Good Days and Big Dreams

I realized today that everyone has bad days and good days. Bad moments and good moments. We just don't always take the time to recognize a beautiful thing when we see it. More often than not it is the simple things: a sunset, a kind word, a smile from a friend, that really make a great moment.

And than I realized; if these simple things make life so wonderful, why don't I take more care in what I do and say?  My actions and words could build someone up or tear them down.  Lift of their dreams so they strive to achieve them or break them down so much they don't even try.

Scary, isn't it?  To know we each have that much power.  Over others. And over ourselves.  And what we choose to speak can make all the difference in the world.

While I wouldn't tell a three year old they could fly, I would inspire them to dream about it.  Maybe someday they will become a pilot.  And what about my peers?  They have dreams too.  The ones spoken in hushed tones late at night.  Everyone has a secret wish.

I remember very clearly, many years ago now it was, when my mother decided to speak hope to one of my dreams.
"I would like to write a book."  I told her.
"I think you would be good at that," she told me with a smile.

So I tried.  I wrote stories, poems, journal entries, and songs.  And than one day I wrote a novel.  It isn't published yet or anything, but I am working on it.

I often think back to that time my spoke hope to me.  That was the spark that started the fire in my soul. I probably wouldn't write at all if she hadn't encouraged me.

Yet here I am.  Writing has helped me sort out all my feelings.  And it helps me learn about who I really am.

Thanks Mom

All I want for Christmas is my hair

Today I reached up to my head and ran my fingers through my hair.  I know most people do this without a second thought.  I was one of those people last year.  After I learned I would loose it all to the chemo, I was given hopeful news.

I can still remember the words of my sweet nurse Kelly when she said, "The chemo will stop and you will have a cute, short cut by Christmas."  Those words were my lifeline.  In March, Christmas felt like a long way off.

I remember gazing jealously at the women in shampoo commercials with their beautiful, long locks.  Even my friends and my own family became objects of my envy.  "Why did I have to loose my hair?" I would think bitterly to myself.  "I loved mine more than all of them together."

And I really did love mine.  I loved braiding it and twisting it around my finger.  I loved the complements people would gush to me,  "Your hair is so pretty and long!" I got that a lot.  But what I think I miss the most is tucking stray pieces behind my ear.  For some reason nothing made me feel more like a princess.  The Bible wasn't lying when it said a woman's hair was her crown!  And now my crown was gone.  And I felt very... ugly.

  Crying myself to sleep at night was only the tip of the iceberg.  My very soul felt smothered every time I looked in a mirror.  I even considered covering the mirrors in my room and not looking in one until my hair grew out.  It was one of the lowest points for me.  No matter how anything else was going, I just couldn't be happy because I didn't have hair.

  Sometimes I wonder how I got through.  Looking back I think I lived in the first state of grief: denial.  I shoved a hat or scarf on my head and just avoided looking in mirrors.  I laughed about my bald head with my friends but when I was alone I did my best not to think about it.  "Christmas," I would think to myself, "I will have hair by Christmas."

So here is December.  My hair grows again (though not fast enough for my liking).  I both love and hate my new do.  Love because it is hair on my head and it is mine.  Hate because it is only a shadow of what it once was.  But at least my wish came true.  I will have hair for Christmas.

One of the few wigs that I got.  Somedays wearing a wig helps me feel more normal.  Nothing could replace having my own hair though.  It is so cold today that I am happy wigs are hot!

About the Hair

So I want to talk about the other side of hair loss... Hair growth!  When that icky chemo finally stopped and my hair was free to grow again, alls I could think about was having my old hair back.  (I had hair down to my elbows before I was diagnosed with leukemia)  But here I am. 10 weeks out and increasingly frustrated with how slow my hair is growing.  I even had dreams of running my fingers thought my own long hair and would wake up crying because I knew it was just a dream!  

So how does one beat the slow grow blues?  I have come up with a few practical ways:

1. Once you hair starts growing take a picture of your head (or just the top of your head) every week.  Then make a slideshow in a few months.  Try not to look at pictures from only a week or so before because there isn't much growth.  But once you have about six weeks of pictures go ahead and look at your first one and compare it to now.  You will be floored how much it has grown in just over a month!

