Saturday, December 31, 2011
Down the Rabbit Hole: Back Packing in the Wilderness:
Down the Rabbit Hole: Back Packing in the Wilderness:: I spoke with a dear friend today whose backpack has been loaded with the supplies she is going to need for the next year. It’s heavy, cumb...
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Down the Rabbit Hole: THe Voyage of Life
Down the Rabbit Hole: THe Voyage of Life: Thanks everyone for your encouragment. As I lay here in bed and think of all the friends I have and how happy I am. I am content where my l...
Friday, December 2, 2011
My Christmas Letter
December 2, 2011
Hello,
How does one start a Christmas letter off when so much has happened? It has been a very bumpy road for me in the last year. Every year I buy a Christmas decoration to help inspire me for the next year and to represent the year. Last year it was the Little Engine That Could. Like the story goes a little engine needs to get the toys over a large mountain for all the children on Christmas morning. Although he is small and the mountain tall he tries and with the encouragement of all the toys he makes it. July 2010 I started working as a Nursing Assistant at Dimondale Nursing Care Center and believed that although it was not were I wanted to be it was were God had planted me to be and I need to bloom where I was planted. However the good that came from that job was great. They saw my talents and began to train me in the HR dept., front office, supplies, medical records, and scheduling. I was told that perhaps in time I could move up to something more full time if the facility had more residents. January slipped by and soon March had arrived. I had the best birthday ever the cake was to die for and steak. mmmmm. That was the 15th, it was only 13 days latter that my whole world would be turned upside down. I found a small jellybean size lump under my left armpit. Before my doctor appointment a week latter it had grown to the size of a large marble. April 26 I had a biopsy and was told I had cancer. Believe me that was the farthest thing in my mind. April 29 it was confirmed that I had Breast cancer and it had spread from my breast to my lymph nodes. I had to have an MRI of the breasts to see if it had spread to the right breast. The good news it had not and was a spot in my left breast that needed to be biopsies. On May 20th I had a MRI needle biopsy and on Tuesday 24 was scheduled for surgery May 27. I was going to have a lumpectomy and a few lymph nodes removed. However again things turned downwards when I discovered the day before my surgery that there were several lumps in my left breast and several lymph nodes involved. I chose then to have a left breast mastectomy and my lymph nodes removed, also a chemotherapy port placed in my right breast area. From April to the end of May work was great and everyone I worked with was so supportive. The one thing that came back to me time and time again was how strong I was, how calm, and organized I was as well. It was easy to share that it was not me that should be given the credit but God above. In those 8 weeks, which seemed like more he had given me peace. My surgery was successful and was home on Saturday. I barely was home when a tornado warning was issued and I had to race to the basement. UGH!!!! The power was out for a few days and I was home again. On June 1st found me in the ER with a high fever and my white blood count almost tripled. I was in the cardiac unit for 3 days with a grand stay at Ingham Medical Center of 4 days. Although they were sure the infection was not from the surgery site, they thought it may have been either a bladder infection or bowl. I responded well to antibiotics and was glad to be home. In a few weeks after more testing I was told that I had stage 4 cancer, grade 3 it had spread to my lymph nodes in my groin, 2 spots in my spine, and my left chest wall area. That had to of been one of my darkest moments. I cried to God to remove this cup from me, I had friends and family pray for me and was even anointed with oil. I had a bone scan done and for the first time in months I had good news the cancer had not spread to my spine and after more test the groin lymph node was just an infection and perhaps the reason of the hospital stay as well. I was down graded to stage 3b grade 3. That is when I made some very difficult chooses. I wanted to fight this cancer with all my might and give it 100%. To do this I sold my car, paid off my debts, and applied for Social Security Disability. I am now 24 weeks in to my chemotherapy and the medical staff are all amazed at how well I am doing and look. The support I have received from St. Matthew, The Fringe, Friends, Family, and the people in Mason has been wonderful. Although I have a more than a year to go, I know that through all of this Gods glory with be seen.
I don’t know what my future holds for me if after this treatment I will be cancer free or not. My hesitation does not reflect the faith I have in God because with him all things are possible. I know he can heal me, however I don’t know what he has for me. Perhaps that is were real faith lies. Not knowing but believing that He will not give me more than I can handle and perhaps not knowing gives me a better incentive to truly live my life out loud and full. To give a lot, Laugh often, and love with out fear. That is the new future that he has given me. I wish that for everyone who reads this will do the same.
