A Cancer Update 2022

                             Everyday is a brand new day, everyday is a journey.

 Lord, I have given my life to Thee,

And every day and hour is Thine,--
What Thou appointest let them be;
Thy will is better, Lord, than mine.
A. WARNER

It pains me to say this, because I am a firm believer in preventive medicine. I am exhausted with the joys and tribulations of our healthcare system. I am not interested in who is right and who is wrong, but we the patients are the ones missing out when insurance companies and hospitals clash. When they cannot come to any sort of agreement, we pay the price. 

So here I am, in a new place with a new oncologist for almost two years. Had a great checkup, great test results, better than ever in my fifteen years with cancer. What do you think happens? My insurance carrier cannot come to an agreement with my hospital/oncologist. 

Here we go again. This has happened for the third time. Each time, I have changed Doctors and even the insurance carrier. Things go well for awhile and then it happens again. . . .the negotiations go awry with each side wanting their way. Once again, I am left with no options, but find another oncologist. It's exhausting and frustrating!

I have come to the decision of waiting it out. I'm just done with all of this uncertainty and jumping around from one doctor to another. I pay good money for my insurance and I expect to be able to use it when needed. They obviously don't care about the likes of me. They have no problem taking my money, but they do have a problem when I want to use it. They put me through all sorts of hoops designed for me to determine whether I am eligible. 

Benefit enrollment season has come along and my company has graciously provided new coverage as compensation. That is good news, because I can do all my tests as needed. The problem is that I am not even happy about it for fear of it happening again and again. Insurance companies have so much power and we are dependent on them even though they need our money. Do I sound disgusted? I am and so should everyone else.

I have been very fortunate with my cancer care, but many out there have not been that lucky. I cannot even imagine being faced with huge medical bills when all that I should be concentrating on is getting better and getting rid of this cancer. Yet, people every single day are faced with this issue, because our health care system is not working for us. 

Don't get me wrong, I have been doing great. I just wish everyone else did too. Health insurance should be the last thing we worry about when faced with life threatening decisions. Nothing will change until people's hearts change in how they do business and interact with others. 

Have a blessed day everyone. 

The Living Water

 

                                  Everyday is a brand new day, everyday is a journey.

What comforts, Lord, to those are given,

Who seek in Thee their home and rest!
They find on earth an opening heaven,
And in Thy peace are amply blest.
W. C. DESSLER.

The living water . . .

I have written many blogs on storms and rain. I have found comfort in the raging storms as to me they represent God's manifestation of his Power. God is Almighty. He is Powerful. He cleanses the Earth of all it's folly. He forgives. He restores the ugly into full glory.

We believe that, yes? Yet, we do not fully live that out in the world. If God forgives and restores . . . 

Why do we talk about that co-worker who has been clean for a year or more?

Then why do we stay away from a neighbor that perhaps looks too different and wild?

Why do we bring up someone's past and hold it against them?

Why do we judge others?

Why do we choose the people we are willing to forgive instead of forgiving all?

Jesus provided the Living Water for all of us and yet, we want to be the ones who decide who receives it. What qualifies us to determine who is worthy of the Living water? We like to compare ourselves against everyone else, like a measuring stick. Yeah, I'm better than that guy over there. The problem here is that when we reach Heaven, we won't be compared to each other. We will be compared with Jesus. 

How do you think you will do then?

God chose us, sin and all, because He saw what we could be. He saw the finished product, not the ugliness of who we were before Him. Now we just need to believe and then live it. Believe that you are worthy. Believe that your neighbor is worthy, too.

Have a blessed day everyone.

Our Elderly

  

                               Everyday is a brand new day, everyday is a journey.

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,

  As the swift seasons roll!
  Leave thy low-vaulted past!
  Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
  Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
  Till thou at length art free,
  Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!
O. W. HOLMES.

   Working among the elderly has broadened my heart for them even more.  Passing in the hallways, I encounter many of them and I can honestly say they just want one thing . . . .acknowledgement. They want someone to stop and converse with them about all the mundane  things of life. We tend to place our elderly on a shelf like an ornament and forget about them. The following story is just an example of how much we can gain from their wisdom, their friendship, their experience. I hope you enjoy and perhaps even remember the elderly in your life. 

