CANCER again

The storm rages outside, thunder and lightning shake and flash the 6 windows I look through, as I sit on the couch in my sister’s house. Over 2,000 miles away from home, on the other side of the country, I watch as the storm thrashes around me. It is comforting and foreign. Living in drought ridden California for the past 6 years has made this encounter sweet and worthy.

The house is quiet and calm. Children are in bed sleeping, my sister and her husband and away on an island, capturing the passion of their love for one another. This trip was planned a while ago. I would come for a week and spend time with my nieces and nephew, while they were on vacation, then I would go back home.

This trip, however, it longer. I am staying another week.

Three months earlier:

The long two hour drive from Fresno to Bakersfield for work is a welcome treat for me to encounter my God. I worship and pray and have long conversations about our calling, where we are going, how He wants us to partner with him. Weddings and pregnancies and school and jobs all swarm around my head, trying to process and plan the next 6 months of the hustle and bustle of my life.

The oil fields turn into orchards and vineyards and many miles of land, filled with agriculture fill my view. My phone rings and it is my sister. She is young, vibrant and beautiful. A mom who has spent most of her adult life homeschooling children and pursuing a healthy lifestyle of clean eating and cross fit. Her heart longs to be valued and her mind fights to stay focused on all that is pure and holy, in the midst of healing.

Her voice is quiet and calm as she recaps her medical history to me. A long arduous encounter with many months of intense pain and bleeding. She has seen many doctors and had some procedures down to aid her body to stop, but it persists. Then, as if all of life stood still and I could see the wings of the flies flying in the air in slow motion, she said the word.

The word that is like acid to the soul. The word that is filled with filth and devastation. That word. The word I have heard too many times from too many people I love in my family…

CANCER

I don’t say a word, at first. I don’t know what to say really. Then as if a volcano of rage rose up in me I began to get angry. I started to pray over my sister and declare life and truth and God’s promises. I prayed against every generational curse and agreement and cursed cancer and commanded it to die. I couldn’t even shed a tear. I was not going to give cancer that place.

I spoke directly to the cancer and told it to go to the pit of hell where it belongs. I battled and fought in my soul and told my sister I would stand and fight for her. She giggled and said that her best friend did the same. Got angry and said, oh NO… not today.

My trip was extended and she planned her surgery the week after she got back from her vacation from her husband, so I could be here.

Yet I feel so overwhelmed. The battle is great. I asked the LORD if I could carry her burden and the emotional intensity of how cancer wrecks the mind with fear and anxiety, is so wicked and demonic that rest is fleeting.

TODAY:

the storm has passed. My sister successfully went through all her pre op surgeries. The cancer did not spread and surgery is in two days. The weight of this wickedness is so heavy that I am overcome with exhaustion and fall asleep at 6:30 pm. When I wake 4 hours later, the house is quiet and calm, everyone is in bed asleep.

CANCER again, but NOT ANYMORE. That’s it, you’re done!!! You cannot and will not find your way in my family anymore… My mom, grandma, dad, cousin and now sister… NO… You are done. No more.

The storm is gone and the sun shined its rays into the window today… it reminded me of the story her husband told me as he wrestled with the word… on his wife

He was having a tough time at work… nothing was working our right, frustration and heaviness weighed on him, as he wanted to be home and not where he was. At the end of the day, he was driving back to his air B&B to get some much needed rest, but there is a dark, fierce black cloud heading straight towards him. He had to drive through the storm. He had to drive in right through the middle of it. And he did. He pulled into a restaurant to eat, just as the storm finally passed. He sat down and looked out the window and there he saw a big bright beautiful rainbow. The reflection of the sun on the water that had just poured down.

It was a beautiful picture of their place. Go through the storm, rest, and remember God’s promise. It was then, when he told me that I knew my sister would be free of this wicked word that attacks. It was then that I was confident it would no longer be able to make its way in our family

And like the drought ridden California, that has persisted for years… so will cancer be in the many many generations to come… in a drought, with no life and place to grow.