God Bless
Lynne Lindsay
Isaiah 55:8-9
Roman 8: 38-39
Psalms 139: 23-24
Hello,
How does one start a Christmas letter off when so much has happened? It has been a very bumpy road for me in the last year. Every year I buy a Christmas decoration to help inspire me for the next year and to represent the year. Last year it was the Little Engine That Could. Like the story goes a little engine needs to get the toys over a large mountain for all the children on Christmas morning. Although he is small and the mountain tall he tries and with the encouragement of all the toys he makes it. July 2010 I started working as a Nursing Assistant at Dimondale Nursing Care Center and believed that although it was not were I wanted to be it was were God had planted me to be and I need to bloom where I was planted. However the good that came from that job was great. They saw my talents and began to train me in the HR dept., front office, supplies, medical records, and scheduling. I was told that perhaps in time I could move up to something more full time if the facility had more residents. January slipped by and soon March had arrived. I had the best birthday ever the cake was to die for and steak. mmmmm. That was the 15th, it was only 13 days latter that my whole world would be turned upside down. I found a small jellybean size lump under my left armpit. Before my doctor appointment a week latter it had grown to the size of a large marble. April 26 I had a biopsy and was told I had cancer. Believe me that was the farthest thing in my mind. April 29 it was confirmed that I had Breast cancer and it had spread from my breast to my lymph nodes. I had to have an MRI of the breasts to see if it had spread to the right breast. The good news it had not and was a spot in my left breast that needed to be biopsies. On May 20th I had a MRI needle biopsy and on Tuesday 24 was scheduled for surgery May 27. I was going to have a lumpectomy and a few lymph nodes removed. However again things turned downwards when I discovered the day before my surgery that there were several lumps in my left breast and several lymph nodes involved. I chose then to have a left breast mastectomy and my lymph nodes removed, also a chemotherapy port placed in my right breast area. From April to the end of May work was great and everyone I worked with was so supportive. The one thing that came back to me time and time again was how strong I was, how calm, and organized I was as well. It was easy to share that it was not me that should be given the credit but God above. In those 8 weeks, which seemed like more he had given me peace. My surgery was successful and was home on Saturday. I barely was home when a tornado warning was issued and I had to race to the basement. UGH!!!! The power was out for a few days and I was home again. On June 1st found me in the ER with a high fever and my white blood count almost tripled. I was in the cardiac unit for 3 days with a grand stay at Ingham Medical Center of 4 days. Although they were sure the infection was not from the surgery site, they thought it may have been either a bladder infection or bowl. I responded well to antibiotics and was glad to be home. In a few weeks after more testing I was told that I had stage 4 cancer, grade 3 it had spread to my lymph nodes in my groin, 2 spots in my spine, and my left chest wall area. That had to of been one of my darkest moments. I cried to God to remove this cup from me, I had friends and family pray for me and was even anointed with oil. I had a bone scan done and for the first time in months I had good news the cancer had not spread to my spine and after more test the groin lymph node was just an infection and perhaps the reason of the hospital stay as well. I was down graded to stage 3b grade 3. That is when I made some very difficult chooses. I wanted to fight this cancer with all my might and give it 100%. To do this I sold my car, paid off my debts, and applied for Social Security Disability. I am now 24 weeks in to my chemotherapy and the medical staff are all amazed at how well I am doing and look. The support I have received from St. Matthew, The Fringe, Friends, Family, and the people in Mason has been wonderful. Although I have a more than a year to go, I know that through all of this Gods glory with be seen.
I don’t know what my future holds for me if after this treatment I will be cancer free or not. My hesitation does not reflect the faith I have in God because with him all things are possible. I know he can heal me, however I don’t know what he has for me. Perhaps that is were real faith lies. Not knowing but believing that He will not give me more than I can handle and perhaps not knowing gives me a better incentive to truly live my life out loud and full. To give a lot, Laugh often, and love with out fear. That is the new future that he has given me. I wish that for everyone who reads this will do the same.
God Bless
Lynne Lindsay
Isaiah 55:8-9
Roman 8: 38-39
Psalms 139: 23-24
Monday, September 19, 2011
Down the Rabbit Hole: Beatles Going Forward But Going Back.
Down the Rabbit Hole: Beatles Going Forward But Going Back.: It is so very frustrating on this journey that I have encompassed on. The guild that has been leading me seems not to know what my goal is....
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Down the Rabbit Hole: The Mirror
Down the Rabbit Hole: The Mirror: It is hard to believe that it has been four months from when cancer issued from my doctors mouth and was rammed into my ear, where is force...
Monday, August 15, 2011
Down the Rabbit Hole: The Boat
Down the Rabbit Hole: The Boat: "The lake looked peaceful enough and a older man was going to let me barrow his Dingy to take it to the other side to meet up with my friend..."
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Down the Rabbit Hole: THE GAME
Down the Rabbit Hole: THE GAME: "I had been traveling down the path and somehow was separated from my new friends. When I happened upon a meadow, as I began to cross it the..."
