emme2844

5/11/17 (ish)

Playing: “So Will I” – Hillsong United

“You. Have. Cancer.”

Those three words didn’t echo so much as collapse everything. My life didn’t just change—it split into a before and after so sharp it still feels unreal to trace back to it.

Cancer is different for everyone, but one thing is true no matter the story: your identity changes forever. People talk about “finding your new normal” like it’s a gentle adjustment. But it isn’t gentle. It’s rebuilding yourself from the ground up while still standing in the wreckage of who you used to be.

I’ve had five life-changing events in less than a year. Five restarts. Five moments where time stopped so completely it felt like the world forgot to keep moving. Five reasons I’m grateful to still be here, even when I couldn’t see it at the time. I can’t tell all of them yet—I’m trying to go in order. (Muhahaha… evil laugh.)

So what do you do when you hear news like that?

I cried for about two minutes.

Then I put my big girl pants on and kept packing up my hospital room.

My husband went to get the car. I remember being oddly grateful that I was alone when I got the news. It gave me space to fall apart without performing it for anyone else. I could breathe. I could not be okay. I could let my guard down without explaining it.

Strength is strange like that. You don’t really know you have it until there’s no other choice but to use it.

For most of my life, I thought I was weak. I ran—from my past, from anger, from hurt, from depression. If fight or flight had a picture in the dictionary, it probably would’ve been my face under flight.

Not anymore.

Now we fight.

Now we pray—for healing, for favor, for the kind of strength that doesn’t come from us alone. And now, we rest.

I had people in my life then who helped me be brave. They were lifelines when I didn’t feel steady enough to stand on my own. Now we are strong—but I don’t think I got there alone.

I wasn’t a good “rester” until I married Ian. If you know me, you know I have a lot of energy. Cancer took some of it, but I’ve been trying to take it back piece by piece.

Ian is the most calm, grounded person I’ve ever known. Jesus knew what I would need long before I did. Because of him, I’ve learned how to rest without guilt. Now I love naps. They feel like my body saying thank you in a language I can finally understand.

He reminds me to slow down, to manage stress, to not carry everything at once. I’m deeply thankful for him.

Stress, I’ve learned, might as well read killer.

Friends—evaluate your life. Your rest. Your relationships. Your pace. Are you running yourself into the ground every day, calling it normal?

Slow down. Pay attention. Change what needs changing.

They don’t really know why someone my age got colon cancer. There are so many unknowns. But one thing is clear: lifestyle, genetics, stress—these things matter more than we like to admit.

Work to live, don’t live to work.

Spend time with the people you love. Tell them you love them.

You never really know when it will be the last chance to say it.