It's Christmas...where are you?

I think the title says it all.

Because God chooses to remain quiet

So I haven't blogged in a while. I am not sure what I think or feel at the moment. I have looked at all the work I need to do and I just can't get my mind on it. Teaching is fun and I am loving it, but I am finding it harder and harder to focus on this. At the weekends I want to spend time with my family. I want to be with Dad. Our house is being redecorated so that Mum does not need to worry about it when Dad is gone. I don't like this forward thinking planning ahead. I would much rather bury my head in the sand...perhaps I should be an ostrich?!? I don't want to think about the future or what is going to happen. Dad has been in a lot of pain recently. He went to see the oncologist the other day and the oncologist has said that the cancer does not appear to have grown since May. This is great news!! However, it does not explain Dad's pain. He is taking a lot of morphine. I can't get my head around what has happened. I keep thinking that Dad has had treatment so now he should be getting better and now he should be ok and well. But it isn't that way. Part of me is terrified that things are just going to get worse from here. That there is no getting better...this is as good as it is going to get. The bible says that whatever you ask in J.C's name it will be given...but I can't see how this is true. Because my Dad still has cancer. My Dad is still in pain...despite my prayers and heart pleas for this to be changed. So how come sometimes we see the word of the bible come to life and other times we do not?

I think quite often...maybe there isn't a God and we were all brainwashed and conned. But then I look at all the good things that have happened, and where I am today. I didn't get here alone. My dad was lucky to be able to have the surgery. He is lucky to still be here today. It was lucky that the cancer was detected when it was. It could be much much worse. So in my heart I know that there is a God.

But then I have wondered, if there is a God...I thought- maybe He isn't the good, just God that has been previously protrayed to us. Maybe God isn't this being that loves us, cares for us and wants the best for us. Maybe God is this thing that got bored and so we were created for his games and entertainment. Maybe God doesn't care about any of us and He does not see us as his children. He just sees us as toys that he can treat how He wants because He owns us. Even those that do not believe are owned and God intervenes and manipulates as He feels like. Maybe God actually looks to build up our hopes and dreams, he looks to gain our trust and then seeks to crush and hurt us. Maybe he seeks to break us in all the ways He knows will hurt the most; in the ways that He knows will cause us the most pain and anguish. Maybe.
This would explain why some are healed and others are not. This would explain why some things appear to be worked for good...and others are left to shatter and fall around our feet, leaving us with no way of catching the pieces. Leaving us with an emptiness, a longing for understanding and hope, a great big pit of nothingness but hate and anger at the chaos that has and is forming. Maybe.

But if I believe God to be this manipulative, uncaring and spiteful thing then what is the point. If God is not good, caring and loving, if God is not seeking to give us life then that leaves this situation with no hope. It leaves this situation with no good. It leaves life with no hope and no goodness. It makes the good things in life an illusion and a trick; designed purely to build us up to make the fall even harder when we do fall. It leaves this life with nothing but death. And if there is no life and only death then surely we should all just give up the fight, ruin God's game and die. If there is no good and no hope in the world...then this really isn't a place I want to live and exist in. It makes each unknown second a trap of pain/uncertainty and despair.

BUT I know that this is not the way and that God is not against us. I know that God isn't bad. How? because we all feel in our hearts that to just die is wrong. Even in deep dark black situations, we still have in our hearts a fight. A fight to escape where we are. To reach a place that is lighter and filled with peace and hope. A fight to be in a better place than where we currently are. We fight to see good. We fight to see justice. We fight to make right the things that are wrong. We have placed within us a fight for life. When placed in a life or death situation, human beings develop survival instincts and we fight to live. Why would we have this if God wanted death for us? Why would we have this if there is nothing good? Why would we have this if there is no hope? I know that I would rather trust in a God that is for me, than a God that is against me. And even though right now it is extremely difficult to see how He is for us, I am placing my faith that He is. God is good. He is fighting in our corner and somehow He is woring some good from the cancer. I don't know what this is or how this looks. But the alternative to this is option is devastating.

So how does this conclusion that God exists, is for us and is good helping my families fight with cancer? Erm..I don't know. My faith that God loves and cares for us keeps me seeking and fighting against the cancer. I will keep praying for my Dad and I will fight and keep fighting for hope and light in this situation. Something has got to give...

