I'm feeling ....
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More to follow....
Unofficial Christian Diaryland Webring!
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2004-01-11 - 1.53pm previous entry next entry I'm still here and I'm feeling much better and more positive! Just wanted to update to say that really, since I was sooooo down last time I wrote. I'm sorry I haven't been updating much lately. We have started fertility tests so I end up writing a lot more in my pre-preg journal when things like that happen. We're expecting to get the results of our sperm analysis test tomorrow, so check the pre-pregnancy journal for an update if you're interested. I don't really like to write about the same thing in both diaries (though it does happen!), so that's the place for a fertility update! Fertility issues are sort of the biggest thing in our mind these days, just till we figure out if we're actually fertile, and wait to get pregnant some more. I can't wait to be pregnant. But there you go. I have a hugely altered perspective on life lately. I think God is really leading me to new places. You know I've been reading several Caringbridge diaries in the last few months? That is, diaries written usually by parents for regular updates on their children who usually have cancer, although there are many other serious illnesses represented as well. I now have my regular kids that I check up on and am growing really fond of. I check them daily, sometimes several times a day, because some parents update that often. Some of the kids I read about have died since I started reading. Some haven't got much time left. Others are just starting a relapse, and some are in remission. I have a lot of praying to do when I read about these children. Neil and my mum worry that I spend so much time reading these diaries. I add more diaries to my list as I find them through the diaries I currently read. Some of them are heartbreakingly sad. I carry on reading them long after the children have died and the parents are now updating about how they are coping with their grief. So maybe that's not a good thing to be immersing myself in? But I am finding it sooooo uplifting somehow, and inspirational. These children are amazing, and their parents are too. Many of them have the most incredible faith in God, and I mean, they don't just believe in God and say so, they are quoting Bible verses and declaring that God is good and he's the reason they have strength to go on, etc! It's wonderful. And so inspiring because of what they are going through. It really helped me to get out of my rut when I read about their lives and their faith and positivity, no matter if their child went on to die, their faith did not waver. They just thanked God for everything and praised him that their child was no longer in pain, and put their trust in him to lead them through the grief. How amazing. I read about a LOT of children now, but three in particular have really touched my heart lately. I have to tell you about them because otherwise I can't tell you how they've affected me. Julianna is 3 and she has leukaemia. She lives in Canada. From her photos and a couple of little video clips, I can see that she is the sweetest little girl, with a real sense of humour. Her daddy has an amazing sense of humour and writes all her diary entries from Julianna's perspective. She was doing well on treatment, but she relapsed on December 30th. I am going to send her a package just as soon as I can find things that are pink and glittery enough! I feel like God is pressing my heart until I do so. I long to send her something to brighten the family's day. There are so many kids that could do with receiving things in the post, but I wait till God pokes me about a specific child. Katia is also 3 and she also has leukaemia, although a different type to Julianna. She has been on national and local TV in the US, and her daddy has released a song he recorded for her, to raise funds for her treatment. Katia is undergoing lung surgery tomorrow because she has a fungus growing there, and she can't have the bone marrow transplant that she needs to survive (which had been set for next week) with fungus in her lung. I pray for her lots, but I don't know if she will be okay or not. I sent her a postcard of where I live this week, because I read on her site that she collects postcards from around the world. She has over 1000!! Hope is the other child who has made an enormous impact on me, but even more so than the others. If you live in America you might already have heard of Hope, because she has been on national TV a lot over the past couple of months. What other 12-year-old with bone cancer, when asked by the Make-A-Wish Foundation what her one special wish would be (like going to Disneyland, etc), would say that she wants all the other kids waiting for their wishes (155 of them) to receive their wishes, even at a cost of $1 million??? That was her wish. Don't you think that's amazing? Well of course the press got hold of it and fundraising went wild. They are holding a celebrity gala on January 16th in Charlotte (North Carolina), to honour Hope and to raise even more money. It's so sad because Hope died last Sunday, so she never saw the goal achieved. The other thing about Hope is that she and her parents have this incredible faith in God that I was talking about before. But really incredible. Sometimes Hope wrote her diary entries herself, but mostly she wasn't well enough and her parents wrote them. If other kids in the hospital had nobody to sit with them, she would send her parents to sit with them. If a celebrity visited her at home, she would tell them not to feel sorry for her because she had parents and sisters who loved her, but some kids at the hospital had nobody like that, and she would ask the celebrity to visit the kids there instead of her. She gave God glory in every entry she wrote, always quoting a Bible verse that meant something to her, and always saying he is a faithful God. The family waited for Hope to be healed, but more than that, they waited for God to have his way. And when she died they just gave more glory to God over everything. It just boggles my brain, and I'm even a