Tag: Moving Forward

Health, Uncategorized

Wondering

Sondra Jennings

Seems I’ve finally been still long enough for the sick germs to catch up with me. Not too shabby considering my weakened immune system and all of the snot I am around at work everyday. I was wondering when it would happen and how my body would react after having cancer.

That’s the thing about being a cancer survivor…you try to stay positive and put the battle behind you and move forward, but you are always wondering. Wondering if what you are experiencing is normal. Wondering when or if the recurrence will come. Wondering what people think of your new hairstyle. Wondering if strangers can tell you’ve had cancer. Wondering if they think you talk about it too much. Wondering if what you are eating is cancer-causing. Wondering when your fingernails and toenails will grow back or if they will always be brittle. Or if the numbness in your toes will ever go away. Wondering if you’ve forgotten something important because of the chemo brain. Or if people think you’re just using it to get out of doing something because you say you need to rest. You want so badly to put it out of your mind, but you can’t.

You can’t because it’s changed you forever. You are not the person you were before the diagnosis. No matter how much you try to “get your life back”, you won’t get it back because you are different. You’ve fought an enormous battle. You’ve faced trauma unimaginable. You’ve come back from death.

Your priorities are different.

Your perspective is different.

Your perception is different.

Not to mention that your physical body is also different. The chemo has killed off everything…the good and bad cells. That’s both a blessing and a curse.

Your emotions are different because the medicine has put you into menopause.

And sometimes it’s too much. Sometimes you long for the familiar. It’s not that the new normal is horrible, it’s just different and different is scary and leaves you wondering. You’re always wondering…

-Sondra

 

Uncategorized

Brave Start

Sondra Jennings

I woke up around 9am because I didn’t go to bed until around 3am. I was finishing a book that I was reading and then I did some writing. Sometimes my creativity flows late at night, sometimes it flows early in the morning. You just never know about me.

When I woke up this morning I had the brilliant idea to take my tablet to the elliptical with me. I read while I was working out. It worked. I worked out for 48 minutes while I read my devotional, my one chapter of the Bible for today, and then a chapter in the book “Start” by Jon Acuff. And I remember more of what I read while working out than I normally do when I just sit her idle and read. I think it is a habit that I will be continuing. I don’t know how effective the workout was because I was not moving very fast, but it was a start and that’s all that is required. A start. A simple step forward.

I’m reminded of a sight I saw the other day as I drove to work. I live in the country and although my commute is much shorter than it used to be, I still drive about 12 miles one way to work. It starts out in the hills and curves and eventually flattens and straightens out. I drive past a farm that takes up both sides of the road and usually, on the electrical wires above the field, are hundreds of birds just sitting there. If you watch them long enough, they swoop down toward the field without quite reaching it before they fly back up and land on the wire. They start out with great bravado toward the ground and then with just as much enthusiasm, they land back on the wire. As I watched the other day, I wondered why they do this. Why do they all at once sweep down and then back up to the same spot they came from without reaching the ground where the seeds and bugs are? It’s like they want to go, and they start, but then before they reach their goal, they go back where they started from.

Don’t we do that? Don’t we get inspired to try something new and take that first step and then before we know it, we’re right back where we started from? Why do we do that? Fear? Probably. It can be scary to step out. We don’t know what will happen if we continue to move forward. I can tell you with certainty that nothing will happen if you don’t step out. NOTHING. If we don’t take the first step, we won’t move. It’s that simple.

What is it that we see that we want to go after? A new career? A ministry opportunity? A relationship? A new, healthy lifestyle? What is it that keeps us perched on the wire? Be brave. Step out. Being brave doesn’t mean the absence of fear. Being brave means being scared and taking that step forward anyway. Instead of asking “What if I fail?” ask, “What if I don’t?”

Got to go. I need to start laundry or I’m never going to get it finished. See, it works with laundry, too. 🙂