Saturday, July 9, 2011
The Loss
The Loss
Matthew 2:18 NKJV
"A voice was heard in Ramah, Lamentations, weeping and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted,because they are no more.
In 1987 God and I began our clean up my heart that I had given to him completely. The dead carcasses of my old life laid about the yard of my heart. Although I had covered them with a thin layer of dirt to keep them out of site of others yet from time to time I would venture to those corners of my life and uncover them as a sick ritual to punish myself for the wrong I had done.
You must let it go he said, give it to me and I will make it right.
One of those carcasses was laid in January of 1985, I found out I was pregnant, yet this time I could not terminate it as I had planned, something inside me couldn’t do it and I chose to continue this pregnancy. Telling my parents was hard but they reacted with support and love. Then March 23, I my tube ruptured and the child I was carrying was gone. Ripped from me and was no more. When the nurse told me the news I cried out and weep and refused to be comforted. Friends come by and gave me words of comfort, and said I would get over this and forget it. How could I forget this, I have a scar that goes from my groin to my belly button. Every time I dress, or use the restroom this is my reminder of what took place. God had taken my child that I love and had left me alive to live with the consent memory of my short falls. He was a God of vengeance like the Old Testament showed and he was attacking me like a Greek god would do.
Those emotions were so raw and real and He wanted me to go back and revisit this. Why? That is what I want to share with you.
I found a kitten, she was only a few days old, and had been attached by a male cat. It had bit her on the neck area. 4 puncture wounds. Not that big, in time it abscessed and beneath the surface grew. When I took her to the vet he had to cut open the healing wound which showed underneath infection. It had grown so large that it could have killed her.
That was how my loss was to my spiritual life. It lay there and festered until in permeated so much of me. He had to lance it and bring the infection to the surface for it to be eliminated forever.
I was reading scripture and memorizing it, or trying to. When some verses seemed to help me with this process of healing.
Proverbs 3:5 &6, Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on to your own understandings, in all ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct thy path." Galatians 2:20, I have be crucified with Christ no longer I live but Christ that lives in me. The life I live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."
I first had to trust him, have faith in him and let him begin the healing processes, but I had to be honest with him as well. Let him know how I was feeling and had felt.
Question: "God, you don’t know what I am going through, I had a child in me and it was ripped from me and died. You don’t know what it is like to loose a child you love and want.
His replyI had to had a child that I loved so much and I gave him to a people who hated him, spit on him, and killed him. I gave him to you and you also turned your back on him. Isaiah 53: 1-12.
He did know how I felt, he knew or I should say knows how I felt when my child was taken from me. For one of the first times I felt like he knew me, he was less of a Greek god up on Mount Olympus playing game but a personal God who love me.
QuestionWhy did you let this happen to me, if you are a God of love why did you allow this to take place?
His replyYou live in a sinful world where there are consequences to your actions. It is like running a red light. Person A may run the light and get through it, Person B may run the same light and get a ticket, Person C may run it and get hit by another car and have minor damage and a ticket, and last Person D may run the light get hit and die. Each person did the same thing and the consequences were different. You chose to have sex, consequence to sex is to get pregnant. I chose an IUD and consequence was an etopic pregnancy. For every action there is a positive or negative reaction.
Question:But it was such a hard and unbearable consequence for me to carry.
His Reply:I Corinthians 10: 13 "No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will to allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it."
When I thought about this it was like a V8 moment. That even though this thing had taken place in my life, he trusted me and knew I could bear it. He trusted me. I could look back and remember people saying how well I held up under that loss, that others would not of bore it well. As I thought of that I also thought of that verse. He was there with me and I did not know it.
I recently was talking to my mother about that day, and told her I remembered her at the door talking with the doctors, and that I knew how hard it was on my father, and where was he as I did not remember him being there. She said he was by my side holding my hand and never left it. He was consistently telling me he loved me and he would always be there for me. That there was nothing I could do to stop him from loving me. I didn’t remember that, it was the same thing with God, he was always there for me even if I am aware of it or not he is always there.
Question:If everyone has a purpose in life what was the purpose of my child’s life? It was taken before it could really live.
His Reply:Turn the needlepoint you are working on over and look at the design on the backside. Can you tell what it is? No it is not clear to you at this time, because it is a work in progress and I am only privy to that at this time. Proverbs 3:5 & 6, You must trust me, and not lean on what you think you know. Some things can’t be revealed. Like a child who is young you tell them not to touch the stove for they may get burned. However to explain the details of why is beyond a 2 year old to understand. That is where Faith comes into play and to see my character. Matthew 7: 9-11. Even a evil father will give good gifts to his children, how much more will I take care of you.