2. Treat you hair nice.  If you used to dye it or straiten your old hair a lot make a pack to be much kinder to it this time around.  Make an effort to heat treat it less or maybe not at all.  Plans will keep you excited about the future instead of depressed about the past.

3.  Look into hair extensions.  I am not talking about the glue in kind, i am speaking of the way cool clip in sort.  Much easier to take care of and better for your hair.  You can even buy them made from real human hair!  I cut off about eight inches of mine when i learned I was gonna loose it all and I found a youtube video on how to make my own clip-ins!  I see a tutorial in my blog's future!

4. Enjoy it while it lasts.  This one is the hardest to swallow, especially for those of us who loved our long hair.  But having short hair has a lot a perks: little to no bed head, don't have to brush or style it most mornings, and it doesn't get in my way.  Also, everyone I have talked to says I rock the short cut and I am sure you do to.  So remember this time fondly when you look back, your hair will probably never be so short again.

Do you have any ideas?

Already There

I first heard the song "Already There" by Casting Crowns months before I knew I had cancer.  I sang it and thought the words were powerful even to me who had little to worry about in my young life.  But the first time I heard the song after I was diagnosed, I knew it was a life changer and I really understood the words for the first time.  

Here is is the first verse:

Already There

"From where I'm standing Lord,

It is so hard for me to see where this is going

And where you are leading me.

I wish I knew how all my fears and all my questions are gonna play out,

In a world I can't control."

Ever feel like this?  I sure do.  Even now I do not understand why God had me place my life on hold.  I get frustrated and even angry some days and ask God what good could possibly come from something so bad. 

Here is more of the song:

"When I am lost in the mystery,

To you my future is a memory,

'Cause you are already there,

You are already there.

Standing at the end of my life

Waiting on the other side,

And you'er already there,

You'er already there."

This song helped me remember that God doesn't just know what is gonna happen to me, He is already in my future.  He is standing in heaven with His arms open to welcome me home.  And I do not need to  be angry or worry about my future because He is already there.

Waiting

While scrolling through my Facebook feed I see comment after comment about how bored people are now that it is summer and school has been out for like, one week.

 I can't help but think: "What? You are bored sitting at home with nothing to do?"  I would trade my right arm to be you right now.  Young, health, strong young person with so much potential, so much opportunity.

But I am stuck in a hospital bed.  Wondering when I can go home.  Tomorrow?  Next week?  All the while being pumped full of strange drugs that keep me up at night, make me sick, and drain away what little energy I have when I wake up from a fitful night's sleep.  And you are bored.

Surely you could be doing something to better yourself or even help other people.  Go join a health club and loose that twenty pounds you are always complaining about.  Wish I was well enough to take a walk let alone work out when ever I wanted.  Go donate your time at a food pantry and help feed those poor people you see on the news instead of just shaking your head and saying what a shame it is they are starving.  I wish I was well enough to help someone else, somedays I can't even get out of bed with out help.

I know it looks like a big world out there, and I know you feel small.  But if God has taught me anything, it is that just a little bit of faith can change it all.  When I am better, not one moment will I waist.  Because there are too many other people out there just like me, waiting.  I will work to make their lives better.

Will you join me?

That's What Faith Can Do

"You have cancer."

The three words nobody wants to hear, and I sure did not want to hear them.  But I did.  And I have leukemia.

But let me back up a moment.  I have an overly active mind sometimes and before I knew I had a problem I used to ponder how I would react if I learned I had some sort of deadly decease like cancer.  Would I sob uncontrollably?  Would I get angry and refuse to except it?  Would I cry out to the Creator of the world "Why?!!"  Would I retreat into a shell and refuse to talk to people?  One thing was for sure, fear would dictate my every move.

Was it posible to except one's fate with grace?  I did not think so.  At least, I was sure I could not.

Fast forward to a cold January night.  I was taken to the hospital for the first time in my life because I fainted while at work.  I was always very healthy growing up, no allergies, no broken bones, not even a cavity.  So when my 18 year old body suddenly failed me, I was confused and scared.  The people at the hospital were kind, but they kept poking me to draw blood.  Then the doctor came in and said it was best if I stayed the night, so they could run some more tests.  The next day was filled with tests and that night I was told that I had some sort of blood cancer.