Cancer sucks

Cancer sucks. It really does. There is no way to describe how this feels. This is something that you never believe will happen to you - it's something that other people will have or have to deal with. I hate watching the cancer advertisements and seeing the cancer shops and macmillan campaigns everywhere because it makes me have to think about what is happening and I don't want to think about it. I don't like change and I certainly don't like this change. My tyre went flat the other day and I couldn't get Dad to change it because his shoulder isn't strong enough anymore. That was a smack in the face with reality and what will happen one day. I'm not sure if I am strong enough to go through my NQT year and this. But I don't really have a choice. I kinda just have to get on with it. I keep praying to God. I think he hears me. Dad is still here against the odds so God must be hearing me. I thought about the option of there not being a God. If there isn't a God then I don't think I want to live in this world, because without God there is just life without hope. This situation, this beating the cancer requires hope. Hope that this can be beaten. Hope that my Dad will be cured. Hope that this is not the end. I much prefer a world where even shitty bad things can be turned round for good. That even in the darkest of times, there is light, there is hope: there is God.

Can You hear me or are You ignoring me?

Well, the more I learn of God the more confused I get and the more I am convinced that He can't hear me or that He isn't listening. Dad didn't make it to my baptism despite my prayers for him to not feel sick from chemo: yeah thanks god. However Dad did come to my graduation :)..He managed to shift his last chemo to the day after it. It felt ace having him there :). Unfortunately though Dad was unable to have the chemo on the wednesday because his blood count was too low. So he was booked in for the week later. This time he had the chemo but it was awful. My prayers again weren't answered. I don't believe that God is ignoring this but He certainly doens't appear to be doing anything. My Dad feels awful and I just want God to do something. I'm finding it irritating when people tell me that God is good blah blah blah, especially when they go off their heads at Him when simple things don't go their way. I don't think they realise how heart-breaking and gut-wrenching it is to see your Dad being slowly killed by a disgusting vermin of a disease. And it's even harder knowing that nothing medically will save him. Unless God breaks in my Dad won't be free from this cancer. Where are You God?????????

I'm going to a new church too. I'm not convinced by it but some of the people I have met so far seem friendly, so I'll see what happens. Apparently the pastor's son was healed from cancer. So now I get to hear even more about God healing every other person and not my Dad, as though knowing that God heals some people and not others will bring some form of comfort to me...well it doesn't!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And being told that God is good and works things for all good doesn't help either because at the end of the day, actions speak louder than words and so far in this healing my Dad of cancer, God's actions are not speaking great volumes. However, at the same time as me thinking this, there is something in me that is begging me not to give up on God. That He is doing something but it will be gradual. I don't want to lose my Dad and I don't want cancer to steal him away from us. It all sucks and my Dad does not deserve this. It all hurts and I just wish I could know for certain that God is hearing me and that He has His hand in this because thinking that He hasn't is terrifying. Come on God: do something !!!!

It's just too crazy to comprehend

I've just been on the meso care on facebook and looked at a link that was posted about asbestos in Australia. It's scary to know that so any people just don't get the devastating effects of this substance. It only takes ONE FIBRE!!! I met a guy in the phone shop that had recently removed his dad's roof that had asbestos fibres in it and he hadn't worn the appropriate safety stuff. There needs to be a greater awareness of this disease. People need to understand that this is a fatal substance. It's a nasty, vial substance that has and will continue to kill people.

The more I look into mesothelioma and read patients stories, I realise how lucky my Dad is. God may not be healing him instantly but if you view the stories of others; technically my Dad shouldn't be here now. Yet he is here and is doing alright! :).. He has one more chemo session left and then we wait and see. I actually don't know what happens next or what will happen but I don't feel as though he will be leaving us anytime soon. I pray that this is not a false feeling. There are some stories of people surviving years with this! My Dad is going to be the first one cured. That's my goal.

My Dad will hopefully be well enough to come to my baptism on Sunday. I was hoping he would come earlier so that he can be prayed for. I trying to get enough courage to pray for him myself but I have this stupid fear of doing it wrong. Even though you can't get it wrong because God hears our hearts and so He'll know what we are trying to do. It's just quite scary to offer prayer to my Dad.