I was humbled by his reply to me, for he was correct he was God and in this matter I must trust him, I may not understand now or ever why this had taken place but God loves me and he would never leave me or allow me to bear something I could not handle. He trusted me and that alone comforted me. He also knew what it was like to loose a child, as he gave us his only son. How that must have ripped at him, to be away from someone he love so much. Like the needlepoint I look at the bottom and the picture is unclear however one day all will be revealed to me and if that is not I can say, "It is well with my soul".
Friday, July 1, 2011
THE POTTER
Tired and weak I am pick up from the ground and cradled in the arms of the Potters assistant. She whispers soft calming words in my ears as she takes me to the Potters Barn. For a moment it appeared dusty and a strong smell of sweet earth permeated the air. I am greeted instantly by the Potter whose voice is smooth and gentle. He tells me how special I am and although I am chipped, cracked, and damaged he can repair me, however not by a patch job but by breaking me and reshaping me into the vessel I was meant to be. Although this is not what I had wanted to be broken into pieces and softened into moldable clay, I tell him that my life is his do with me as you see fit.
I feel this is where I am at in my life, God in his wisdom is taking me down this road to strip me from everything and to reshape me into a vessel he can use.
Before this cancer was found I was driving home from work feeling quite happy and secure with my future and how everything was turning out for me. Then I started singing praises to God and I heard a voice ask me, "Would you still praise me if everything was taken away?" I was silent for a bit and took a breath and answered God back, "I don’t know what I would do, however I do know that you will be with me and with you all things are possible. So if you see fit to take all this away I will trust you and count on you to be there for me. It was a few weeks latter that I found the lump. In the last 4 months I have no job, sold my car, I am fighting cancer, and with Chemotherapy my health will be compromised. However I can truly say, "IT IS WELL WITH MY SOUL." My life is in His hands and where he wants to lead me I will go. I can’t say that I will always do as he bids me, but that is what is so wonderful about my God is he knows that. He knows we can’t do it on our own we are going to fail. Yet he wants us to come to realize that we are weak, we need help, and we can’t do it on our own. So I close my eyes and lean into him to hold me through this and comfort me for the rest of my life. Praise be to God his mercies endures forever.
I feel this is where I am at in my life, God in his wisdom is taking me down this road to strip me from everything and to reshape me into a vessel he can use.
Before this cancer was found I was driving home from work feeling quite happy and secure with my future and how everything was turning out for me. Then I started singing praises to God and I heard a voice ask me, "Would you still praise me if everything was taken away?" I was silent for a bit and took a breath and answered God back, "I don’t know what I would do, however I do know that you will be with me and with you all things are possible. So if you see fit to take all this away I will trust you and count on you to be there for me. It was a few weeks latter that I found the lump. In the last 4 months I have no job, sold my car, I am fighting cancer, and with Chemotherapy my health will be compromised. However I can truly say, "IT IS WELL WITH MY SOUL." My life is in His hands and where he wants to lead me I will go. I can’t say that I will always do as he bids me, but that is what is so wonderful about my God is he knows that. He knows we can’t do it on our own we are going to fail. Yet he wants us to come to realize that we are weak, we need help, and we can’t do it on our own. So I close my eyes and lean into him to hold me through this and comfort me for the rest of my life. Praise be to God his mercies endures forever.
Friday, May 20, 2011
Down the Rabbit Hole: The Bogs
Down the Rabbit Hole: The Bogs: "Not quite sure how to describe the land I have found myself in now or even how I get here but it seems the land is full of these mud like q..."
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Down the Rabbit Hole: Falling down the rabbit hole
Down the Rabbit Hole: Falling down the rabbit hole: "It was a normal morning, I woke up and took a shower and decided to check out the ladies. When I felt under my left arm pit and felt a lump...."
Down the Rabbit Hole: White Rabbit
Down the Rabbit Hole: White Rabbit: "The appointment was set for 3:45 p.m. at the Health Department for a pap’s smear and breast examination. Checking in took for ever as they ..."
Down the Rabbit Hole: Madd Hatter
Down the Rabbit Hole: Madd Hatter: "Mad Hatter In the movie, 'The Blind Side' open up with one Mississippi, two Mississippi, and goes on describing a hit from a defensive line..."
Down the Rabbit Hole: The Mountain
Down the Rabbit Hole: The Mountain: "The fog is clearing and I can see the top of the mountain, rugged, steep, and dangerous. Today staring up at the mountain before me unnervi..."
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Falling down the rabbit hole
It was a normal morning, I woke up and took a shower and decided to check out the ladies. When I felt under my left arm pit and felt a lump. I got dressed and as I left the apt I fell into a rabbit hole and down I went. I have emerged into a place that defies reason and common sense. This is my adventure and someone other than my mom wanted me to write about it. So welcome to Wonderland
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