Well, shut my mouth!

My oldest daughter caught it and called me on it. It was a slip of the tongue, but I'd made the mistake several times recently. I never even realized it, but I was still claiming I had cancer. I told complete strangers, "I have breast cancer," when in all actuality, that was a lie! I don't HAVE cancer any more! What I should have said is, "I HAD cancer!" What a difference there are in those two words - HAVE  and HAD. One is present tense and one is past tense. How did I fall into that trap? Why hadn't I realized what I was saying? I certainly didn't want to HAVE cancer! After all, I'd spent the past 8 months recovering from painful surgery and treatment to erradicate it from my body.

I'm a firm believer that there is power in the spoken word. The Bible says it too,  "Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and they who indulge in it shall eat the fruit of it [for death or life](Proverbs 18:21) The Bible also says that "out of the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be. (James 3:10) So why had I chosen to CURSE myself by saying, "I have cancer," as if I still had it? Was I believing a lie from the pits of hell that Satan had been whispering in my ear, "Bonnie, you don't know if the cancer is really gone...there could be some rogue cells that split off and traveled into your blood stream during surgery...they could be lurking somewhere in your body doing all kinds of bad things...they could be growing and you don't even know it...your cancer is going to come back one day when you least suspect it! It's going to sneak up on you like a ticking time bomb and then, what are you going to do????"

Those lies had subtly attached themselves in my mind and it was time to root them out for good! I made a conscious decision to be very careful about what I spoke over myself from that point forward. Instead of speaking a curse, "I HAVE cancer," I was going to speak a blessing, "I HAD cancer." I'm sorry if I've confused you, saying I had cancer, a blessing? Yes! Keep reading.

I asked God to help me understand His viewpoint on the matter and He led me straight to the Bible. In the book of James, chapter 1 verses 2-8, it says, "Consider it wholly joyful, my brethren, whenever you are enveloped in or encounter trials of any sort or fall into various temptations. Be assured and understand that the trial and proving of your faith bring out endurance and steadfastness and patience. But let endurance and steadfastness and patience have full play and do a thorough work, so that you may be [people] perfectly and fully developed [with no defects], lacking in nothing. ..."

Now I've read this verse a million times before throughout my life but this time, I read it with an emphasis on the word JOY and TRIALS. They seem to be contradictory don't they? Joy isn't the first thing I think of when I hear the word trial. I usually think of pain, suffering, hardship, and longsuffering. But God wants us to be joyful knowing that there's a purpose for the trial. He wants us to understand that although it's challenging and difficult, He's going to use it to do a mighty thing in our lives, and that's how cancer has been a blessing to me. He's used it to teach me and mold me into who He wants me to be.

The more and more I thought about this verse, the more I realized I needed to learn to fight back! I wasn't going to listen to those lies from Satan any more. I was going to speak life over myself. I was going to be joyful! What a concept...to fight back with joy! Who would have ever thought joy could be used as a weapon? I certainly didn't, but God had revealed this to me as I pondered the scriptures from the book of James.

Now don't get me wrong. It hasn't been easy to begin to fight back with joy. It's been challenging. I've had to learn to shift my focus. Instead of focusing on what has been taken from me (my breasts and my femininity) I have to look at what remains (my life, my spirit, my family.) I know it doesn't make sense, especially when your whole world has been turned upside down, but I really felt like God was impressing on my heart to focus on JOY. Joy isn't only an emotion, it's an action...it's something we can do, regardless of how we feel or what our emotions say.

So how could I be joyful? The best way to have joy is to give joy. I began thinking about how I could make others happy. So I began to pray and ask God to lay people on my heart and He did! He gave me a long list of names, some family, some friends, and some people I've never even met. How could I spread joy to them? I began asking God to reveal specific ways for me to minister His love and joy to each person. I'm still working on the list and jotting down things that God is impressing on my heart, but for some of the people, He's just impressed on me to send a card and other's I feel led to call. Some require a small gift and others just need prayer. In ever instance, God is allowing me to see that joy is indeed an action. It is intentional and when we give it away, just like with love, it comes back to us.

Joy is very different from happiness although the two do go hand in hand. A dictionary definition of happiness is “a state of well-being, a pleasurable or satisfying experience.” The definition of the word “rejoice,” from which our word “joy” comes, is “to feel great delight, to welcome or to be glad.” The word “joy” comes from the Greek root word chara and means "to be exceedingly glad."James 1:2says, “Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials.” How could we ever consider going through difficulties and trials a reason to feel joy? James 1:3-4 gives us a clue when it says, “Knowing that the testing of our faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” The deep, abiding joy comes as we persevere through trials, with God’s help, and our faith matures and is strengthened. So happiness tends to be fleeting and depends upon temporal factors like circumstances or other people. Joy, on the other hand, is true contentment that comes from internal factors like our faith in the Lord. True joy is everlasting and not dependent upon circumstances. So the Bible teaches that happiness is fleeting because it often depends on things outside of ourselves, but true joy is eternal because it is based on our relationship with Jesus Christ, which is itself an everlasting source of joy.

Every year I pray and ask God to give me one word on which to focus throughout the year. Last year, the word He gave me was TRUST. What a fitting word to give me when I was going to face the most difficult trial of my life! This year, He gave me the word JOY. I can't wait to see how He's going to lead me into discovering a deeper understanding of this word.

Joy in the midst of trial...doesn't make much sense, does it? But according to God, that's exactly how we're supposed to face trials...joyfully. I'm in the midst of learning this lesson and I'm also in the midst of learning to keep my mouth on guard. I have to be very careful with the words I speak over myself. Yes, I HAD breast cancer, but I don't HAVE it any more! Praise God! I'm a survivor! As of this post, I've been cancer free for 8 months and I'm trusting God that my future health is in His hands. 

Maybe you need to consider fighting back with joy. Have you ever thought of joy as a weapon against the enemy? What's your natural response when you come face to face with a trial you didn't expect? Do you immediately recoil in fear or do you put up your fists ready to fight? It's not easy to be joyful when life throws us unexpected challenges but it is doable. It takes practice, but with discipline and strength from God, you can do it. 

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