Before I found out about Dad's cancer, I had become a Christian. I remember telling my Mum and Dad this. They thought it was just a phase I was going through and weren't particularly impressed. I think they were worried that I was going to be brain-washed. I'm scared of that too though, which I think makes me question lots of what happens. Anyway, I was thinking about my baptism and how before all of this, I would have been quite nervous about inviting them to it. But I wasn't nervous about asking them. I really hope people pray for my Dad and that he lets them! God heals all the time so I don't see why He won't heal this. I love my Dad sooo much! He is the best. It just isn't right that he has this. It isn't right that this is happening to him. Come on God do something!!!!!

Preparing to be baptised

So I am now preparing to be baptised. This involves giving a testimony [an account] of what my lifw was like before becoming a Christian, how I became a Christian and what my life is like now. Hmm... When I first became a Christian and before my Dad was diagnosed with cancer, I knew exactly what I wanted to say, but all that has changed now. Before I would have spoken about how God had begun to heal my heart from all the rubbish guys I'd had the misfortune of being with. I would have talked about how I was beginning to see that jumping from relationship to relationship wasn't filling this longing in my heart and how things had started to change. But then everything was tipped upside down and inside out.

Living with God, knowing your Dad has an incurable by man cancer is flipping hard work! Sometimes it's just so hard and confusing to understand. Sometimes it feels as though, the more I learn of how loving and good God is, the more angry I become at the fact my Dad hasn't been healed of this vile thing. Other times, living with God has given me an unseeable, undescribable strength to have hope that this isn't the end. That there can be a chance that this will be healed and my Dad will live a long and healthy life. I don't want to stand up and talk about the healing of my heart since becoming a Christian because honestly, that appears to have been put on hold. I want to say how it hasn't been easy and that if I had found out about the cancer before becoming a Christian, I probably wouldn't have become one. But do I regret becoming one? Would I change my mind? Well throughout the months I have been angry and I have thrown it all back, but I came back and I want this for the rest of my life. Why? because I can honestly say that without God I'm not sure how I would have managed completing my course with a good degree classification, or with searching for a job and finding one, or with where I was going to live or how I was going to turn away from my tendency to seek acceptance and love from the wrong guys. It's as though, this past few months, I haven't been walking this journey with God but more carried. Coming to the end of your course is a huge life change, but I don't feel as though all these changes have taken me away from my family, because things just kept turning out ok. I didn't do this on my own. I know that. I feel as though God has definitely played a part in my life to get me through this last year. So that is why I want to be baptised. I want to demonstrate that even though I know it isn't a smooth ride and it may get worse, I'm comitted to this just as God is comitted to me. :)

So that is kind of what I want to talk about but I don't think that is what is wanted. I don't feel changed as such since becoming a Christian. I just feel as though I'm not alone, there's someone nudging me forwards even when I don't think I can move.

I'm hopinh my Dad will be able to come to my Baptism. He said he will but it depends on how well he is. His 5th chemo is on Monday. I pray that it is working and that God is giving some extra help.

Love you Dad xXx

I can't sleep so I'm writing

I spoke to my Dad about my concerns over graduation. He said that there is no way he is missing it and he doens't care if he gets ill. He is going to be there because he is so proud of me and wants to see this. Please God keep him safe [or at least make all the sick students get stuck in a traffic jam or something]. I went for a job interview yesterday. It was my first one and they offered me the job. My Dad was very happy and proud. This made me very very happy too :)... I like it went Dad is happy and looking forward to things. It gives him a spring in his step. Although he still won't buy me a new car...lol...I keep reading in the paper about people having to fight for cancer treatments. This makes me sick. The only reason it's not offered is because of money. How can you put a price tag on someone's life?!! how would these people feel if it was someone that they loved??? People just don't think. They need to place themselves in the other person's shoes before looking at the £'s in the bank. I was thinking today about what would I like to invent; i don't know why. I thought that I would invent a time machine that would take me to the day asbestos and its properties were discovered: and id kick that person's ass! [and i'd get them to invent a safer alternative]. If an alternative was not possible and asbesos had to still be used: i'd time travel to the time and person that discovered its risks and how dangerous it is, and yet still chose to ignore this and make people work with it...then id punch them in the face break both of their arms and legs and sit them in a pitch black room full of spiders and other creepy crawleys. [I was going to stick them in a room full of asbestos and make them breathe it all in: but I actually wouldn't wish mesothelioma on anyone, so I had to think of something less extreme but still horrendous]. This has made me think about other products that we use and the harm that it may be doing to us. Microwaves for example: it just isn't a natural thing! abd mobile phones: there has got to be damage happening there. I just wish that people would be honest and not try to cover up the harmful effects of things :'(.....
I'm going back to uni tomorrow. it's been four years and I honestly never thought that at the end of four years we would be facing this. I have no idea of what we have in store for us. I just hope and pray that everything will work out good. Love you Dad xxxxx

