This is a song I wrote several years ago. It is a fictional account of a guy seeing someone he should have been better to and the remorse he feels at letting her get away.

Can I just say, I am so glad it is 2019. Not just because it is a new year…that is usually really cool all by itself…well, actually…yes. I am thankful it is a new year, just for that reason. As you may know, or read from one of my previous posts, 2018…..was not by favorite.

Even as I typed those last few sentences, I have to pause and admit that there was a lot of good that came out of 2018. What?!! It is true. Yes, I was diagnosed with cancer and the tumor was not small. I went through chemotherapy, major abdominal surgery, and 22 radiation sessions. I spent a lot of the year in doctors offices, 28 days in the hospital, and just did not feel good for many days. I would not choose to go through a year like that on purpose. With all of that said, I can say with no reserve that there were good times last year as well.

Someone asked me the other day how I made it through last year with such a good attitude. Well, first off…I am an optimist at heart. God made me that way, and I am very thankful he did. It made it more bearable. But, that isn’t what got me through. What did get me through? I will focus on three things:

First, I have never been more grateful or thankful that I have been over the last year for my family.

• My darling bride is one of the strongest, most wonderful people I know. She took this oversized man up in her arms and she cared for me and loved me and comforted me, even though she was having to face that her husband was very sick. She was my rock last year. She will tell you that she wasn’t strong last year, and she would be wrong. She was strong for me. She kept my eyes pointed in the right direction. She encouraged me countless times. She loved me consistently. She is the best friend in my world. I am so thankful for her and I want to spend the rest of my days reminding her how much I love her and how thankful I am for her.

• My boy has been my bright spot and the joy of my heart during this time. He is one seriously good guy. He has an amazing heart. He takes care of his mama and me and doesn’t blink an eye. He makes us laugh daily. He makes me laugh even when I don’t think I have a laugh left in me. I love spending time just being with him and watching him be himself. I am so proud of this boy and I am so thankful for him. I pray I get to watch him grow into the awesome man he will become for the next 50 years.

• My mom and dad are two of my favorite people in this world. Not only did they put up with me while they raised me, they have never been further than a phone call a way my whole life. When I got sick last year, they dropped everything and were by our side. When I started my chemotherapy treatments my dad drove 200 miles to take me to the hospital to be with me and encourage me. I know that my mom spent countless hours in prayer for me (dad did too) and gave me so much love and encouragement. I cannot express my gratitude enough.

I could go on and on with this category. I haven’t mentioned Marixa’s parents or our God given family, Colt and Mariah…I feel the same about all of them as I do about what I wrote above. God has been so good to me with the family he has given me.

Next, my relationship with God has never been more real. I understand that many reading this may not believe like I do, but I would be remiss if I didn’t say that I am so thankful to God for the love and care he has shown me for all my life and for 2018. From the moment that I got sick till now, I can see His hand on my life. Let me explain.

• I was fired from my last job in 2016. We lived in Oklahoma and had just bought a house about a year before. Within three months of being fired, our family uprooted and moved to Texas. I now have a new job that is so much better. I have good health insurance. I have short term disability insurance. All of these things happened in preparation for 2018. I know where we were. I know where we are now. I can see God’s hand.

• Every time I turned around last year, something was in front of me that was encouraging. Every bible study I read hit me right where I needed it. Every time we went to church it was like the minister was talking straight to me. You may call it coincidence, but it happened too many times…too often…it was too on point and so real. God’s presence was there. I believe it as firmly as I believe anything else in my life.

• Even through the uncertainty and doubt, which I had plenty of…there was an underlying peace that settled over my heart. Sometimes I had to focus really hard to find that peace, but it was there. It never left me. The still small voice was louder than it has ever been in my life.

• I know now more than ever, I am here for a reason. I don’t know all of the details of that reason, but I know that God has a plan for my life. It is a plan to prosper me and not harm me. He is giving me a hope and a future. (See Jeremiah 29:11)

Lastly (for this post, I really could go on for a while), we chose as a family to keep doing things that we could do to make memories. I have some really good memories of last year too:

• Marixa loves to garden and needed a potting bench built. So, 10 days out of a chemotherapy session I marched out to the garage and built her a potting bench…that would also double as a bomb shelter. That was one of the heaviest things that I have ever built. For all of my life I have been able to pick up and move just about anything I want to pick up and move. That doesn’t work so well after chemotherapy. It took all three of us to get that table (not fully constructed) from the garage to the back yard. I had to finish building it in the back yard. I like that memory. Marixa loved the table. Sick or not, that was a win.

• We moved into our house 2 and a half years ago. When we moved in we knew that the house had good bones, but some of the coverings were less than desirable. During 2018 we were able to work on the house to make it work much better for us. Marixa has painted and updated many rooms in the house. We were able replace the flooring in the public spaces of the house (when we moved in there were 5 different kinds of flooring in the house…hodge podge is a good description if you ask me). With Marixa’s amazing touch the house is a place of comfort. Having that space to heal in has been amazing and I am crazy thankful. God is good.

