and I ramble once again

We'll never know why. We will never discover the purpose for our suffering. Suffering wouldn't be the same if we knew the reason for it. Romans 8 says, "For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience." The only thing we know is that we suffer so that our faith will grow stronger. And so we need to keep our eyes fixed on heaven. The final prize makes all the suffering worth it no matter how hard it is. No matter how hard life gets and how much it might suck, we need to keep turning back to Jesus and we must hang onto him. 

I've needed to remind myself of these things lately. Otherwise I get lost; lost in the "what-if's" and the "why's". I've also discovered lately that it is good to have a plan. Any sort of plan no matter how small it is. I lost sight of my plan for awhile and stopped thinking about getting better from this cancer. I didn't think about the future at all. But lately I've realized that that is not a good thing. And so I have my plan back again. It's not a big future plan. It's small. But I've got it back again. And I'm happier now. I'm not stuck in a rut of nothingness. My plan is to be healthy by August. It might not happen that way but at least I'm working towards something again.    

Cancer is terrible and it often feels like my body is turning against me but the cancer will be obliterated. It will not destroy me. I will conquer it. 

The Bible verse that is super inspiring to me right now: "I shall not die, but I shall live, and recount the deeds of the LORD." - Ps. 118:17

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry for not communicating with you all. The last 2 months have been crazy busy but I know that's no excuse.

I have cancer again. Thankfully, it was caught early and that is a big blessing. After the diagnosis it didn't take me long to realize that I didn't want to do chemotherapy again. Not that it was an extremely terrible experience last time, but because in my gut I didn't feel like it was the right thing to do.

To clarify, I made this important decision on my own without the influence of others. Many people have supported me in this decision and that has also blessed me.

Over the last 2 months I have been pursuing natural treatment options. I have been incredibly busy with these treatments and daily I strive to get healthy and destroy the tumors inside of me. It is a lot of hard work and everyday is a battle.

A few things have come up that have slowed down the process of me getting better. With all the efforts to kill the bad cells we had forgotten about the importance of making sure those dead cells actually leave my body. After visiting one of my doctors, we found out that my liver was barely functioning because it was/is so overloaded with toxins. After a week of doing things to renew my liver the function level went up a bit but it is still working slowly. Please pray that my liver would be rejuvenated and that it would be restored to full health. :) Yes, I know. It's a weird prayer request. But when you have cancer, many things are weird.

As of late, I've also been having some trouble sleeping. The tumor in my arm likes to make its presence known at night by being painful which causes me to have restless sleep. With the help of some supplements I've been able to get some good sleep but I'm hoping that soon I can sleep without them.

So that's my life in a nutshell. My focus everyday is that every single cancer cell in my body would be destroyed. I pray that God would use all these natural treatments to destroy the stupid tumor in my arm.

I want you all to understand that overall, I feel amazing. My body is super healthy and it is fighting. I have not given up the fight. I'm not letting myself die. I have faith that with Christ all things are possible.