It's all happening too quickly

Well I am not sure what to say really. I was discussing graduation tonight and it hit me that my Dad probably won't be able to come. Graduation is the day after his chemo. Even if my Dad is well enough to go, he'd have to sit in a stuffy hall with loads of disease infected students and I don't want to take that risk. I'll chat to him tomorrow when I see him. I love him soooo much and I really want him at my grad but if he caught something from some snotty nosed student I wouldn't be able to live with the guilt that it would be my fault. I feel so sorry for him. He is being made to miss out on some big occasions in his children's lives. Don't get me wrong, I don't begrudge him for this or anything like that. I just feel so sorry because I know how much he really wants to be there and how proud he is of us. I just don't want him to feel bad or feel as though he is letting us down because he really isn't. I feel as though God is letting us down big style!! Someone had as their status tonight that God is good to them. Right now at this moment in time I am struggling to feel this way when it comes to the situation with my Dad. Yet when it comes to my career, I feel as though God is weaving some miracles. But I would give up all those miracles and workings for the miracle of my Dad being healed. In fact I would happily stay broken if it meant my Dad was healed by God. I know though that there isn't a limited amount of God stuff that you can have and that it is never ending and never exhausted. But i'd happily give my never ending supply of God stuff to my Dad; that way he would have two lots and have double the opportunities of being healed and saved. Why isn't God healing this? Why is this happening to us? I read somewhere that just because God can weave great good from the unspeakably terrible things in life doesn't mean that He caused it. I'm still waiting for the weaving of good from this cancer. I'm not very good at waiting. I hate waiting. James Maloney commented that we all want patience and we want it now!..well that's me :s... I want my Dad healed and I want it now. I don't think this is selfish because I would give up everything for this. I know I have said this before, but it clearly states in the bible that whatever you ask you will receive providing you are delighting yourself in the Lord. Or as James Maloney explained...delight= adapting yourself to the image of the Lord. Well I am adpating!! I have finally chosen to not have sex until I am married. [yes there have been a few mishaps since choosing this but i'm forgiven not perfect and after the last one I am defintely sticking to it this time. I certainly had my eyes opened to just how much bullshit a guy will tell you if he thinks he's going to get laid! The guys soon fuck off when they see differently which hopefully means I'll end up with a guy that likes me as a person and not just the thought of having sex with me]. I am less angry. I am more tolerant of people. I feel different. So why isn't this working?!?
I don't get any of it. All I have is the fact that God is love and God is good, who apparently knows what He is doing. At least I am praying that He does. :s...x

After the operation

Dad had the operation on January 4th [or 3rd] I can't remember. I remember waiting for the phonecall that he was ok. That was a scary moment and being at uni and not near him was really hard :'(... Yes I thanked Jesus when my Dad was okay after surgery.

