No Fear of the Future

Many of you have been telling me you are enjoying my blogs, and I am trying to keep them entertaining, as much as you can with cancer and oncology.  I did however, say that some would be serious.  This is one of them….

Since being diagnosed with Breast Cancer I have watched friends and family panic, and try to reassure me and themselves that everything will be alright.  I have felt very peaceful through it all.  People can’t understand why I am not in a state.  I have the support and love of family and friends and even good wishes from many friends of family and friends.  It has been amazing, but, at the centre of it all is the overwhelming calm and assurance that I will be ok.

When I was eight, my brother who was thirteen and I went to Scarborough beach for the day, I remember it well even though I was only young.  It was the day I nearly died.  Apparently, my brother who turned out never to be good with money, hadn’t kept enough for our bus ride home, so we hitchhiked.  I remember a gentleman in a big car dropping us off at the Library in Osborne Park near our house.   This was in the olden days when it was reasonably safe to take rides with strangers.  Perth was still untouched by big city crimes like murders, so that isn’t how I nearly died. While we were at the beach, is when I nearly came to a watery end.  I spent 2 shillings and hired an inflatable body board and headed out to sea. I could swim well so thought I would join the surfers some 100 feet from shore.  They told me to ‘P off little girl’, so I was P’ing off when it happened.  Half way back a twenty foot wall of water decided to break right on top of me. I remember every second fifty odd years later, being tumbled over and over, the sand, the foam and the loud noise of the crashing wave, and the feeling of panic as my lungs longed for air. It seemed like an eternity  went by, then things went suddenly quiet, I stopped struggling.  My only awareness was that of  overwhelming peace and calm as I gazed up at bubbles and sun shining through the water. Next thing I knew I was above the water spluttering and coughing on the end of a man’s strong arm.  He was nearly as annoyed as the surfers had been.  He had been watching me coming in on my body board and was wondering what hell a little kid like that was doing way out there.  I know there is no such thing as coincidence, the man was there at the right place at the right time.  It wasn’t time for me to go.

Years later when I was drowning again, my marriage was in shatters, we were in a financial mess, my life was a mess.  God sent a man to rescue me again, his name was Jesus.  When I gave my life to him, everything changed, every aspect of my life was affected for the better by that decision.  So now when I am facing treatment for maybe months ahead because of my breast cancer diagnosis I know I can do it with that same quiet and peace that overwhelmed me at the beach.  See I don’t know the name of the man who rescued me, but I know who sent him, and while I still have a purpose to fulfil in my life, I am confident that I will be around to fulfil it.  Becoming a Christian isn’t expecting life to be all sunshine, and doesn’t exempt you from hard times.  It just means you won’t be going through the hard times alone.  Psalm 23 which most people even if they don’t go to Church know, says ‘as I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil’  we may experience times when we go through the valley, and even have a close call with death, but the next bit says, ‘I will fear no evil, thats because God is with me’  and if he has stuff for me to do, then I won’t be going anywhere yet.