My Cup Overflowth

 

                                                    Everyday is a brand new day,

                                                     everyday is a journey

 

Be not o'ermastered by thy pain,

But cling to God, thou shall not fall;
The floods sweep over thee in vain,
Thou yet shall rise above them all;
For when thy trial seems too hard to bear,
Lo! God, thy King, hath granted all thy prayer:
Be thou content.
P. GERHARDT.

Back in 2016, I had my 4th. bout with ovarian cancer. We opted for surgery to remove the perfectly oval tumor, followed by 3 treatments of chemo and 25 days of radiation.

 I detested the radiation. I would wake up at 3 a.m. every single day and argue with God why I just couldn't go to radiation. Of course, I lost that battle every single time. I just couldn't understand why God was insisting on this wretched radiation.

Why did I detest this "radiation" so much? Well, if you know anything about Chicago, they have traffic, roadblocks and plenty of construction. It's a yearlong thing. It was inconvenient, costly and an irritation.

So here I was waking up around 3 a.m. in the morning due to a restless night. I would leave the house early and no matter which way you chose to go, in Chicago, mornings are especially "stop and go" all the way to the hospital. Not to mention, my truck was slowly dying, breaking down all the time. Again, my conversation with God never ceased from when I awakened. The arguing would go on until the radiation treatment was over for that day, only to begin all over the next morning in the exact fashion. 

What did I argue about? 

Why are you having me do this just to have it come back again next year?

What's the point, God?

Just look at all this traffic and I am wasting my precious time driving through it?

There's nowhere to park around here!

I have to spend so much money paying for parking every single day for 25 days!

I have to wait in the waiting room, because they are so backed up like my time isn't important!

If I can't find a parking spot, I'm going home!

You know, God blessed me even though I fought Him. That truck that broke down and finally died? A good friend of mine offered me the use of his daughter's vehicle since she was away at College. It didn't have a working radio so I couldn't tune God out while I was driving, but it did get me to radiation. That parking spot? Never had a problem. Once, a car pulled out right in front of me. All that waiting? I met so many beautiful women who needed a shoulder to cry on or an ear to listen. 

That was Fall of 2016 and now it's Summer of 2022. Still in remission. Still here. I sometimes wonder if I needed to get these arguments off my chest. Maybe I was really holding them in all those years being positive instead of examining my own emotions. Either way, God has a way of peeling the layers whether we want Him to or not. It may take a raw and painful encounter, but the work gets done. 

Have a blessed day everyone.