I Woke Up Angry With God

I woke up angry today.  I went to bed fearful, but I woke up angry.  You see, after last week's maize through mammograms, ultrasounds, and an incision biopsy, I was diagnosed with breast cancer.  Everyone keeps telling me, it is very small, it is only one kind (who knew you could have 2 kinds at once) and it is caught early, but it is still breast cancer.  I have so many emotions that have surfaced the past two days, and so many thoughts, insights, and God's love taps that have come my way already that I have decided to journal here our walk through cancer.  It is not my first.  Nearly 5 years ago I had uterine cancer.

I woke up so angry......and not with Satan who comes to kill, steal, and destroy, but with God.  I am angry with God.  I feel like I have gone through enough already.  Decades of sickness and fighting the good fight and now yet one more.  I KNOW God could heal this...it is nothing to Him.  I KNOW He wants us well and Satan wants us dead.  I KNOW He answers prayers.  He has used our hands and words to pray over people and we have seen them healed.  Why not heal me?  Really God?  And we also took our house off the market.  Our plans have been foiled by this.  Plans we thought were from God.  I was angry.

So we headed to Younkers today to look for some tennies I wanted for "house shoes".  I will definitely need these backless shoes to slip on and off now that we will be here yet another winter.  At the store they hardly had any shoes my size....really???  It is like that every time I go there.  It made more more angry.  I saw one pair on sale that I liked but it they had light blue and white flowers on them.  Not very practical.  And then I thought....hey, they made me smile and I need to smile now more than ever,  Like my hot pink tennies, they made me smile....so I bought them.  And got a really good price too.


We then headed to the grocery store and as we were walking down the aisle and I was crabbinig about everything, a woman from a former parish Joel served at as an Interim walked towards us.  Joel said hi to "S" and she asked, "Is your house sold?"  Joel told her no it was off the market due to me having breast cancer.  She was very compassionate and then said, "I had breast cancer twice in the past 22 years and have no breasts but I am here and doing well.  YOU will, too, Renee."  She talked a bit more about it and I told her my type and grade, etc. and then she said, "You can do this."  You will be fine."  I fell apart.  Tears rolling down my face in the grocery store.  We hugged.   As she left, she asked me if we wanted it on the church's prayer chain and I said yes.  I told her I KNEW God had put her in my path today.  We both were teary.

Even in my anger at God, His grace came down as He provided someone for me to be encouraged by.  I had been thinking about having my request put on this particular parish's prayer chain, but had not asked Joel yet.  God provided someone to do that for me....in the grocery store and in spite of my anger at Him.  I cried off and on as we shopped.  I have been doing a lot of crying lately.  I also let go of a lot of the anger.  God does not put disease on us, Satan does.  I know that, but I am hurt.  God is okay with that.  He is more than okay.  He is blessing me along the way, letting me know how much He loves me.

And that love for me?  I will write about that soon.  I have so much to write about already!

Thanks for taking this journey with me.  I hope it blesses you as we watch God show up in every part of this walk through breast cancer.  Because if He shows up for me, He will show up for all of us.  He is "El Roi", the God who sees me (us).