4^th February 2010

"So a few developments have happened. I still don’t get where God is in all of this. Dad had the operation. The cancer is now on the diaphragm, so that was not removed. The surgeon managed to scrape 70% of the cancer. This means that Dad has come out of hospital with less cancer than what he went in with. But it still isn’t what I was praying for. I feel very let down by God. This amazing healing power that He has, where is it? The whole ‘those who ask for healing shall be healed’ just hasn’t happened. I don’t get it. Are You even hearing my prayers? Have I done something that is stopping You from helping? Am I doing this wrong? God where are You? I just feel lost. I have never felt this lost before. Where is the light? Where is this guide that is supposed to help? Huh????? This is all fucked up. My dad is dying. My Dad, unless there is a miracle which I don’t think will happen because you’ve had plenty of chances God, will not get to walk me down the aisle. My Dad will not see me have a happy marriage. He won’t see my first child. He won’t get to screen the next guy I date. And all of this because You are choosing to do sod all. I am angry and on top of that I have lots of other shit to try and cope with; past things that have screwed up everything. I don’t want my Dad to die. I don’t want him to be in this amount of pain. I want my Dad back. He doesn’t deserve this. God you are shit. But I do acknowledge that You apparently know what you are doing. Humph." yep angry post: God really took some flack in all of this. It just didn't make sense in my head. Everything that people at church claimed just didn't match to the situation. I think during this time I did have faith and a desperate hope that God would heal my Dad, but my anger definitely covered that up. Good job hears our hearts and not just our words.

5^th March 2010

"What am I suppose to say? This is still so not real. I can’t get my head around it. We all know that some day we will die: that some day we will lose the ones that we love. We just never expect it to happen soon: we believe it to be some day in the distant future. I never thought that hearing the words “Dad has been told he has years to live” would bring a smile to my face; that I would feel relief from hearing this. It just shows that the context means everything. You see, this cancer is incurable. The survival rates are terrifying. Dad was given months to live, without treatment and a couple of years at most if he had the surgery [and they did all that they intended to do] plus chemo. Well, as you know, they didn’t do the full operation. But somehow, the surgeon has looked at Dad’s x-rays and is ecstatic: they expect to be seeing my Dad for a good few years! My Dad is beating the survival rates and this was without the full operation. I want to believe that this is the work of God. That He is in this and that He has heard me. But I’m terrified that if I put my faith in God healing my Dad, that I will feel such a huge loss and disappointment if it turns out to be false. I’m terrified that praising God for this: even though it must be Him somehow, will result in me looking like an idiot or being fooled again or crushed when this turns bad. I just don’t get it. I want to be so happy: but I’m scared of what is to come. I’m so scared that it terrifies me. I hate being on my own because that is all I can think about. This is just not fair." Reading this entry again really has highlighted how lost and confused I was [and still am]. The whole thing is still so unreal to me. Lots of people ask how my Dad is and I can't put any emotion to it. It isn't that I don't feel the emotions because I do. But if I show them, well you won't have enough tissues!! I want my Dad to be better. I forgot to mention that my Dad admitted to me at xmas that everyone secretly has a bit of faith. This was a big step in the whole God stuff. My family aren't Christians and I've never got the impression that they believed. But this broke my heart a little inside [in a good and bad way]... A bad way because my Dad looked scared and really wants hope for all this. And a good way because a little faith can go a long long way [that's what I'm praying for anyway].

27^th March 2010

"So I am trying to avoid writing my dissertation. I’m not sure what else I have to say on here. I’m still trying to not acknowledge how horrendous this is. I just re read some of the past entries and I’m happy to say that I don’t feel so angry at God anymore. I think I have my head around the fact that God did not cause this. The enemy did. So I can blame that. I really hope and pray that my Dad will come through all of this and that he will be ok. Dad starts his chemo on Monday. He isn’t looking forward to that and neither am I. I just hope he gains the strength to just keep going, even when the days are hard. I love him so much and I don’t want him to die. I don’t want to lose him. I also don’t want my Dad to live eternally in an empty nothingness. I really hope that he sees the light in Jesus and can have that security of being safe." I think that last sentence came from a conversation of what not being in heaven would be like. I don't like nothingness. I particularly don't want my Dad to be in it. But how am I suppose to get Dad to open his heart to God? [yes yes i can hear you now: it's God that does that not you..but you know what I mean!!]... Dad is going to some Reiki healing woman. At least he is getting some extra help. My concern is that it is God help and as God is more powerful than anything else I really want him to come and be prayed for. Everytime he agrees to come, he suddenly has an urge to see reiki woman. It actually annoys me. I don't understand why going to get healing from her is accpetable but to ask God is just crazy?! How does that thinking work? And why isn't God sorting this all out? seriously...come on God!!!

