Another Anniversary to Celebrate

It was one year ago today that I was recovering from my double mastectomy. Of all the treatments and decisions over the past year, this is one that I don't regret one bit. After all, not everyone can say they lost almost seven pounds in a day and a year later have kept it off, right?

Last year, the six weeks or so just after the surgery were easily the hardest, darkest period of this cancer journey. We were making hard choices with questionable information coming from many sources. We were facing the fact that I would likely not survive for very long at all. There was pain in all shapes, there was anxiety, so much uncertainty.

Now, today, we have embraced that uncertainty as just a way of life. It is after all a fact. None of us - no, not one - knows when we will breathe our last breath on this earth. We live in the immediacy of that fact and it is a gift to be able to do so.

This season I pray and hope and wish you that awareness of our short time here. Make every day, every hour, every moment count for something. Even it counts only for rest, for contentment, for ease and tranquility, take each precious instant and just be aware that we wont get it back. Even if it is not perfect, not wonderful, not amazing, at least make it not wrong, not awful, not bitter.

God bless each one of you this Christmas season. May He work in beautiful and mysterious ways in the lives of your families to remind you that He is the only certain Thing we have.

On the banks of the might Missouri