• We were able to take a family vacation in August of last year. This was in between all the craziness, but we were able to get away and spend time as a family. We got to see some of God’s beautiful creation in the Caribbean and we ate too much. With uncertainty of the future hanging in the air, having the opportunity to get away and breathe was amazing.

Like I said before, I could go on for a while. There are so many things from 2018 that I am thankful for. That is the point I am trying to make though. We have no guarantee that this life is going to be easy. We cannot control all of the things that happen to us. However, we can control the way we face it by the choices we make. I choose to look for the blessings in my life. When I look for them I find them. I choose to value the ones I love and show them every day. As far as I know right now, the cancer is gone. However, I don’t know the future. I will choose to face it with optimism, thankfulness and gratitude. Through that lens, I can certainly see the bright spots in a dark year.

The Butterfly Effect and Me

Can one mundane decision change your life? Many of us would like to think that the little decisions we make are just that…little…insignificant…you know, mundane. At one point I may have agreed with you. Not now. Why you ask? The butterfly effect.

What is the butterfly effect? Aside from being an Ashton Kutcher movie, it is also a scientific theory that the beat of a butterflies wings on one side of the world can cause a chain of events that causes a hurricane on the other side of the world. I’m not a scientist, so check out Wikipedia for that story, but what I do know is small things (or choices) can cause big results.

I could catalogue many different little things that have turned out to be big, but I will offer these two:

1. It was the spring of 1998. I was a sophomore in college and in serious need of community. I had moved a couple of hundred miles away from home to follow my dream of being an opera singer…ok, that wasn’t my dream, but I was a vocal major for a couple of years and opera may have been involved…and I didn’t have a lot of friends. So, I started attending the Baptist Student Union on campus. It was full of cool people and I really enjoyed drinking soda and playing ping pong.

One of the guys that I met there, Matt, was a student at the university and also the college pastor at a local church. He invited me and anyone else interested to come with him to Bible study at the church…more free food was involved, so naturally I was in. I enjoyed being around Matt. He was funny and a good dude. So, as I had the chance I tried to get more involved.

On April 1st of 1998, a fool of a day, I went out to meet Matt at the church. While we were walking in, a very pretty blonde haired lady was walking out. Matt introduced us and we went on about our days. I had no idea that I had just met my future wife…who I have been married to for over 20 awesome years.

Going out to the church was not a mission to meet girls. It was just a simple decision that led me to the most wonderful friendship I have ever know. Who knew that free food and ping pong could lead to so much good?

2. When my bride, Marixa, and I got married we were very much in love. It is a good thing too, because we barely had two pennies to rub together. So, we had a small apartment and both got jobs to pay the bills. I became a music/youth leader at a church and Marixa went to work at a beauty salon. (That is what they call places where they do nails, hair, massages and all that stuff right?)

Marixa did her best to fit in and soon became friends with one of the ladies at the salon. We were soon hanging out with her friend from work and the friend’s fiancé, J. We really enjoyed their company and were friends for a quite a while.

A few years passed and I was no longer working in churches and was in a job that I, quite frankly, hated. The office I worked in had more cigar smoke in it that a biker bar. The owner of the business smoked 4-6 stogies a day…10 feet from my desk. I was an “office manager” which basically meant a glorified step-and fetch. No bueno.

On day, J called me and asked me to send my resume. He was working for a really good company and they needed an entry level person. At that point, I didn’t care what I needed to learn…it sounded awesome and I wanted the job. I mean, they got to go to work and have fresh air?!! Soon after I was in an interview, and then hired into an entry level job, and then promoted, and then, and then…that was almost 12 years ago.

Marixa taking a job at a beauty salon and befriending cool people has led me to a career I love, doing a job I would t have known how to describe back in the day. (As a side note, I did not finish the music degree and my twenty year old singing self would be disgusted with my 40 year old data manager self…oh well!) I can’t even imagine where we would be without the events I described above taking place.

These things seemed mundane at the time. They were small day to day things that have led us down an amazing path. Like I said at the beginning of this post, I can name several other things that have been equally as impactful, for either me or those very close to me.

I can’t even begin to describe how crazy thankful I am for these small things. Interestingly enough, both of the people that helped initiate these changes in my life have been out of my life for quite some time. In both cases, life took us all different ways. I am thankful for the time I spent with them and the positive influence they had on my life, whether they realized they did at the time.

Have you had a similar experience? Finding those amazing small things in your life brings into focus how important it is to live in the present every day. I pray I have been a help to others the same way these to awesome people were to me.

I have a confession to make…I am broken. Not completely, but there are days that sure feel that way. Why am I broken? Let me explain.

On January 11th of 2018 I ended up in the Emergency Room with severe back pain. I didn’t know what was wrong, but I did know that I hurt worse than I had ever hurt in my life. The pain was unbearable. What was causing it? I had a 12 cm tumor that had wrapped around the tube between my left kidney and my bladder. In short, my left kidney was not able to drain. Ouch.

