Traveling the Chemo Road with Friends

In this early hour I woke up and made banana bread for my children. Snow flurries are falling and I feel a great need to hibernate with my three daughters today. Just teaching, learning and preparing for the Thanksgiving Holiday, with a little Christmas Spirit starting to weave through my house.

So many people suffering right now, so I quietly stop to listen to what God wants me to pray. Four friends going through chemo for breast cancer. I have learned and am still learning a lot about beauty, under terrible circumstances. Baldness! A woman's crowning glory is her hair? Nope. It is her battle with the evil of cancer and proudly showing, yes, I'm in a battle and my spirit is winning. Even if...the physical battle is lost, the closeness to our Creator is branded into our souls and our hearts just find the wonder in the simplest kindness. A smile, a laugh! Who helped make a terrible day a doable day. A simple look from a husband to a wife. A surprise bouquet to just say, you are still my wife and more beautiful today as you fight this battle. I'm here. Those are some of what this outsider has seen.

The cancer battle that my friends are going through has changed my heart to understand just how special this battle is. I always felt so much sympathy, but now I see that these friends are directly connected to God in a way, I long for. Through suffering we are all connected with Jesus and his suffering on the cross. How blessed we are to know this through our faith.

So on this day, this beautiful gloomy day, as we hibernate in our home, I praise God through whom all blessings flow.

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