Tuesday's Internet Edition, September 30, 2008.
By Betsy Monico
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| WINNING A BOOK and plush toy from the Freestone County Law Enforcement Agency is Breanna Pilgreen of Fairfield. |
She is a beautiful woman fully engaged in the fight to kick breast cancer in the YOU KNOW WHAT!
I just so happened to join and start going the same week that she was loosing her hair and began wearing caps. (Do not ever second guess the divine appointments that the Lord has for as you go about your daily business because I think Janice was just that for me.)
She is nearly finished with her chemotherapy, continues to work, and has the sweetest smile you have ever seen. Luckily too, she is surrounded by David, Lisa, and the rest of her work family there at Lott's.
Janice has had to fight to live, but her fight has drawn everyone around her closer to where they should be, seeking God, and giving thanks for good health.
Janice mentioned one of her drugs a few days ago called "red devil" and it took me right back to the third floor at Baylor in a split second.
I could taste the drug, feel it make me weak, and I literally just could have thrown up! Just the thought of more "red devil" in my veins stopped me in my tracks of having a normal, take life for granted day.
I also thought it was comical that one of my kids asked "Why does Miss Janice not have any hair?"
Oh, how quickly we all forget that not too long ago Mom was in the same situation. Janice has blessed us all.
Do I think of cancer often? No, not really my cancer, but I do think of others with it and I pray for their strength.
Cancer also crossed my path this week because of a young lady who won an essay contest in Glamour magazine named Andrea Coller.
She was a 27 year old hairstylist, singer, and songwriter. I read her essay and we did not have anything in common, but that we both had been diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma.
Her cancer returned for the third time and she died. Wow!
Talk about hitting me right in the gut with a forceful blow. We all like the happy endings and hers was just not that case.
Hodgkin's is one of the "good" kinds of cancer to have and the cure rate is higher than most, but it is still a cure rate.
I think I felt sad for her because in all of her writing, there was nothing about a relationship with Jesus Christ.
Maybe there was, we never know for sure, but she shared nothing of her faith.
Much closer to home, Margaret Kear, a 1994 Fairfield graduate, passed away last month here in Fairfield after a very short fight with cancer.
She was only 32 years old. I did not know her well, but several of her high school friends say that she was an amazing person and an amazing young woman of faith.
They loved her and felt so blessed to know her. These classmates know they will one day see Margaret again in heaven.
We all have lost loved ones and very little makes death or the grief that comes along with it any easier to deal with. It is such a personal walk of sadness, but there is hope of a reunion.
There is actually a promise of a reunion. I love the saying that says, "There are many mansions in heaven and I hope mine is next to yours."
A personal relationship with Jesus Christ is the only way to get to your mansion when all of this life passes away.
It is free. It is a gift of grace. It has been bought for you on a cross. Do you have it?