Christian! I had big time "poking" from God the whole time I was reading about Hope, and I knew I had to make a contribution to the fund for these kids to have their wishes. These 155 children are only from the Western and Northern Carolina list! Soooo many kids needing support. I left a message in her guestbook asking how someone overseas can contribute, and over the next 48 hours I got EIGHT emails from people who are family friends, members of the family's church, etc. Wow. So on Thursday I phoned America (exciting!) and spoke to a guy named Jim who had even been one of the people who emailed me! We had a lovely chat about Hope, and he told me how things were going that day in Charlotte, as Hope's funeral had been the day before. He said the whole town was turned upside down. We talked about Hope and her impact on people. The Celebration of Hope fund has already raised over $500,000, and seven children have already had their wishes. It costs about $5000 per wish. I felt SOOOO (can't describe) privileged to be involved in something to do with such a special child, even to be involved in a conversation about her with someone who knew her. Like I surely couldn't belong, but I did. It was amazing. I felt like praising God all the time. I made a donation, and got invited to the gala on the 16th!!!! But obviously I can't go because of how I live across a large ocean (!!) and also I will be flying to France that day for my mummy's birthday. Donating that money felt like.... oh I just felt like a million dollars! It was wonderful! I love it when I follow up on something God has poked me to do, because the reward is soooo much greater than the act in the first place. So that is what I've been doing for the past week, mostly. It has changed the way I see things so much, and it has given me a new perpective on something I never saw before. I never stopped to look at cancer before, and how people live with it. I was too busy being afraid of it. But you know what else? I realised on Friday that I'm not afraid of cancer anymore. How can I be after reading about children like Hope? I have this poking feeling still from God, but I don't know what it is about. I FEEL like it's to do with children with cancer, but maybe I'm just guessing. I wish God would show me so I can act on what he wants me to do. I have been wondering about working with children with cancer, but I don't know in what capacity. I feel I could do it, because I did it with Cameron - though cancer can be far more distressing of course. I mostly just want to be a great support to a family who have a child with cancer, not just the child. My heart does this "stretch outside my body" thing when I read about the families, and then I get that pokey feeling, so I don't know.... I looked up voluntary work with cancer patients on Friday and got very little info. Most of it seems to be with adults with cancer, and I feel like I'm being drawn to children, not adults. The Royal Marsden Hospital in London takes volunteers, but then I read the requirements, and you have to be over 18 and you should NOT have had a close bereavement in the last 2 years. TWO YEARS!!! I understand why, but it's frustrating, because I have 20 more months before it's been 2 years since Cameron died, and I feel like I want to move on and help other children. But then I'm not sure actually. Because I am not sure what exactly it is that I feel I want to do, and God isn't showing me right now, so maybe I'll have to wait a bit longer. Maybe it's enough to support the children God pokes me to support online and through post and things. Maybe that's all he's asking me to do anyway? I don't know yet. But it's been an inspirational week anyway. Very different and unexpected. And GOOD for me, I think. I went to Judith's yesterday and we prayed together, which was good. I talked to her a lot about all the above too. On the way to Judith's I put the radio on in the car like I always do now, but for once I didn't want to listen to the normal secular radio stations. I wanted Christian radio. So I found it and a song started playing called "Blessed be your name" which we sing at church sometimes. It made me think of Hope like nothing else as I sang along - all the words, but I only really know the chorus, which goes: Every blessing your pour out I'll turn back to praise I was just sooooo filled with praise to God as I sang and as I thought of Hope. The fact that she died has only given me more to praise God about. Lots of people would see it as the cancer having won, having killed her. That she lost the battle. But she didn't. She won. She kept her eyes on God and he has been faithful to her, and now she has won. This is just how her family see it too, and somehow I feel such a release over this way of thinking. Like maybe it has released a long-running, deep-seated fear in me about dying, or getting an illness that will make me sick unto death. God still has the victory, and so can we therefore. I cannot WAIT to meet Hope. I find it so amazing, the concept that one day I will. Mostly I can't wait to meet Jesus face to face. It's unfathomable to think that Hope was here last week and now she really IS with Jesus, face to face, like I am waiting to be, along with so many others. Cameron is too. I can't get my head to imagine it. But I believe it. I probably have other things to write about but this just FILLS my head whenever I think about it, so that's all I have to say for now. I don't have any great closing comment like I was hoping to have, after saying all that stuff about these amazing children and my changing perspective on life. I can only think of how much I love my God and how amazing he is. I'm going to try to live the words of that song much more from now on, turning all God's blessings on me back to praise, and still praising him even when things are hard. I forgot to do that lately. I feel renewed by Hope and Katia and Julianna. And about 30 other children. God is actually SO good, even in the face of what they are suffering. He's still good. Even in the face of anything *I* am suffering. He's still good. |
Recent entries..... Cameron's first anniversary - 2004-09-24 |
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