All Because I Ate A Drumstick

Since being diagnosed with cancer, I’ll admit it’s been a very confusing time for me. I thought there was a lot to learn within the realm of heart failure, but cancer has taken that road of unknowns to a whole new level. So many unfamiliar terms, so many different types, and so many different thoughts.

Since being diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia with the sub-type inversion 16, I am still learning so much about it and what it means for me. What I do know is that I am in remission, but I do have abnormal cells that seem to be multiplying, that we just pray do not turn into this cancer again.

One thing I have learned is that sugar feeds cancer. I guess I knew that in my mind, but it didn’t become real to me until I was actually diagnosed with cancer myself. But as my oncologist keeps reminding me, there is not one specific thing that I can do to prevent this from coming back, but just to keep doing what I’m doing and just wait. But I also believe in a God who can heal me and protect me from this. Well, one thing I have tried to do is cut out some sugar. Notice I didn’t say all because I need to do it slowly, otherwise it won’t “stick”. And then one day I had an ice cream drumstick.

I woke up one morning at 4:00am, thinking about that measly ice cream drumstick I had by the pool. The enemy was weaseling his way into my head in the wee hours of the morning, telling me that because I had that one drumstick, that I’d have AML again.

If I started to obsess over trying to prevent this cancer from coming back, I would fear. If I feared, I would doubt what God was doing. If I doubted, I would question who God was. And if I questioned who God said he was and his sovereignty, I would obsess about something else and the cycle would start all over again.

If we fear and obsess over something, we end up experiencing those problems over and over again, by reliving them in our minds. When we relive them and worry about what’s to come, we are already writing what we think will happen and not allowing our circumstances to rest in God’s presence and arms.

I ate an ice cream drumstick. I was overcome with fear that it would be the reason I’d get cancer again. Guy, the enemy likes to get us in the dark of night, doesn’t he? But that is NOT how God wants me to be living. Even amidst our trials, He desires for us to live in complete peace so that he can transform our doubts and obsessive fears into a trust in him, that he is ultimately in control. And transform our dark moments into light.

While I am trying to do my best to be healthy, I know I can only do so much in a world where sin has crept into every crevasse. I can obsess about what I eat and do “all the things”, but God’s will, will always triumph. Thankfully God’s grace covers more than we could ever imagine and often we don’t realize what he’s protecting us from. So instead of obsessing over a drumstick, I want to just do the best I can, praising God for his grace, praying he will protect me once again from this cancer, but no matter what he allows, that I will strive to make his name known through it all.