Okay so side note, BG gave me an assignment
to write a blog about my experiences with dealing with a friend who was
diagnosed with lymphoma but I really just want to spend some time bragging
about my bff BG. So first and foremost, I want to totally brag about how
amazing BG’s blog is! As the wonderful and eloquent speaker Debbie wrote, I was
pretty hesitant when BG asked me to be a guest blogger. This is mostly because
I have no clue what I am doing.
The truth’s out! I think BG mainly asked me because she is a wonderful
friend who sees the best in everyone and (for some strange reason), I decided
to major in English. Anyone with this major knows that all that really means is
that I can interpret the crap out of a poem and I pick up on more Shakespeare
references in pop culture than I did in high school. Creative writing? Not so
much. But then I remembered my blog post is not about me but about BG and the
amazing friend she is to me. So this post will consist of a lot of BG bragging,
maybe some embarrassing stories and mainly my own perspective during BG’s fight
against lymphoma. Here we go!
First of all, I need to brag about how
amazing I think BG’s blog is. I constantly need to remind myself that BG is a
psych major, not an english major or a creative writing major! I hope it’s
clear that I’m not implying that psych majors are bad writers (obvs not), but
just how beautifully written BG’s blog is! I have loved reading about how she
deals with her daily struggles with patience and grace. BG does not use this
blog to rant, which I think could become so easy, but she uses it to share
about how much she learned about herself during this journey. Most importantly,
she has used this blog to glorify God and what He is doing in her heart every
single day. Without trying to sound like the girl from Stuff Christians Say, I
think this blog is seriously anointed!
That is really what I want to share on this
post (2 paragraphs later, sorry)…BG’s faithfulness to God during this entire process,
even in the beginning. I remember when BG first told me about the possibility
of her having cancer. She had just had her knee surgery and I had just started a new
and busy job. Looking back at the
month of June, I am a pretty ashamed of myself. I allowed myself to get caught
up in the busyness of life and honestly neglected BG during her knee recovery,
thinking that I would be able to make it up to her later. Larissa, BG and I all
went to the beach to hang out and it was there that BG tearfully told us that
she may have cancer. This was a huge surprise to me and it probably took me
about an hour of us all talking for the tears to come. It was so surreal that
this could even be a possibility to one of my young and healthy best friends.
That was honestly one of the craziest and scariest moments of my life but the
most memorable thing about that day was what BG had to say about God. I said
something about being mad or confused that this was even a possibility and BG
just told me that God is always fighting for us. She said that even if she has
cancer she knows that he wants to do so much in her life and this will become a
beautiful testimony to that. She said that she fully trusts Him. How amazing is
that!?! The bragging about my friend continues…
June and July were times of denial for me.
Even after we found out that BG had a tumour I refused to really believe that
it could be cancerous. I honestly did not spend much time praying about the
possibility of cancer. My prayers about BG pretty much consisted of her knee
getting better and for this craziness and confusion to end. On the last day of
preteen camp BG called her friends at camp to tell them that the tumour was
diagnosed as cancerous. This conversation consisted of me bawling my eyes out
and BG consoling me. Yes, BG
consoled me. I was shocked that something this serious and threatening could
happen to my friend. All of the stuff that I didn’t want to face came crashing
down on me. The crazy part is that BG had peace about the situation and was
CONSOLING ME on the fact that she now had cancer! That day I really realized
that BG had been going through this battle without my consistent support. She had already come to better terms
with this cancer than I had and I (regretfully) had not been there for her during
that process. Not to say that she needs my support but I had been so caught up
in my own life because I thought that there was no way that BG could have
cancer. I decided after camp that I was going to be there for her the way that
I hadn’t been so far.
During the last 4 months, I have learned a
lot. I have learned about the importance of a quality craft, how wonderful and
useful Netflix is, the significance of a nice walk and how much friendship
matters in the long run. I have learned that no matter the day, laughter is the
best medicine to the scary and the sad moments in life. I have also learned
about strength, and most importantly, the strength of the Lord that BG radiates
every single day. Although I know that BG is fed up with chemo and wants this
time in her life to end (of course), I have never once heard of BG being fed up
with God. This is something I admire so much about her. Even though she has
been pushed to her limits for almost half of a year, her belief in God has
never wavered. She continues to preach the gospel in her daily words and
actions. It has been hard to see my friend in times of weakness, but her
reliance on God has taught me how to rely on God during these moments.
I was especially reminded of that while
reading through Matthew during the past month. I was reading Matthew 13:53-58,
when Jesus returns to his homeland. The people question his great works and
take offence to him. They wanted to know where his great power was from. Jesus
says to them, “A prophet is not without honour except in his own town and to
his own home”. The Bible then
says, “And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith”.
This blew my mind! He did not perform miracles because they did not believe in
him. This may seem very self-explanatory to most of you but I was blown away by
this small detail I had not been thinking about. My desire for BG to be healed
has been so great but I had not had the faith in God that he could heal her.
Matthew 17:20 emphasized this for me: “Truly I tell you, if you have faith as
small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain ‘Move from here to
there’, and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you”. God wants
to move because of our faith in his word and prayer. I realized that I had been lacking the faith in God that BG
had yet to waver in. Even though BG has so many difficulties every single day
of this journey, SHE has been teaching me about faith and the lasting endurance
of God. Even when she first found out about the cancer she told me that she
told herself every day that her identity would not be found in cancer, but that
her identity would be found as a daughter of a loving and faithful God.
I guess I say all of this (holy Hannah this is long! Sorry!) to remind you readers to have faith and take heart in the Lord. All of us who know and love BG know that she lives out her love for Jesus daily. Even through this blog and through this difficult time in her life she has been preaching the goodness of Jesus and the plans that she knows he has for her. As her friends and loved ones, we need to have this faith! Imagine the works Jesus can do in BG’s life through us even if we have the smallest amount of faith.
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