I want to take this opportunity to thank the Lord for what he has done
in my life. As an infant, I started out in life on rocky ground.
I was born with a childhood kidney cancer and the tumour was quite large.
At the age of 11 months the cancer was finally found and diagnosed and
I went in to surgery. They removed my tumour and what was left of the
kidney. This was in 1956; there was no chemotherapy then. I received
heavy doses of radiation 6 months later. Not long after this, my father
got saved and became a minister. He built his church and it grew over
the next 23 years.
He is now retired, and is evangelising, and I thank God for giving me
parents that brought me up in a Christian home. During the childhood
and teenage years, I was checked yearly and the doctors always suspected
some day I would develop cancer of the liver because of the radiation
treatments. They also felt I shouldn't have any children, also due to
the radiation treatments. I have since found out, on the old radiation
machines, they leaked, even though the body was shielded, so they suspected
I received radiation everywhere...resulting in damage everywhere.
I am now 41 years old, living a fairly normal life with some medical
complications, some due to radiation, some not. I have a daughter, who
weighed 2lb. 15 oz. at birth, and is now 20 years old and a Christian.
I thank the Lord for letting me live and see what a beautiful woman
she has become, wanting to serve the Lord. The hospital where I had
my cancer surgery, called me about a follow-up one day, and told me
that the other children that were in the hospital the same time as I
was, with the same kind of cancer that I had, did not make it. I was
the only survivor of the group of us that was treated. God placed His
hand on me, and led the doctors to treat me differently from the others...more
radiation in less amount of time. I know He's got a plan for me, and
it's not finished yet. I thank Him for everything He has done for my
family and me. He's given me a good husband, who needs salvation, but
I believe He will lead his heart to Him. Everywhere I go, doctors tell
me I shouldn't be here. I know I'm only here through the grace of God.
I also would like to say, that after my father retired, our church split.
For 6-7 years, I stayed out of church and blamed it on the hurt that
caused the split. After all of those years staying out of church and
not wanting to associate with Christians, I started having full body
tremors. They were just like seizures, only I was alert and knew fully
well what was going on. I didn't have a life for 8 months. Every day,
continuous all day long, one tremor after another hit me.
I started going back to church, which I believe now was a plan that
God had in my life, due to the death of an uncle. He died of cancer,
and never left a testimony behind. At the time of his death, this caused
me such despair, and this is when the tremors started. When I started
going back to church, after a few months, the tremors almost completely
quit. I am now totally involved in my new church, I do the bulletins,
and I love every minute of working for the Lord. I'm a shy person and
don't like to get up in front of people, but the bulletin work has allowed
me a way to praise the Lord without being shy or afraid. I believe that
God was telling me I needed to be back in church and show MY FAMILY
where I stood with God.
I had already felt the hurt of the loss of a loved one from not knowing
whether he was in heaven or not. I promised my family, never again would
they doubt. That I would live my life, totally for the Lord and there
would never be doubts in anyone's mind. I didn't want to cause them
that kind of pain. We don't know what the Lord has planned for us, but
you can be assured, HE KNOWS WHAT'S BEST AND HE KNOWS WHY. We have to
trust in Him and let him lead us where He wants us to go. I thank Him
for allowing me to grow up in a Christian home, for my daughter, and
for my husband. I thank Him for giving me a fairly normal life when
all the odds were against me and everyone said I shouldn't be here.
I've been diabetic for 3 years now, and the Lord has also provided me
with the courage to face this. He also has given me a way to cope with
it, without insulin. The Bible doesn't promise us that bad things or
circumstances won't happen to us, but I believe they happen for a reason...to
glorify Him. I've got so much to be thankful for and I love the Lord
dearly.
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