Lessons from a 100-Year-Old Mentor By Dianne Derby Dianne Derby is a journalist. She raced from one event to the next, capturing stories and sound bites. Everything changed when she met centenarian Jim Downing at a luncheon for World War II veterans and he challenged her to live a life of fulfillment. At the time, Jim was the second-oldest living survivor of Pearl Harbor. They started meeting every week as Jim shared his faith in Jesus with Dianne. ###   When you spend every Tuesday morning with someone for five years, you learn a lot about each other. “It takes more than a howdy and a handshake to know someone,” Jim once said to me. “How well we know another person is relative to the number of shared experiences with them and the depth of those times together.” Lessons Learned: Depth. That feels like the magic word. Jim never once— never once!— wasted time on small talk. Talking about the weather makes me tune out in about five seconds, but someone’s thoughts, inspirations, what they crave most in life—this I could talk about for hours and hours. And we did. Every time I showed up to meet with Jim, I was changed before I left the room. That’s the power of the presence of someone who was walking with Christ, passing his faith on to someone who wanted to learn. Jim had such a sense of approachability. I wanted to learn from him because I wanted his joy. I could feel it when I was with him. He was always so interested and invested in others. He would remember things I told him for weeks afterward. Jim showed me how that kind of intentionality made people feel. Worry: When I lay awake at night, feeling worried about the world and the future it offers to my daughter, Claire, I can remember Jim saying, “Worries are self-manufactured, and most of what we worry about never happens. Our worries are in our imagination, not in the realm of reality.” Prayer was his go-to answer for worry. Jim also told me he navigated worry by imagining the worst-case scenario. When Jim was the captain of a navy ship during the Korean War, he once had a mission to dock the ship in a place where a typhoon had broken most of the pier away. There were rocks on each side and no tugboat. He was sure he was going to run this ship into the rocks and aground, perhaps killing someone. If any of that happened, he’d get a court-martial and never receive a position of responsibility again. That was the worst-case scenario. But that’s when he realized that no matter what happened, he’d still be okay. He would not be without the love of God or his family or his relationships with friends. As Jim said, “When I consider this, I can live with the worst-case scenario.” Relationships: When Chip (my husband) and I cannot see eye to eye, I recall what Jim would say: “Love is the voluntary giving up of oneself for another. It is unconditional acceptance and desire of good for another person.” Chip demonstrates this far better than I do. He’s so accepting and selfless in our marriage. He makes me want to do everything so much better. No Substitute: Jim never had a drink of alcohol, as far as I know. It was a simple decision for him. He didn’t need it. He was so alert, so present with everyone he met. He wanted to have the depth of friendship that comes without the influence of alcohol, the true transparency that can be clouded by intoxication. Jim was on to something. He taught me when you have Jesus, you don’t need any lesser things to help you cope. Jim believed God is the answer. He is the ultimate comfort, the ultimate peace. There is no substitute for the Holy Spirit. I think of Jim every time I drive on the I-25 bridge over Cimarron Street, right near downtown Colorado Springs. This is the largest bridge in Colorado Springs, and it is named after Jim: Big green signs on both sides of the interstate announce the “Lieutenant James ‘Jim’ Downing Bridge.” The bridge-dedication ceremony was in a park just east of the bridge on a cool fall morning in 2017. Jim was in his full navy uniform, ready to accept the dedication on behalf of all the heroes before and after him. After he thanked the people who organized the dedication and honored the veterans of the past, he left us all with one final, breathtaking quote: “The greatest bridge is the bridge between heaven and earth.” At more than one hundred years old, my mentor told me, “I’ve still got plenty of life left.” And right up to the very end, Jim was still teaching, still growing, still chasing down life. One of my biggest challenges every day is to live the example Jim has set for me— and I know Jim would clarify right now: “Dianne, you mean the example Jesus has set for us.”  Taken from Two Hundred Tuesdays: What a Pearl Harbor Survivor Taught Me about Life, Love, and Faith by Dianne Derby. Copyright © 2022. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. Top - Jim Downing and Dianne at Jim's 100th birthday lunch celebration at The Navigators Headquarters (Photo Credit: Hensley family) Middle - Cimarron Bridge Dedication ceremony 2017. The largest bridge in Colorado Springs is named after Jim (Photo Credit: Cindy Kuhn Photography) An award-winning journalist, Dianne Derby is a longtime television anchor who currently is a co-anchor for the KOAA News5 weekday team in Colorado Springs, Colorado. She met Jim Downing at a luncheon for World War II veterans and learned from him every Tuesday for the next five years. Dianne is originally from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with degrees from The Florida State University, University of Miami, and University of Florida. She and her husband live in Colorado Springs with their young daughter and three rescue dogs.

