Life's Little Lessons

First of all, Jake is doing well.  He was a bit ornery this last inpatient chemo, but let's face it, having cancer is no picnic!  So he's entitled to bad days on occasion.  Jake has kept a pretty good attitude thus far.  We are looking forward to round 8 of chemo this week and continuing with two more weeks of radiation therapy, M-F.  I asked the Oncologist if they checked the progress and he was doing well, if they would quit the chemo and call it good.  She said that it only takes one single cancer cell to have the cancer come back, so it's a full 40 weeks of chemo.  April 12th is the target last day of chemo!  So far his counts have been good enough to have chemo on the scheduled days, so that's good.

My good friend Jenene was asking me about how things were going.  I made the mistake of taking inventory of all that is on my plate at this time.  Suddenly I found myself headed for the Pity Party Boat.  It's pretty over whelming when I sit and think about everything I have to manage in my life and all of those souls who depend on me to help them with theirs. (Deep breath)  I can no longer comprehend all that I have to do...but I have to just take it one day at a time and try to fit all the important stuff in.  The thought crossed my mind that maybe I should take a break from teaching Primary, but then the question came... can you afford to lose the blessings that come from that.  Later, as I was sitting in church, singing hymns, the thought came...the words to the song is:  Count Your Many Blessings...not Count your many challenges!

One of my many blessings is that God puts people in my life so I don't have to don't have to carry my part of my load by myself!  Just enough to often remind me that God is aware of my life and my hurts, worries and challenges and He is never too busy or too consumed by other things to be there for me.  As amazing as that sounds and incomprehensible to know that He does that for all of His children who will let Him, it is a great comfort and strength to me to be able to depend on that.  I can't begin to list all the lessons He continues to teach and remind me of.  I am amazed at the lessons He teaches me through all of my daily life moments, through a song, a BYU talk I happen to catch a couple minutes of or a book or article that I glance at.  Sometimes it just the act of sharing my testimony or personal experience with someone that testifies of His love for me.  It's like I'm on an accelerated learning course and if I duck my head into the self pity bag, I miss all the lessons that He has to teach me.  Sometimes, I'll be listening to an old talk and He pricks my heart with a few key words (like:  Hey, I want you to listen to this!) then He opens up my level of understanding just a bit more than I had before.  Then He waits to see what I will do with that new level of understanding.

So much to learn...so little time!