thought of that, too.

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

- Jeremiah 29:11

It is well with my soul

I love that hymn.  Absolutely love it.  It floods by heart, mind and soul with peace when I hear it.

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

and the best verse:

And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.

This week started out anything but being well with my soul.  It has been a very intense week for me.  I have been warring with some pretty strong emotions that roller coaster from one minute to the next.  I’ve been mad, sad, happy, distraught, joyful, peaceful, in despair.  I was just all over the place depending on the moment you inquired.  I was upset.  I was mad.  I was confused why God was allowing all of this to happen.  Why does he keep dragging this trial out, now going into the seventh year, now.  Why?  Why?  Why?  What are they going to find when they operate in just a few weeks?  What if His will is for this tumor to take my life?  What about my family?  I’m not ready for all of this!

Those that know me know that my mind is one of my greatest assets, but also one of my worst adversaries.  After over-analyzing everything to the point of physically getting sick, I decided to send a note to a dear friend of mine this week.  I poured my heart out in some pretty raw emotion to her and I frankly didn’t like a word of what she had to say back to me.   She said that  “God didn’t promise you healing.  He promised that He would stay with us throughout our sufferings”, among some other encouraging words that felt anything but encouraging at the time.  She referenced this scripture:

“Dear friends, don’t be surprised at the fiery trials you are going through, as if something strange were happening to you.  Instead, be very glad–because these trials will make you partners with Christ in his suffering, and  you will have the wonderful joy of sharing his glory when it is displayed to all the world” (I Peter 4:12-13)

I know that God didn’t promise to heal me.  I’ve been told (warned) of that over the years and it has always scared me to hear that.  I know He’s more than capable, but will He?  It turned me into the obsessive researcher that I am today, just in case I had to take the healing into my own hands (eh-hem). It really has always scared me and I didn’t like that she threw that back my way.  Not. one. bit.  But what she said was perfect.  Since this tumor started gaining some momentum in August, Marvin and I have talked about how I need to get to a place where I’m at peace with whichever path God chooses to take me down, healing or not.  Once I was able to lay my emotions aside and read her words with a softened and open heart, God did such a miraculous, really, work in my heart that broke down some long standing walls and has me in a place where I finally feel at peace with whatever God might ask of me.  I know that God is good.  God is sovereign and He has a plan.  I look back at my life over these past seven years and it is so evident.  You know when you are looking out a window that has so many fingerprints on it, that it’s impossible to look through the window because all you see are the fingerprints?  My life is that window.  You can’t look into me without seeing how His fingerprints have been all over me from the start of this journey seven years ago when I had a grand mal seizure.  One MRI changed my life forever.  But God didn’t.  He never changed, but He has changed me.  He has changed lives through me.  I am so humbled when I think of that.

I’ve had so many people tell me how mad they are and that it just isn’t fair.  I have said, felt and thought that a million times.  I’m very slowly starting to understand, though.  Cognitively, I understood before.  You grow up in the church, you read in the Bible that all things work together for His good.  There are so many scriptures that point to trials and why He allows them and how we are to deal with them.  Last night while driving home from choir, I was feeling peace with why it was fair.  He has not put me into existence so that I can live this carefree life on earth and then join Him in heaven when I’m 90 and ready to move on.  He has put me on this earth as His tool.  If I’m not being used for Him, then what good is my life?  What good am I to you if I’m not pointing you to Him?  Would trials like this seem fair to you if one of your loved ones didn’t know Christ, but came to know Christ through somebody else’ testimony like mine?  Would you be weighing the fairness of my trial, then?  I think not!  I think you would be rejoicing for the trials that God allows because look what came from it!  And then it might cause you to rejoice in your own trials when they come your way.  There is purpose in everything.  Who knows who will be joining you in eternity because of the short amount of suffering you might have to experience on this earth.  Your suffering might have saved them from a lifetime of suffering in hell.  We don’t know.  But He does.  And I’m finally at peace with that.

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