Processing the News

It has been a week since my life changed forever. Having surgery was a major undertaking in and of itself. But in the days following, my world quickly begun to spiral seemingly out of control. I found out that they took out my appendix (by the way...what purpose does this clearly disposable organ serve?) Then i found out that I have been given a couple of years to have a family and then they are going to do a hysterectomy. Seeing as I have been wrestling with the fact that I do not really want to give birth to my own children...this was not that hard to take...well..loosing my girly parts were hard....but then the shocker came. When they took out my cyst and right ovary and tube, they discovered that it was tumor. They sent it for testing and found that it is cancerous. Luckily it is Stage 1, which means that it is the earliest that it could of been caught. After that, I was informed that I am going to need to go through a round of chemo just to ensure that it is all gone. That is a little scary and something that I am struggling with. It is scary to have chemicals and stuff entered into your veins that are so strong that they are going to make my sick adn loose my hair. This may be vanity...but I love my hair!!!! It is one of my favorite things about myself. Going bald is going to be something that I am going to have to get used too.....and what it is going to return as is scary too........
Anyway..........
Honestly, the hardest part for me is being alone. I am surrounded my friends and family and have lots of support, some coming from places I never expected. I am greatful for the people in my life and am trying to accept the way that they are showing there love to me. Everyone loves diffrently. Everyone shows there the only way they can. And what I have been discovering over time is that the problem that most have is two fold. Love has expectations. The person giving and the person receiving expect something from their "transaction" (not to reduce love to a gas station purchase....but stay with me). The thing that I have been learning is that the people who love me the most have a need to let me know. They are struggling with the information as much as I am. They are trying to wrap their brains around what their lives are going to be like and try to understand what their rolls need to be/can be to me during this. The beat example that I have of this is the relationship that I have with my mom. I know that she loves me...she's mom.....but I have struggled over the past few years trying to connect with her on the level of the woman that I have become during my years away from her at college and beyond. Both mom and dad are amazing, but as with most of us, there are things about them that drive me crazy.
But God has given me a chance to see them completely differently over the past month of so...especially in this last week.
so in short here is what I have learned......
I cannot change the way that someone loves me. I cannot necessarily look at Bubba and say....."I need you to love me this way.." (please note that I believe there are times when this is called for......but this is not one of those times)
Me.....the one who needs love and acceptance in EVERY WAY right now......I need to be able to look at Bubba and say....."thank you for loving me". No matter what it looks like. No matter if it is exactly what my heart is longing for or expecting. I have to trust that God is using Bubba, Frank, June, and Shelia to love me the way the HE needs me to be loved.

TO get extremely personal with you......the root of my loneliness is in the fact that I am about to be 25, am facing cancer, and i am single. God has never given me the chance to experience love in a relationship like that. That is something that I long for. Facing this alone, in my mind, is absolutely terrifying. So at the core of this love journey is God. God is calling me to a place of trusting HIM and Him alone during this time. I need to allow God to love me, comfort me, cherish me, sing over me, support me, and simply be there for me like never before. He needs to be the husband to the husband less.
If I learn nothing else from this, I pray that this is the thing that I can take away.......a chance to experience an intimate God in an intimate way.