Round Two


I invite you to take this journey with me as I travel through familiar and yet uncharted waters. Places I recognize, but yet offer a newness. Treacherous mountains passes not unlike the Mount Caradhras of Lord of the Rings or quiet bubbling brooks that beacon one to rest. Life is filled with adventure. Some we choose and others are chosen for us. I did not choose this path. I have returned to several places I never dreamed I would. Truth is; that would have been fine with me.


Originally my blog was going to be about our move back to Heber/Overgaard. This is where we started our lives together over thirty-one years ago. In our wildest dreams, we were never coming back here. In fact, when we moved away from here, we considered it being delivered from Egypt. Not that the area was bad, but it was far away from town and back then we spent a lot of time traveling. I had three little ones, pregnant with number four, and carted them back and forth two or three times a week to Show Low. I even went through an insane stage where I took them all out of bed before dawn and drove the 40 miles to early morning prayer. What was I thinking? I thought that is what it would take to get closer to God. I was so young and vulnerable and due to my hunger for more of Him, I fell prey to what the "older" men and women of God told me. I now know God wasn't asking me to do this.


So here we are, been here and done this before. There are moments when I am making my way to the Heber Country Store and it is major dejavu. I look around and think this can't be real. Some mornings, I awaken and wonder Lord, why here? Why of all times, when our first granddaughter has just come into this world, would you move us away from Gilbert and back to the mountain.


I can't say that I have an answer for that. This is the first time in 31 years, that we have lived without children. We are officially an empty nest. Still did we have to move so far away? Each of our children was within a five mile radius and we loved it. There are so many things about this season that don't make sense. Was it necessary for our children, whom we are so close to, to have a chance to grow up more into their own persons aside from our influence? Or rely on the Lord more independently? 


Maybe it is a time to reconnect with one another. We have spent many days apart throughout our married life and just last year Mike worked away from home the entire twelve months. It is does take time to reestablish a life together when we are used to living alone. Will we really know? Maybe or maybe not.


So before my birthday, I was embracing life here. I appreciate the skies, free from that orange film that stretched across the horizon in the city. I have always loved the pine trees and the beauty of fresh falling snow. I love to walk and listen to God with my headset on and there are hardly any people around so I can sing or sign without others looking on. I didn't get to do that long as the snow came in early November. In fact, our front yard after several months, is still white. It was never like this when we lived here before.


Just before the holidays, I had begun to go around to the local businesses, mostly run by women, introduce myself and work at building a relationship of care with them. I must be around people. That is definitely a powerful indication of God's change in my life since the last time I lived here. I wanted to be outgoing, but was shy and more of a wallflower. Not anymore. I am a very social person, although I definitely require my quiet times as well. Boy do I have an abundant supply of those these days. Why does it seem to be feast or famine. :)


I threw a party for my 50th, as I refused to allow such a milestone  to pass unnoticed. Unlike so many, I had been unafraid of turning a half century old. I know from scriptures fifty was a year of jubilee and I have been believing for that for some time now. From January 2005 to the present, health issues have assaulted me. It has been an extremely difficult season to navigate through. I had great hopes of starting out my fiftieth with a touch of greater health. I am still believing for that, however, it is now requiring greater faith to reach that goal.


The day following my birthday changed things. My ultrasound revealed a tumor which the radiologist said was the size of an egg. I hate going to the doctor anymore, as I never know what I will hear. I also hate how when you are a person who has had cancer, there is an unusual harshness or indifference that comes over these medical professionals. It makes me wonder if it is a spirit. It is not all of them, but many. Is it that you are now a marked individual? They definitely make you feel that your life will now be cut short and your only hope is to submit to cut, poison and burn. (Surgery, chemo and radiation followed by other cancer drugs) It is their recipe for palliative care. It is not about a cure, because one doesn't exist in their eyes. It is about prolonging your life as long as possible. It was those exact reasons that caused me to go on a journey to search for myself, what is cancer, is there really no way to know what causes it and is it true there is no cure? I know that there are very few anymore if at all, who have not known at least one and probably several people whose lives were cut short by receiving a "cancer" diagnosis.


I have learned more about this subject that I ever thought or wanted to. Some of what I have learned has made me mad enough to want to spit nails and yet other things have me given hope to believe for a true and complete healing, not only for myself, but for many others. I have believed from the beginning, this whole experience of walking the road through cancer was way bigger than me. It was also about being sent forth into an area of ministry that is greatly needed. I did in fact offer to go through this last year when I thought then that cancer may be growing again in my body. I guess the Lord decided to take me up on it. I must have been crazy. :)