The Next Step

TAKING the next step is hard enough, TRUSTING in it and holding onto faith is quite another story. I remember, with vivid detail, the moment our daughter heard the word CANCER. I remember our tears. I remember our fears. I remember our hope. I remember the faith we had, that she would be the one to BEAT this, live through it all, cope, finish her teaching degree, marry, have children. Sweet Allison even had the wherewithal to ask for her eggs to be frozen for the day this was all behind her and she would marry and want babies. Dear God, there were so many steps taken. With haste, and no time to waste, she called the shots, so to speak, turning to us, to her sister, to her doctors, for answers. But most of all, she turned to her God. And that brought us all comfort. God was not going to let us down, let her down. She took His medicine just as she did her prescribed pills, chemotherapy, and she kept taking the next step. Step by step, day by day, even hour by hour, years of a future cancer journey packed into eleven weeks, one week short of three months, and it was over. In once sense. But, as we know now, it will never be over.

Allison taught us how to take the next step. God used her to show us. Little did we know that we were never to complain again, never to really feel sorry for ourselves (except for those rare times when YES, I DO feel sorry for myself), step out on faith, never knowing what lies ahead, just doing it with the greatest of attitudes and the ambiance of grace. That's what we know to do. That's what we aspire to be, like her, through her life, mostly, but especially once the word CANCER became part of her being.

So, we take the next step. I take it. I don't know where it goes. I don't know where it will lead. It can be as scary as anything I've ever done in my life, as I walk the tightrope of unforeseen circumstances. It can be unsettling and fray my nerves, to keep going, muddle through and TRUST that I am doing what I am supposed to do. It can be as exhausting as any flu, illness, or series of sleepless nights that I have ever encountered. The next step. The step that leads to something that is designed just for me.

It's not as if Allison believed this cancer was designed especially for her. But she knew, in order to "beat" it, there were certain things that just had to be done...blood work, chemotherapy, sleepless nights, pain, fatigue, tears, and more pain. She never gave up. She never would. She took every step necessary, emotionally, physically, spiritually, psychologically that she could. And when it didn't turn out the way she believed, the way we believed and prayed and pleaded and begged, there she was, willing to take yet another step. Step out on faith and love and hope and belief. Faith and love and hope and belief that there is a God and He will provide, and faith and love and hope and belief in her family. There she was, with God and her family, at the end, as she took the next step, and that was all she needed.

I continue to take the next step. Maybe some day mine will mirror hers. I don't know. Like any of us, our future is unseen. It's up to us to take the next step, whether a baby step, or a giant step, one that sets us back, or one that spurs us on. I, too, have learned to take the next step, with faith and love and hope and belief...at least I'm trying.