I remember when the ER doctor walked in. His face was somber. He told me the news. I took the news without much reaction. I have had cancer once before in my life…the same kind of cancer…so, I guess I had an idea of what to expect. They got my immediate needs taken care of at the ER and referred me to an oncologist for further evaluation.

It took about a month to get in with the oncologist. In that time the blood tests/tumor markers more than doubled in severity. I wasn’t just sick, I was very sick. My oncologist didn’t tell me at the time, but he was uncertain how treatable this cancer would be. (I am glad he didn’t tell me any more than I needed to know!)

Between February of 2018 and April of 2018 I was in the hospital for 24 days for chemotherapy. My body that had always (most always) been robust and strong was being stripped of strength and vitality. During my fourth round of chemotherapy I did not eat at all. I was having such an extreme reaction, I decided to go on a liquid diet. By the time chemotherapy was complete I had lost 27 pounds.

After my chemotherapy treatments were complete, I had to heal up for 6 weeks before I could have the remainder of my tumor removed. In the first part of June 2018 I checked into the hospital to have all of the lymph nodes in my abdomen, including the tumor, (and possibly my left kidney) removed. The surgery went as planned and I now had a huge scar from my sternum to my waist to remind me that I am alive and I should be thankful.

One of the things that came out of my initial diagnosis and chemotherapy treatment plan was some spots in my lower spine where the cancer had gotten into the bone. Chemotherapy can work on cancer that has gotten into the bone, but as the bone is not vascular (no blood flow) the chemo can’t get into it like it can the rest of the body. For this reason, I knew that radiation was going to be part of my treatment plan. So, at the end of July, after a lot more healing up and starting to feel somewhat normal), I went in for a PET scan so they could baseline my radiation treatments and determine what needed to be done. The results of the PET scan were…alarming.

As I said before, the tumor I had was in between my left kidney and my bladder. When I went in for my scan, it was supposed to show that the spot on my spine was healing and that there was no further activity. As you can tell from the work alarming in the last paragraph, the scan was anything but normal. I now had four 3 inch spots in my lungs. I had a massive spot on my thyroid. I had random spots throughout my abdomen. From all appearances, the cancer had metastasized and I was in a lot of trouble. They sent me in for a biopsy. Now, I had to wait for the results.

Now, there were a few things that I clung to during trying time. One, I had a blood test a week before that PET scan. My blood showed that the cancer was not there. Two, the thoracic surgeon that did my biopsy made an off comment to me during my consultation with him. He was looking through the PET scans with me and says, “You realize, there are other things this could be aside from cancer…” Um, yes…I realized that there could be…but, would it be something else? Could it be? Hope started to rise.

My oncologist called me a couple of days after the biopsy procedure was done. I answered the phone in a solemn voice. The nurse told me to cheer up, because they didn’t always call with bad news. “They have run every cancer test we know of on the samples,” my oncologist told me. “They can’t find cancer. I am 98% sure this isn’t cancer.” I started crying right there on the phone. So, what is it? It took a few more weeks for them to come back with a definitive answer: sarcoidosis. Basically, it is an inflammatory disease that affects many different organs, but primarily the lungs and the lymph nodes. Short answer? Not cancer. Can be treated. It is more medicine that I have to take and it is not something to be taken lightly, but it is treatable.

After many bouts with my insurance company, which will remain nameless…., I was finally approved for and went through my radiation treatments. I had a scan just before they started and the spot in my spine is still there…even a bit bigger, but it appears to be healing. The radiation was administered to “mop up” any of the cancer cells in the bone that could have remained.

The problem that I am facing now? My body is tired after a year of surviving. I am in worse shape than I have probably ever been in. As I mentioned in my last post, I am pursuing Yoga for it’s low impact approach. Because of the sarcoidosis medicine that I have to take, I don’t heal as quickly as I would like. I ache all over my body in different ways. It is tough…or is it? I am still here. I may not be as fast or as strong as I once was, but I will rise again. In my mind, there is no other way.

I would never wish the last year that I have had on anyone. There has been more pain, more uncertainty, more tears, more fear than I have ever wanted to deal with. How have I gotten through?

• One, I believe that God loves me and has a plan for my life. That gives me hope. I firmly believe that He is watching over me and that He is my protective shade. (See Psalms 121:5-7)

• Two, I am married to the most wonderful person I know. She is my best friend and partner through it all. She has taken our wedding vows to the extreme and walked with me through the good and the bad. I am so in love with her and want so desperately to grow old by her side.

• Three, I have the best son I could have ever asked for. He is my pride and joy. He is so helpful and brings so much light to my life. Can’t even begin to express how much I love that boy.

• Four, I have the most wonderful/supportive family and friends that I could ask for. The love, support, prayers, tears, everything has been so awesome.

How do I deal with a repairing body? The same way I got through this last year. One day at a time, being thankful every step of the way. Facing the uncertainty knowing that I have purpose and daily pushing toward it.