It was nothing like I thought it would be.  I remember feeling tears fall down my cheeks but it was hardest to watch my mom cry.  She left that night and I was alone, staring at the blank hospital walls.  For the first time I could collect my thoughts and this is what I found:

1. I had Cancer
2. I could die from this Cancer
3. I wasn't afraid

For a long time I could not make sense of the last one.  Was I ignorant?  No, I knew the full weight of the situation.  Did I just not care?  No, I always wished to live long enough to have children and then grandchildren.  So there I was, lying in a hospital bed, just being told I could die very soon, and I was not afraid.

Should I have been afraid?  I thought I should.  Wasn't everybody who was told they had cancer?  But every time I even so much as thought about being afraid it felt like something just pushed it out of my mind faster than I could let the emotion settle.  Maybe it was all too new to me so I could not grasp it properly.  Yet the next morning I felt the same.  I remember thinking that the sun rise was beautiful.  That my nurse seemed especially kind and cheerful.

A family friend came to see me on her way to work that morning.  After talking for a while she asked me "How do you feel about all this?"  I replied that I felt that, while it was bad, I knew that somehow everything would work out fine.  She smiled a bit and said she felt the same way.  She told me that every time she went to pray for me it was like God was telling her I was going to be okay.

It was not until that night that I saw the Doctor again.  He told me that I had Leukemia.  He told me that I had a very common form of childhood Leukemia.  Then he looked me in the eye and said, "You are young and strong, Rachael.  With the treatments we have now, I expect you to be fully recovered and cancer free with in a few years."

I blinked.

"I am going to get better?" I whispered.

He smiled and went on to explain some of the treatments to my mother.  I watched her cry again as she called to tell my father the good news.

When everybody had left and I was alone again, I thought about my day.  I remembered how God had not let me feel alone or afraid, even when faced with death.  I never thought He could calm a heart such as mine, one that flipped over such little things, and give me peace.  But He did.  I could not understand how, but He did.

I always wished for a strong faith, but everything I did never felt like enough.  That day I learned that it is not about what I can do, it is about what God can do.  To truly grow my faith, I was gonna have to let Him take over every part of my life.

I have cancer, but thanks to God, cancer does not have me.

From the Stars to Me

My latest Google search found that there are 300 sextillion stars in the universe.  That is the number 3 followed by 23 zeros if you wish to write it out.  To say that is a lot would be the understatement of the year.  I could spend my entire life counting them and not even come close to numbering them all.  But what does the stars have to do with me?  Well, recently I have become fascinated with numbers of things that are too big to count.

For example, did you know that the average person has 90,000 to 150,000 hairs just on their head?  True, it is not 300 sextillion, but it is still impressive.  And nobody I know has enough time to count them all, let alone number them.  But take a look at this verse from Matthew:

"But even the hairs of your head are all numbered." (10:30 ESV)

Really?  God took the time not only to count the hairs on my head, but to number them all too?  I was impressed the first time I read that verse, but it took a sad event in my life to come to grips with a number as big as 150,000.

It was a cold January night in 2013 when I learned what was wrong with me.  I had Leukemia.  Years of Chemotherapy treatment lay before me.  I had to quite my job, drop my college classes, and spend weeks feeling so sick I could hardly get out of bed.  And then came the hair loss.  At first I thought it was no big deal: when I brushed my hair a few extra strands came out, when I woke up in the morning I found some on my pillow.  But then it got worse, where ever I sat piles of hair fell out around me.  Every time I touched my head many strands would fall to my shoulders.  The doctor had told me my hair loss could take months, but how could that be when it was falling out so very fast?  After a month of intense hair loss I looked in the mirror and was shocked to see that my head looked fine.  It only looked a little thiner at the top but besides that completely normal.

What?!?

When my mind stopped spinning I tried to wrap my head around the fact that I had lost so much hair, and still had so much more left.  Surly by now I would be bald as an egg!  My next thought was the verse in Matthew.  Suddenly I came to grips with just how big 150,000 was.  It was like God had to smack me in the face for me to realize just how much he cared about me.

So the God of the universe (with 300 sextillion stars in it) made some one like me and loves me so much that he numbered the hairs on my head.  Now that I really understand how big 150,000 is, I can not even begin to fathom what 300 sextillion looks like.  All those stars, made seemingly for no other reason than for us to see them and enjoy them.

My wish is that the next time you see a star filled sky, you will thank and praise the Creator who took the time to make them.