Help - August 14, 2006

To my dear friends:
This is an interesting time for me. I don’t even know if I can describe it but I find it imperative to try.
At this point in the fight with cancer I am doing well physically. The chemotherapy I am getting now is tolerable and I show few side effects. Much of the fear of reactions has left but in the process the gap has been inappropriately filled in my mind.

I am frustrated by misunderstandings. I seem to think that people can read my mind or maybe just see me for who I am rather than what they believe. I don’t know why I am thinking that way since it has never been true that people could see through our veneers and treat us how they should rather than how they expect to treat us.

Let me give you an example since this is getting a little ambiguous. In many of my letters I have told you of the struggles that I have had and how God has met every need that has come about. I think it is very clear that I am trusting in God to move me through this process. The other day one of the people who knows of these struggles sat me down to help me understand that I need to trust in God. Now I know their intention was good but I wondered how I had let them think that I was not trusting in God. What in the world had I done for that perception to come across? The answer, I see as I write this, is nothing. People operate from their own perceptions. For the last year people have told me how to think, feel, eat, love, live, sleep, etc. so that I will do better. I know they love me or they wouldn’t care at all. This has never bothered me, why is it bothering me now?

It is bothering me now because I see chaos in my mind and I don’t know how to stop it. As people “help” they just add bricks to the pile and the chaos gets bigger.

In the last few days small things have happened medically that have caused that line I drew in the sand to shift like a wind blown beach. I feel little things slipping away and I don’t know how to hold on to them. Each of these little things are stupid to hold on to but they gave me some anchor and now that doesn’t exist. Let me give you an example. Both of my doctors asked me to start drinking Ensure to supplement my diet because I couldn’t eat enough to keep my weight up. Reasonable request. I immediately thought of Lee’s mom and that she lived on Ensure for the last part of her life, and then she died. Then someone told me about a relative that drank Ensure, he died. My conclusion, drink Ensure and you die. Bizarre, isn’t it?
There are strongholds in my mind that don’t give in easily. They mark me as ill, sick, feeble, etc. I don’t feel ill, sick or feeble but look at all that I am having to do to live. The dichotomy in my mind makes it all so chaotic that I am angry. Then again, I am angry at myself for being angry.

Why the anger? Well, I thought I had gotten past this. God and I have talked for a long time about death, the fatalness of this disease and that it is not something I can control. But in some ways, I have taken back control of the little stupid things that don’t amount to a hill of beans. I am holding tenaciously to things that are just things. I expect everyone around me to “get it”. Obviously they don’t because the things they loving do for me seem to throw me into a tizzy. Then I am angry at myself for not being thankful for the generous acts of others.
That is the problem, now what is the solution? Praise God for all those people in my life who are “helping”. Thank Him for letting them be there and for bringing this back up on the front burner so that I can deal with it. Then I must thank God for the doctor’s wisdom and for their concern for my health. Finally, I must give all this back to God. That is not as easy as the other two. I know that God will do as He should. I am not afraid of His will or His actions. I just don’t always know what He wants me to do. I must make some decisions according to His leading. How do I do that and give away the strongholds that are binding me at this time. Do I think these things are too little for God? Do I just want to have control of something? Look what that has done for me, made me depressed and angry. No, I don’t need to keep any of this and I don’t need to worry about how people perceive me. I just need to follow God, follow the doctors until He tells me not to and love the people because they love me.

I am sorry if I have not responded well to your needs to help me. It is hard for me to keep my focus on God and also listen to all the ideas man has for this disease. I am an intelligent person and most people think I would want to know and try everything but that just brings imbalance to my life. I can only trust in what God brings to me. The trouble with that is He may use you to do it and so it is hard to differentiate between the two. I just have to stay in prayer and not jump on everything that comes along. I have decided that He will use the doctors and inspiration to teach me what I should do. That may not sound wise to some of you but it is all I can do to make sense of this time.

Thank you for your care for me and know that I live off that care on a daily basis. You are extremely important people to me and I need your prayers so that God’s inspiration will come to me and the doctors. Please continue to pray and do whatever you feel you need to do to help me. You may find that I listen but don’t act. If not, it is not you but I who has made that choice.
With all my love, Marj.