Have a blessed day everyone.

Somewhere In The Woods

                               Everyday is a brand new day, everyday is a journey.

 A patient, a victorious mind,

That life and all things casts behind,
Springs forth obedient to Thy call;
A heart that no desire can move,
But still to adore, believe, and love,
Give me, my Lord, my Life, my All.
P. GERHARDT.

This is a time where everyone seems to be going on vacation. In fact, it seems that as soon as 2021 came around, people were heading off to somewhere. It didn't matter where that somewhere was as long as it was away from home. People spent time on the beaches, in the woods and going to different cities. After being in isolation the year before, one cannot blame them.

My idea of the perfect vacation is not as exciting. It's not even a particular location. My ideal vacation could easily be in any State. It is a place that everyone can claim that they know of just like it. 

All I want is solitude. A secluded place with a private cabin in a wooded area. May it be surrounded by trees, greenery, maybe even a brook or a lake. I want to hear birds singing, flowers blooming and the sounds of nature. Nothing else. There doesn't have to be any people or activities or any noise of city life. All I want is solitude and internet. I do need internet.

I've always wanted to go away to such a place all by myself and spend a month or more. It would be my spiritual retreat, but secretly, I would love to own such a place. Imagine living in such a place year round.

I believe that we face new chapters in our life all the time. They unfold in places and ways we cannot even predict. We are thrown into situations some of our own doing and some not. New things come and the old disappears. Life keeps moving, rotating from a new day to a new year to yet another chapter. 

The things that stay the same are the sanctuaries we create to keep within our hearts to revisit whenever life becomes a bit too much. We need to hope. We need to believe. We need to dream. We need that place, that somewhere that we can go to mentally if not physically to breathe. Where is your place? What does that look like to you? If you don't have that somewhere, create it. Embrace your somewhere.

Have a blessed day everyone.

One Church, One Family

 

                             Everyday is a brand new day, everyday is a journey.

My newest griefs to Thee are old;

My last transgression of Thy law,
Though wrapped in thought's most secret fold,
Thine eyes with pitying sadness saw.
H. M. KIMBALL.

I have always been that person who sticks with the same company, insurance or bank for years. If I find something I like, I am loyal to the end. I wish the same could be said in other areas of my life.

I have always craved permanency of going to one Church. I've met people who have done so for over 20 or 30 years. That is truly wonderful. Imagine all the relationships they have nurtured, explored and developed during that time. These are lifelong friends who have your back when needed. Not only do you know each other, but your children know one another and so forth. It's a true community.

Yet, I have found it to be almost impossible in this day and age to stay in one Church for that length of time. People are moving around way too much to do so. Not only are they moving to another neighborhood or town but, they're moving out of state.

Just take a look at my situation. While living in Chicago, I searched for that one Church. That alone is another story, because it is hard to find a Church that preaches to your faith. All Churches claim to be, but not all are what they say. Discernment is a wonderful gift.

When we finally did find a good one, we didn't stay for long, because we moved to Central Illinois. Here, we just followed my son, a Pastor, from one Church to another. I quickly realized that craving I held for that one Church may never happen.

There is a positive side to going from Church to Church, one gets to see how other Churches operate and we get to meet new people. I rather do enjoy that part of it. Often, people have asked me what I look for when first entering a new Church. I have found that my list is so different than what is published out there by the so-called experts.

1. How are people worshiping? Do they sing or stare aimlessly lost in their own thoughts?

2. The bulletin. I thoroughly read the bulletin or any literature the Church passes out. I want to see what the Church offers outside of Sunday.

3. Their website should list times, dates and days of all the events. I find it frustrating navigating through a website that tells me nothing. 

4. The size of the congregation does not matter to me, only the people. 

I do understand that some Churches do not have the funds or the people for elaborate bulletins or websites, but the "fanciness" does not matter as long as the data is there for others to see. Yes, I am one of those people who shows up at Church events.

I have to say, that even though I may be in a Season of going to several Churches, I do enjoy all the people I have met. I formed friendships that would not have happened otherwise. There is something to being in the place we are meant to be in during a particular time. Perhaps, we are helping someone or they are helping us through a Season. People come in and out through the doorway of our life. We will meet for a final gathering with Our Lord. Oh, the talks we will have and the memories we will share. Something to look forward to as we navigate through this life.

Have a blessed day everyone.