One of the things I battle with (in staying positive about my current fight with cancer) is my tendency to predict the future...usually in dire terms.  My mantra to contradict these unhelpful thoughts is "I am not a prophet."

So today, when I read through a journal entry from September, 2007--well, I was struck by how much application the lesson I was learning then has to my situation now.

By way of background, several friends were confronting severe issues in their lives.  One of these friends was having an old problem crop up again.  Of her, I wrote:  "She is approaching this unexpected circumstance from a point of view that asks, 'How do I make this work?' rather than 'Why do I have to do this?' "

I went on to write:

"It occurred to me that a) life will continue to get more challenging and b) thank God for learning, growth and maturity or we'd all be stuck as bitter old farts and c) most lives are filled with good and bad.

The good is sometimes so out of proportion it seems we'll never come down off the mountaintop.  The bad is sometimes so oppressive and overwhelming, it seems we'll never laugh again.

It's when we believe either of these extremes that we set ourselves up for trouble.  Maturity reminds us both that good times follow bad and vice versa.

If we believe, like many addicts do, that life should be fair, that we should only experience blessings and grace--that suffering is an assault and unfairly assigned to be our lot--well, then we grow bitter, angry and depressed.

If we believe that health, wealth, and ease are signs of God's approval or our own worth or value, we set ourselves up for a mighty judgment when, inevitably, the shoe drops.

So today, I praise you LORD for the growth that has come from adversity.  I am a stronger, healthier, wiser, more compassionate and loving woman because I have been melted down by trauma and reborn by your grace and a lot of hard work.

I wish a lot of these challenges hadn't happened.  And yet I am informed by these experiences.  And in an amazing way, I have both witnessed and participated in the way you subsume evil and create beauty from the whole."

Maybe that entry doesn't make me a prophet...if it did, I'd have gone for a colonoscopy two years ago and every six months since.  But my self from September 2007 sure had a lot to say to myself in February 2009.  I'm glad I flipped the page over and listened.

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