Thursday, March 24, 2011

The Good with the Bad

Having cancer enter your life teaches you a lot of lessons. Most are learned through pain, tears and heartache but often there is always some good in with the bad. The two God truths that I have constantly wrestled with over the past years are:

1. His ways are not my ways and
2. He will never give us more than we can handle.

I wrote about the first one last month. I think what is hard about #2 is we often times think we can’t handle as much as God knows we can handle. And so when that something hits my life, I automatically think I can’t handle it and get frustrated with God that he would allow it to happen. But if I stop fighting with my emotions I can see how God does give us just enough strength to get through the current minute, hour, day. Mark’s Grammy always says that God will never give us more than we can handle, but I wish he didn’t have so much faith in us! I agree Grammy!

Metisha and her strength constantly amaze me. God has given her and Mark the ability to live in the now, and I think that is where she obtains her strength. While I’m running every what-if scenario through my head and my Dad is Googling every symptom for answers, Metisha is living with the knowledge of what her cancer is right now and is not constantly consumed with fear of the what-ifs and what’s next. I think that is a perfect representation of Faith. Because she has Faith that God is control, she can be comfortable with the now. The only promise she needs of the future is that there is a heaven and she received the gift of a permanent address there. She believes God can give her an earthly healing, but she has given that to Him. Amazing.

Yes, she is human. She has moments of fear and doubt and sadness. But she always moves past those moments and goes back to living in the now. When I look at her, I know there is a lot I can learn from her faith.

So with the bad comes good and with good comes bad. This week the good is pain relief. Metisha has been having intense pain in her liver for a few weeks to the point where I have seen her wince (and if you know her you know how much pain that takes). But they have continued to adjust her pain meds and she gotten relief from the intense pain. But yesterday she learned her markers have gone back up 70 points indicating this chemo just isn’t working. This is not a surprise and Metisha was expecting it, but it is still disappointing. They are trying to schedule scans for next week and then will evaluate what the next treatment option.

Please keep praying with us. We are praying:

• The scans can be schedule quickly.
• Metisha will be approved for additional sick days from the Sick Leave Bank so she can take days when is not feeling well or needs rest.
• The scans will not show cancer is any new spots or significant growth in the existing spots.
• Metisha can be relieved from all the pain and be well rested.
• For 100% healing from the cancer.

It is spring which means its race time again! The Komen Race for the Cure in Fort Worth is April 9th. You can support the awesome Welsh Warriors by clicking here. She has an amazing friend who organizes the Welsh Warriors every year and amazing co-workers and friends in DFW that get up early every year to walk for Metisha. We are so thankful for all of you!