Let us be thankful boys and girls...

"Let us be thankful boys and girls, for eyes and ears and toes, and puppies with wet noses. Let us be thankful boys and girls, for lessons we have learned, love we have not earned. Follow the beat of amazing grace, Oh let us be thankful boys and girls." -Billy Crockett, "Thankful Boys and Girls"

Billy is on to something. Gratitude has proven itself a helpful medicine for the heart. I think its benefits are even undisputed in the world of psychology, where nearly nothing is undisputed.  I know it's been true of my journey so far. On one particularly dreary evening, soon after my diagnosis, Jonathan found me buried sour-faced under the covers. I'd been there for a while; despondent, melancholy, grumpy and otherwise pitiful. What a mess.

So he got under the covers too, which was his first wise step. Then he chose to say nothing, his second. He just hit "play" and let iTunes do the talking for us, praying God would choose a song that would minister to my heart. He didn't know what song would play or that it would start smack-dab in the middle of one of our favorites. This is what we heard:

"Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you for loving. Thank you for coming. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you for loving. Thank you for coming." The voice moved up and down the scale in a maddeningly carefree chorus of gratitude, which could not have been more opposite of the chorus in my heart. The contrast between she and I was so dramatic that it prompted one of those "time stands still" moments. I felt like the world stopped, flipped inside out, and came undone.

Of course, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for coming. Thank you for loving. Thank you for solving my biggest problem: that I was once condemned in your presence and sentenced to an eternity apart from you. Now I am not. Thank you for coming, thank you for loving.

Thank you that I can call you Abba. Thank you for assurance of an eternity where I will be what you originally created me to be, where I will sing and dance the praises I'm meant to offer you and no longer spend my time hoarding praise for myself. Thank you that I will be free.

Thank you that I know there is purpose in all suffering, and while weeping lasts for the night, joy will come in the morning.

Thank you for your sweet voice, spoken to deep places of my soul since I was a little girl. 

Thank you that my cancer symptoms ALL disappeared one week before I started chemo. Night sweats, exhaustion, chest pains, a racing heart, an absent appetite, nausea, are all gone! I had a hunch those symptoms were unnecessary.

Thank you for blood banks and blood donors, but thank you that I need no more transfusions. Thank you that my red blood cell count stopped decreasing for the first time in six months and actually increased by a whole point before chemo started! Thank you that I no longer look like I should be cast in a "Twilight" movie and that my cheeks and lips are starting to get rosy again.

Thank you that I feel better with chemotherapy than before it started, minus a day or two of the week. Thank you that I have energy to do laundry, walk up the stairs, and dust my ceiling fan now.

Thank you that I still have all of my hair. Even though the doctors and nurses said it would fall out by now, thank you for each day it hasn't.  And if it does- although this also seems to me to be quite unnecessary- thank you for my wig, scarfs, and cute hats with big earrings that I'm ready to wear.

Thank you that I can imagine myself curled up under your protective wing, so safe, and that I can imagine little super-power white blood cells armed with sparkly, lethal light-rays breaking apart the mean, ugly cancer cells like a battle scene from Star Wars.

Thank you that I can continue to pray for every cell in my body, for every chemical being put into my veins to come under the ultimate power and authority of Jesus Christ- the power that brought dead cells back to life, put a beat back in a heart, and commanded open wounds be healed. I will pray that prayer for myself and all of my friends whose bodies are at war with cancer today.

Thank you for loving. Thank you for coming.