Using sorrow

My reading this morning reinforces my intention to use this ugly disease, cancer, as a continuing opportunity to use sorrow as a building block to the wellness of my spirit.
Hearing my diagnosis last October 5 was surreal.  I came out of the fog of anesthesia and asked the question, "Is it cancer?"  Blessedly it was my dear daughter-in-law, Tami, who was at my side and she was  the one who softly and simply said, "Yes."  Until then I had assumed that my body was functioning well and I had become unconsciously dependent upon the impression that it would continue that way indefinitely.
The days that followed were extremely painful in several ways.  I expected the physical pain but the emotional pain was something new.  I had lost something precious and I needed to grieve that loss.
During that enforced  two and a half week hospital stay I had ample opportunity to process what I had lost and by the time I returned home I had become familiar with the reality that I was indeed a "new" person in some very important ways. Now it was up to me, holding tightly to God's hand, to discover what that person would look like.
Today's reading points out so well that choosing to remain in the grieving stage is non-productive.  "Weeping inconsolably beside a grave can never give back love's banished treasure, nor can any blessing come out of such sadness.  Sorrow makes deep scars; it writes its record ineffaceably on the heart which suffers.....Indeed, they are poor who have never suffered, and have none of sorrow's marks upon them.... God has so ordered that in pressing on in duty we shall find the truest comfort for ourselves."-J.R. Miller (Streams in the Desert).
Looking at it that way, I am able to sincerely thank God for my sorrow.

"Creator and Redeemer God....
May I be always amongst those who walk and rejoice in Thee, who take Thee at Thy word and find life in Thee.
Keep me always longing...for spiritual graces and blessings, for help to value my duties as well as Thy privileges...."-The Valley of Vision:  A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions.

On the health front:
Today marks the beginning of my last week of radiation and oral chemo!  If all goes as planned, my last POUS will be taken on Tuesday evening and my last radiation treatment will take place on Wednesday afternoon.
I won't miss the treatments but I will miss the smiling faces of the team at Ironwood Cancer and Research Center.  These folks are incredible and we have come to believe that the men and women who choose cancer treatment and research as a profession are cut from a very special cloth.