Below is an excerpt from a journal I kept and shared with my family/friends after I was diagnosed with breast cancer. This particular post was written after I found out my cancer had metastasized. The surgery I was referring to, was the total hip replacement I was to receive to restructure my hip bone (due to what the cancer had done to my bone). A day before my surgery I learned that it wasn't needed because the miracle drugs I had just started 9 weeks prior had healed me.
“Back to the Future Day” -- In 1985, the movie “Back to the Future” came out. In the movie, the scientist travels ahead in time to October 21st, 2015. Coincidently, this is the day my surgery was scheduled for – Wednesday, October 21, 2015.
What I think of when I correlate this movie to my situation, is that it didn’t help for me, or anyone else, to jump ahead to the future prior to my surgery and worry about me. All the anxiety, fear, stress of thinking into the future about my surgery was wasted energy because in the end the surgery never happened.
Just like we can’t travel into the future, it doesn’t help to worry about what might happen in the future; because truly no one knows how the future will unfold except our God.
I spent the day on Wednesday, even more thankful than most days; thankful for every minute. When I woke up around 8 am, I thought to myself, I’d probably be on the operating table right now. When I was enjoying my lunch with my family, we commented how I probably would have still been in surgery. That evening, when I got to my parents house we talked about how I would have been just getting out of the recovery room and getting settled into my hospital room.
So thankful for the day that didn’t happen how it was supposed to.
The rest of the week I spent making beautiful memories with my family: from fall drives, to sipping on Caribou Coffee together in Red Wing. From sharing huge belly laughs on the floor with my extended family while we watched Brielle play; to spending a day with my Grandma as she enjoyed time with Brielle. Then a day at the pumpkin patch with Brielle and my mom; to a day with my cousin and her kids playing away with Brielle. So many great memories that we’ll all cherish for a lifetime; all because the day that didn’t happen how it was supposed to.
I’d like to end with a “Weekly Motivator” that my mom happened to find on our drive home from Rochester. We stopped in Red Wing, MN and had a coffee break at Caribou Coffee. My mom picked up a printed Red Wing newspaper/ad at Caribou. It’s truly a God Wink!!
It’s a Beautiful Day! (Author Unknown)
You hear other people say it and you’ve probably said it 1,000 times or more. “Life’s too short.” What better reason to take each and every day and live it out loud. Now, I hear this sentiment once in a while but rarely is it put in such a way where the message doesn’t sound like a commercial for Mountain Dew. What a gift life is. Another day. Wow. Think about it. You are the sum total of all your days up until now. Every day has gone into creating you. When you’re 70, 80, 90 what a horrible shame it would be if you were to look back and think, “I didn’t do so many things I wanted to do. I was mad or scared half the time.” Use today to get where you want to go. Maybe you’re behind your pre-determined schedule. Perhaps you wanted to do more by now than you have. That’s not a problem. You’ve got today. How lucky you are ... Don’t even think about putting it off ‘til tomorrow. Even if there’s no place to go or big goal you can work on today, you can do something else. Is there crap? Huge difficult challenges? Sure, but you can learn from it. That’s good, right? Just notice the good stuff right now.
Photo by Mohamed Osama on Unsplash
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