okay so that is all the diary entries that I have from these past few months...not that many but it's all quite chaotic. I'll blog some more when I have more time. So far though...my journey with God is an up and down mission and I'm clinging to the hope that God is in all of this, because if He isn't then this really is fucked up. xx

Initial thoughts

December 9th 2009

"Life is getting worse and I cannot work out why God is allowing this to happen to my Dad. We have been told that due to the amount of cancer the lung cannot be removed. This means that chemo is the only way forward and he has about 15 months with us. This is shit." Okay so this part was taken from my kinda diary about this whole thing. Erm, I remember being very angry at God and was definitely of the opinion that this was His fault and that if He was so flipping fantastic He'd fix it. Needless to say this thinking didn't get me very far other than angry and bitter, but this was how I was going to be because the oh so loving God was really displaying some great love at this point [add sarcastic tone]. God was suppose to heal and He was suppose to aid those that cry out to Him. Well I bloody cried out to Him and all we received in return was more bad news. never good news. What sort of a God just sits back and lets this happen? God was described as a personal loving God that we could relate to as our dad. Just as a dad loves us and protects us and gains great joy in watching us learn and grow, so does God. But this didn't make sense in my head. If I was in pain and crying out for my Dad; he would come and help me. He would do what he could to take my pain away. So why wasn't God doing this? Some people explained that God doesn't always heal how we expect Him too or when we expect Him too. Well I figured He'd need to act pretty flipping quickly because my Dad had been given a time-limit [which is crazy in itself and my heart breaks each time I think about this]. And the whole 'God knows what is best'..what is best about letting cancer attack my Dad?!?!?!!!! I came to the conclusion that God was an arse that clearly didn't care.

December 15^th

"Dad went to the oncologist: 6 months without chemo about 18months with chemo. Possible operation. We find out tomorrow." This was all that I wrote for this day. I think I'd begun to deal with this whole situation by removing all emotion from it and just being factual. This was also the evening when I figured I'd give God another chance and try praying again (well He gave His son, so I figured it was the least I could do?!!? lol). I also asked others to pray for the operation to be able to go ahead. We just needed some good news.

December 16^th

"Operation a possibility. The doctor is willing to operate so this should be good. He has said that with the operation and chemo Dad can expect to have 2years or more." Again a very brief entry. I actually thanked Jesus for this one [I know, what a turn around from the other day!] Dad still needed to go for checks in January 2010 to ensure the cancer hadn't spread and he could still have the operation. I'm not too sure how I felt here. I was relieved and so happy that Dad was being given the chance for longer life, but I still didn't get why God just didn't heal him. I wondered if maybe God wasn't hearing my prayers because of my not so perfect past. My friend Helen prayed out this particular lie. God was hearing me; but that just led to more quesions like: why wasn't He fixing it!!!!!!??!?!?

December: Christmas Day

This day was so surreal and difficult. It was just something that none of us ever thought would be in our lives. We were all here this Christmas and no-one wanted to mention the whole cancer. It was as though we were all trying to be normal and make it a great xmas becasue none of us knoew or wnated to think about the new year to come. Ever tried to make things seems ok but still knowing that there is an underlying current? Throughout the day a member of the family would vanish off for a few moments to pull themselves together, smile and get back out to enjoying the day. It really was bizarre. It's as though we were all thinking 'what if this is the last?' but no-one actually wanting to think that or voice that. I did not feel God on this day and I didn't feel strong. Even worse was my family know I had recently become a Christian. I could hardly say 'well I am still praying but I'm doubting that He's doing anything'. I felt as though they were finding hope though my faith. So I pressed on with the praying. If God hears our hearts, He'd flipping know how much I don't want to lose my Dad. You only need a small amount of faith and God sorts out the rest. i figured that my little faith combined with my desperation to have more faith so God would hear my prayers louder would get my Dad healed [not sure where i've got this view from...i don't think our cries get any louder with our growing faith but just in case it was worth a shot]. Other than the weird under current it was a good xmas. I love my Dad and cancer is not going to take him.

There was quite a gap in my diary entries at this point...