The Gift You Are

   In the last two weeks I have learned of two guys who are close to my age that have been given the news that they have cancer doctors will do nothing to treat. They basically have been given a warning that they have only a certain amount of time left here on earth, and it isn't a long time. Both men are married with young children. They have wives that love them. This news is devastating.

  Since I had cancer in my early twenties, and since the cancer rate here in my country is one in every two people, I always feel like there is some sort of cancer ticking time bomb just waiting, and who will be next that I love. As lives everywhere are so stress filled, so filled with internet and microwave and every other kind of waves, and our food is filled with chemicals, and the list never stops ~ how can we not be getting this sickness?

    It would be easy to give into anxiety and total fear every day for me in this regard. Somedays I am overcome I admit. Today though I am choosing to just enjoy every second I can. The view out my window, my three year old in massive cow boy boots, my seven year old adding all sorts of stuffies and little critters to the manger scene, my thirteen year old making lunch, the kitten purring ~ and onwards it goes. We only have right now. It is so hard to fathom that! It is so hard to live in this especially now as we are so distracted all the time by social media. I told my husband on the weekend that when he got home after a long day I just wanted to try to enjoy every second with him. I wanted to try just for that evening to live like we didn't have long together. Often evenings for us are strained as we both have so little to give. Yet if this was our last one...

  I hope today you feel like you can stop for a minute, focus in on how you are doing, how those in relationship with you are feeling, how you are choosing to live right now. It is important. Our lives are a gift. It doesn't always feel that way I know and during this season when closeness of family is highlighted and extra money is needed things can feel so discouraging or overwhelming or hard. Maybe you are sick or in pain. Maybe you are feeling so discouraged or overcome. There is maybe nothing about this moment you are in right now that seems good. However the good in this moment is that you are still here. With every breath you are taking you can be a gift.

  I remember being so so sick in the hospital (when I was having my first chemo treatment ~ it felt like I was dying a whole new kind of death) and sharing a room with an elderly woman who was not being treated kindly by the nurses. I was struck with how kind they were to me because I was so young but how uncaring they were to her. In the moment I felt so overwhelmed, in so much pain and so useless, but I had flowers someone had given me and she didn't. I struggled over to her bed and gave them to her before getting to go home. It helped that one  moment be a lot brighter than many others that day.

  So if you can ~ give something ~ a smile, a kind word, something from your heart, and remember that even in dark dark moments you are still here and can be a gift and that moment can count for so much.

 Love Tansy