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Part of the battle with cancer is the PET scan process. For anyone who isn’t familiar with it let me explain. As the patient you go to the hospital and receive an IV of a radioactive solution and then you have to wait in a dark room alone for at least an hour. It is often a time when your mind races with the worry of what will show in the scan. Next you are strapped on to a table that goes into the machine. The scan detects any remnant of the radioactive material from the IV. Normal cells don’t absorb the radioactive solution the same as cancer cells so when they do the scan cancer cells appear to glow on the scan. The scan takes about 40 minutes and you have to just wait in this extremely loud and confined space. The room is also typically very cold. After the scan you then have more waiting for results which can sometimes take up to two weeks. This whole process boils down to a lot of waiting and thinking, both leading up to the scan and after. The result is that you often find yourself thinking whether you are going to live or not. It can become a viscous cycle going from scan to scan wondering if you are going to live.
I often watch others going through this battle without Jesus and my heart just breaks because I don’t know how anyone can handle it without Him. I know Him and I still battle with this process.
Today as I sipped my coffee my mind wandered across the thought of my upcoming scan in mid April. It’s the first scan I have had in six months. We were doing them every three months for the first year but my oncologist felt it was “safe” to wait six months. At first I was not ok with that idea but as I sat across from her the Holy Spirit spoke and said “don’t live in fear” so I agreed to the extension. This morning I started sensing the mental battle stirring again, wondering about the scan and the news that would follow. It’s hard knowing it will be up to a month before I know anything. See when you are diagnosed with stage four cancer the doctors are very frank with you that the best they can hope for is to get the cancer to stop spreading, they are not looking for a cure. However I am looking to what God has in mind and my prayer is that He will use my life as a miracle opportunity so that He is glorified before the world.
So as I sipped my coffee and my mind started to spin the thought arose “I wonder if my scan will show improvement and if I will live. I know that sounds like a depression but truthfully it’s just the enemy coming in and trying to do the same thing he did to Eve did in the garden. You see Eve took her eyes off God and placed them on her own understanding and that is what was luring me today. My mind began to swarm with all the names of people who I know that have passed away from this awful disease and other things, four in just this past eight months. The enemy comes in like a flood and I could feel my emotions start to be assaulted but thankfully Holy Spirit spoke and said “Just Live Today”.
I began praying and slowly the battle tide turned and I started to feel my heart fill with joy. You see despite facing cancer I am not really in any different challenge than anyone else. We are all dying, each day we age, each day we are at risk, each day we could enter eternity in a moment’s notice. For those who have called on the name of Jesus this is not a sad thing, nor should it be scary. When we are called home it will be a beautiful thing. I still don't plan on making that journey any time soon but I just wanted to share those words "Just Live Today".
We spend so much time stressing, fretting, worrying, trying to figure things out etc that we literally fritter away our lives. We think so much about our tomorrows that we miss living today. All we are called to do is to live and all God wants is for us to live in relationship with Him. So when you start to feel things swirling and your mind, heart and emotions get churning remember, "Just Live Today." If you don't have the peace of knowing Jesus please know He loves you and is longing to show you that love. His greatest desire is to be in relationship with you. As for me I will “Just Live Today”.