A Cup Half Full, Even With A Few Lemons

Are you an optimistic person? Do you see the cup as half full, even if someone throws a lemon into it?

I would say I’m fairly optimistic. I like to wake up in the morning and think “Ah, a brand new day to unwrap; wonder what God’s got for me today?” I know that sounds super cheesy, but when you walk with life-threatening illnesses, you can’t help but see your days a bit differently. Though sometimes chemo gets the best of me and I wonder how I’m going to get out of bed :).

Even though I can be fairly optimistic, the one thing I struggle with, is the word “cure”. I’d like to think that on the other side of this leukemia, is a cure. I’d like to think on the other side of my heart failure, is a cure. But neither is certain. What if “cure” isn’t what God deems as best? If not, I am going to be sorely disappointed. And that’s what I think has happened with my heart failure. Not disappointed in God, but disappointed with unmet expectations.

I’ve been walking with heart issues for 39 years (though didn’t find out about them till I was 17). Leukemia, 3 months. Medically speaking, there is a greater chance of me being cured from cancer than heart failure, but again, what if one cell isn’t nipped by the chemo and it comes back? Not that I’m trying to be a pessimist, but I also need to be realistic too. I can play the what-if game until I’m blue in the face, but what it really comes down to is that my circumstances are not for me to control, but how I respond to them, matters.

How I choose to view my circumstances, even when lemons are thrown into a cup half full, can completely change the trajectory of where we are heading. What is our goal on this earth? To be cured? To live a good life? To live a life with no problems? Our number one goal is to MAKE HIS NAME KNOWN TO ALL THE WORLD. The attitude I have, the way I view each day, how I conduct myself, is it worthy of the calling God has given us? I fail time and time again. But everyday, I have a new choice to make. To allow God to change my heart within me or to allow my circumstances to take over me?

In this season of Advent, when you hop out of bed in the morning, what is your goal? How do you see your circumstances? Is your cup half full, even with some lemons floating around in it? Our attitudes matter. They may not change the number of our days, but they sure can change the quality of our life. Choose this day, to rest in the hope that only God can give and proclaim it to those around you. It’ll make the next day even more fun to unwrap. You never know what God has in store for you!