Good morning all. Well it has been about 1 year since LAST Easter. It is coming this weekend. Of course it falls at a different date each year, and it was a bit later last year, but I will say it is a year for the purpose of writing this blog. :)
As all of you know that have been reading this blog, I was diagnosed with cancer last year, and it was on my larynx. NOT a good thing. It was also diagnosed as STAGE 4, probably the worst scenario I could have heard. That was all in February of last year. By Easter last year, I had done 3 of the chemo treatments, was totally bald, weak, but still totally believing in Gods total healing of this. I was still able at that point to sing tenor in the church choir. In fact at that point, my voice had actually gotten to where I could actually sing about 2 notes higher than I had been able to.
All that being said to say this. I sang on Easter Sunday in the choir. 3 services. LOTS of singing. I was uncomfortable as I was freezing, (body thermostat gets totally goofed with chemo), but I was praising God anyway as I sang. After we sang for the 9 am service, I went down to sit with my wife, and discovered she had been crying. NOT a usual thing for her. I wondered what was wrong, and she told me that she thought I had probably just been healed!! I asked why she was so positive about that. She told me as I was singing, she saw lights all around my head. I kinda laughed and pointed out that the stage has a LOT of lights on it. She said NO these were small lights, like strobes and they were dancing around my head. I believe those lights were actually angels and they were performing the healing that I have today. Interesting as that is, one other little note to this is that a friend had sent me an email to a mail box I rarely checked, stating that she had had a dream of me being healed. What she saw in the dream was "small lights, like strobes, dancing around my head" TWO totally different people, TWO totally different times, yet seeing the same thing. Folks God is AMAZING. He is still in the healing business, and I KNOW this for a fact.
Today, almost a year later, Im strong, healthy, and Im able to TALK, and tell people about Gods healing power. A year ago, I was weak. I had lost most of my strength, I was doing OK, but just weak. In fact as recent as September of 2012, I was very weak. The radiation had zapped most of my strength and I was in the process of recovering from those treatments, and trying to regain what I had lost. I was able to start riding my bike again, I was working out a bit, but muscle strength was slowly coming back.
NOW, I working out regularly, gaining strength every day. I have been able to do some things that I never thought about doing. This last Saturday I did a 5K walk/run. FINISHED it, and had an OK time too boot. This weekend, St Louis got a record setting March snow fall. 12.6". I shoveled my OWN driveway 3 times, cleaned off both cars at least 2 times, and then just to push a bit harder, helped a friend shovel off his moms driveway. GOD is indeed good.
It has been close to a year now since the end of the chemo. Radiation started in May of last year, but God sustained me thru all of it. YES the physical body took a beating. I here to tell you that no matter how far down you get physically, no matter how low you get mentally, God can put it all back together. Ive had people call me "miracle man", and honestly it made me uncomfortable at 1st, but thinking back on it, YES what I am and WHERE I am, is a miracle. Do I deserve to be? Probably not, but for some reason God saw fit to create this miracle of healing and new life.
One additional side note to all of this, is that I lost a good amount of weight, which is a good thing. I had a heart attack 8 years ago, and had been on BP medication and on some other meds as well. I discovered that I was getting dizzy, so I cut back on the BP meds, when i saw my cardiologist a couple of weeks ago, he took me OFF the BP medication and cut the other meds in 1/2!!! Now those are tangible and real things that proves that God is healing and has healed.
In this season of Easter, considered to be one of the Holiest days of the year, consider where your life is. Think about what Jesus did for you some 2000+ years ago. He died on a cross, a most horrible death, just so we could all have life. NOT just life, but EVERLASTING life. Im singing in choir again this year, because Im ABLE to sing, and I still have a voice. One interesting side effect of the radiation has been that my voice LOWERED a lot. It is because the vocal folds still have residual swelling so they dont stretch as easily as they once did. They will come back, but for now, it is what it is. I dont have as much saliva as I once did, but I have more than I did in July, and I KNOW that these things are just temporary side effects till the healing is complete. God will finish it in HIS time, and I know that to be true.
HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!!
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