A few days ago, I joined a Facebook group of women who are on hormone blockers in preparation for what may be next in my treatment regimen. I introduced myself and posted how I was waiting to see if I would be chosen to be part of a clinical trial for a new drug without all the usual side effects of the traditional hormone blockers. As of today, I am still waiting to see if I will or not.
I wasn't prepared for the response I got. Everyone wanted to know about this drug, how they could get on it, what it was, etc., so I posted a link to my blog and provided the details given to me by my oncologist.
Since that post 3 days ago, I have literally had visitors to this blog from all over the globe: Bulgaria, Sweden, Spain, the UK, Australia and of course all over the USA. Women desperate to get off the hormone blockers that wreck such havoc on their bodies to the point where they wonder if it's even worth it or to take their chances with the cancer coming back.
I am acutely aware of what I post now because it is no longer just family, friends and coworkers reading this blog, it's women all over the world desperate for hope. Hope for a therapy that doesn't make them suffer. Hope for a cure that doesn't hurt.
I prayed and asked God what the next topic should be, and the word "Hope" immediately came to mind but I wasn't sure what I should write until this morning as I was watching Pastor Jack Hibbs of Calvary Chapel Chino Hills, preach. His scripture topic was of all things: hope!
He used this passage from Romans chapter 5: "Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us."
I hope I am chosen for this clinical trial if only to offer additional hope to others like me who are suffering and are now reading this blog.
Even more than that, I want to share the true hope that I have in me. Not necessarily to be cured, or not to suffer, (because believe me, I've had my own fair share of it if you read my prior posts) but the hope that comes from knowing a loving God who wants to have a relationship with me and YOU. The creator who came in the form of a man who was appointed to suffer and die on our behalf so that we could experience an eternity of joy with Him. His suffering enabled Him to offer us eternal life as a gift, asking for only child-like faith in return. We all live in a fallen world full of evil, disease and suffering.
None of us gets out of here alive or without suffering; some much more than others. We will all die of something, but my hope does not lie in this world but in the next. As many people who have died, seen heaven, come back and have testified, this world we are in is merely a shadow of the greater reality that is eternity. The YouTube video below describes over 30 years of research into Near Death Experiences by John Burke. He became a believer after being an agnostic for years because of the NDE experiences he read about.