Today – choose life

I remember, years ago, being invited to a house in the Colorado foothills. As we drove up the driveway, my impressions were all negative. There were spindly little trees, and dirt, and the house itself was nondescript. Entering the home, it had a shabby, run-down feel and everything was brown. I wondered how these people could stand to live here. Then, I was invited out onto the deck. The back deck of the house overhung a small cliff, and from it I could see the entire city of Denver, and miles and miles out onto the eastern plains. The view was extravagant, breath taking, and completely unexpected, and I felt my perspective shift. I now understood exactly why they wanted to live here.

A similar thing can happen when we choose to manage our thoughts and our speech, instead of allowing words to run rampant through our mind, unchecked. Words did not help me survive my cancer, but they dictated how I was to survive – with grace and joy, or with regret and bitterness.

When I received my first dose of chemo, everything went wrong. I spiked a fever, and the chemotherapy decimated my white blood cell count, which meant my immune system was non-functioning. I was hospitalized – the fourth time in two months. This was my second infection, and I was placed on I.V. antibiotics, and put in isolation. The level of physical agony I was experiencing was extreme – more intense than anything I had ever felt. And as I lay there alone in that hospital bed, these words came unbidden into my mind. “This is how it feels to die.”

We have the power to choose life or choose death. That may sound extreme, but every choice we make either leads us toward abundance, and life, or away from it. So, in my total misery, I said, “Today, I choose life.” I drug my thoughts forcibly away from death, and into a place of thanksgiving, thereby changing my whole perspective.

I live in the age of modern medicine, and the antibiotics are doing what my immune system can’t.

Thank you.

If my immune system had crashed while I still had a staph infection, I’d be in I.C.U., clinging to life, instead of here in this bed with the ability to fight. Thank you.

In spite of the brutality of the treatments, they will ultimately save my life. Thank you.

I have a husband who loves me, not in spite of my scars, but because of them. They serve as precious reminders to him of what was almost lost, and he never takes me for granted.

Thank you.  

I have people around me, to love and care for my children when I am unable to be there.

Thank you.

I chose to live that day. I chose to turn from anger, death, misery and suffering, and looked instead at thanksgiving, life, strength and victory. We can all make these choices, every single day. Where are you looking, today? Where are your thoughts taking you? Today – choose life.

http://breastcanacerbites.blogspot.com