Cancer: Is It All Consuming? You Bet and Praise the Lord!

"You have Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia."  The words sent chills down our spine and fear into our hearts and an instant silent prayer to my lips...'Lord give me strength to hear this all out.'  For the next several minutes we listened to the Oncologist explain this disease.  Thankfully, he started by telling us it has a 95% cure rate.  But then as we listened to medically technical explanations our minds were reeling.  I found myself thinking, more than once during his speech, how will I ever get through this; it will change everything.  And that it does, my friends.  Fighting cancer (leukemia) is indeed an all consuming battle.  Or shall I say an A.L.L. consuming battle in my case.  :-)

It isn't just tough during the chemo infusions.  They are a big part of the battle, but then you go home and the chemo remains within your body for a while and so you begin to deal with side effects, some of which are not pleasant and many of which are not the same from round to round.  It becomes sort of a wait and see guessing game.  For example, the shot I receive to help boost my bone marrow recovery makes me feel like I have flu body aches for several days.  This last one however, also made my skin hyper sensitive to even the touch of my clothes.  Never the same rate of dropping blood levels; ever changing side-effects to deal with; and other unknowns I'm sure I've yet to meet.  My blood crashes to the point of having no immune system as it fights through the effects of the chemo, which is what is supposed to happen, but which is also very tiring, and risky.  Then it gets to the point where it can begin to rebuild itself back to "normal" at which point I get to start the whole process all over again.  I find myself waking up some mornings and after doing the old, 'what day is it and where am I' then I remember, "oh that's right, I still have a fight with leukemia on my hands.'  See what I mean, it is truly  A.L.L. consuming stuff, day in and day out.  But the grace of God is also A.L.L. consuming and His mercies are new every morning. 

The great man of faith, George Mueller once said, "The only way to know strong faith is to endure great trials.  I have learned my faith by standing firm through severe testing."  Amen!.  As a family, we experienced a time of testing and great closeness with the Lord after He called our young Caleb home to heaven May 23, 2003 when I was 7 months pregnant with him.   We learned MUCH about the Sovereignty of the Lord through that trial.  This time the trial is a bit different; to me it is more about needing to constantly cling to the Lord in order to combat the all consuming issue this fight with A.L.L. is.  God's Sovereignty is reigning supreme once again, but the battle is so different; so constant.  But praise the Lord, He never fails.  When the battle makes me weary, I have only to say, Lord, You are my source of strength; my stronghold.  When the battle frustrates me with all it's changing issues, I have only to look up and hear Him say with a smile, the battle belongs to the Me not you.   When the battle frightens me, I look up and say, "When I am afraid, I will trust in You."  

So yes, cancer is an all consuming thing, but praise God because God is good A.L.L. the time; A.L.L. the time God is good.  His A.L.L. consuming love never fails.  He never fails to teach his children glorious things of Himself A.L.L. the way through tough times!  And best of A.L.L., His A.L.L. sufficient grace is EXACTLY that!!