Faith, you’ve gotta have it. You’ve got to believe in something. God, the universe, energy, people, the process, fate. You can’t get through life, let alone cancer without it. Faith is one of those hot topic issues. Faith is the opposite of fear… you can’t totally have one if you hold on to the other. This journey involves stripping away all the layers like an onion. It’s personal for each of us. A few weeks ago I was holding on to the wheel instead of letting go. This is such a raw human experience. As faithful as I am, the fear crept in so strong through that cracked door. Cancer does that… life can too. When faced with life or death decisions choosing to be immobile because of fear is also a choice. It doesn’t mean faith is lost at all, sometimes the path just becomes a bit overgrown… but you know it is still there. Faith has so many facets, but the bottom line is trust. Trust your journey… Faith is believing in something that you can not see, sometimes you can not even visualize… but you just know in your heart. Sometimes it’s hard to find the words to describe… it’s just a knowing. Faith in the spiritual sense is knowing that whatever happens in your life, you must trust that it is what will serve you., grow you, refine who you are as a person. There are so many questions that I have about that… but I know that at some point the gift is revealed in the process. We are all here learning lessons in this life. Sometimes there is no answer… it is what it is.
My faith has always been deep… it’s been tested but not lost. These past few years have been full of the best and worst but through it all my faith has kept me going. Life doesn’t always run smooth, we wouldn’t appreciate it if everything was always perfect. When things are difficult, hold on to your faith… without it you are in a stormy sea without a life vest. Once in awhile faith can be tested. Most people I know have been in this dark place at least once in their life. Life throws curveballs.. like cancer, or people that hurt us, but for every event or person that hurts us there are more that enlighten us and help restore our faith. Sometimes putting your faith in someone else is scary, like doctors!!!! After meeting several doctors, Peter and I just knew that his doctor at the cancer center was the one. We have faith in him and his knowledge.. we trust in him to do his absolute best. Sure, he gets a paycheck… but you feel from him that it’s really all about healing and curing his patients. We didn’t always feel that faith & trust in doctors. The path felt very overgrown indeed. Peter’s primary care doctor did full blood work on him in 2008,2010 & 2012… all she told him was that his cholesterol was a bit high. It wasn’t until after we got married and invested in a good insurance policy that we both decided to be responsible adults and get checkups. His doctor didn’t see the cancer this time either, but thankfully her PA did. Imagine Peters surprise when the hematologist he saw in June told him that his numbers were off and had progressively been getting worse with each full blood workup he had gotten since 2008. When he ultimately made an appointment to talk to his primary doctor about this, we both felt she still didn’t know when she walked in the room. She had all of his medical information in her hands but never looked at it. We knew that as soon as Peter asked her to look at his blood work from 2008 and she said “what am I looking at?”, and again in 2010… She got it then… “I’m sorry, I missed this, I didn’t see it”. Clearly, she missed it. She made an assumption that he was young and healthy and didn’t look further. That is how faith in a particular doctor is lost. Does this mean all doctors are negligent… absolutely not. Faith is knowing that there are great ones out there, you just need to research and ask questions. Now on a deeper level, does this mean we lose faith in all things when life throws us a curve? If you’ve loved and been hurt do you give up on love or do you have faith that love is there waiting for you? If you’ve wished for something that doesn’t happen does that mean that you give up wishing and dreaming? No, you push on, knowing that by faith your path will open up. Does that mean that when illness or tragedy befalls us that we throw faith out?? Isn’t that like throwing out the baby with the bath water. Just because life doesn’t hand us exactly what we want when we want it doesn’t mean that there is no God or that all hope is lost. The Universe isn’t against you….life is just a test of faith… one only needs to reach out and hold on.. to faith.