It has been a hot minute and to be honest I have been off living my best life. Braden and I were gone for almost two and a half weeks in Croatia and London with good friends of ours. After returning, I had to get life back in order. This included making some rather large decisions on how to focus my time. Since taking a step away from my career as a teacher to put time towards my health I have felt a little lost. Okay...EXTREMELY lost! I never knew the amount of my identity that was tied up in my career. More than anything, I found that it was tied up in impacting others. As a teacher I was given a platform to make a difference (or at least attempt to). Suddenly that was taken away and I've been filling my days with busyness and over committing my time to distract myself from the lack of direction I've felt. It wasn't until I had said yes to all possibilities in front of me that the freak out set in. As a result of no direction, I ended up creating too many directions...substitute teacher, blog writer, Beautycounter consultant, front desk help at a local yoga studio, ministry coordinator for a local non-profit and lets not forget cancer fighter. As all of these commitments came to a head I had the "Oh Shit" moment. Normally I love doing all the things, but in this new phase of life (aka cancer and our temporary move to Longmont) I had felt God speaking the words "rest" over me. Rarely do I slow down and rest. Usually if it does happen it is followed by extreme amounts of guilt I place on myself. After not listening when first being diagnosed in Denver, God physically isolated me in Longmont to force me into rest. Yet, leave it to a stubborn woman to work her way around what God is telling her to do (Insert hand to face emoji here). So after living out my "Oh Shit" moment, which included lots of chocolate and journaling I finally found my focus. That is to be putting first what I feel God is telling me to do, which at this time is rest. The repercussion of this has been narrowing my focus and time. God has been placing this blog on my heart and so this is where my main focus will lie. This means consistent posts and a few other things I have in the works. In addition, the non-profit 1twenty7 Project aligns too much with my purpose to forgo, so you can now find a link to the ministry on my website. Please check them out and consider volunteering or donating if you feel called to do so. Outside of these commitments I am keeping substitute teaching on the back burner. Teaching is where I hold a lot of passion and thankfully being a substitute is very flexible. Rest assured I will over-commit myself again, which I know is a common problem in today's world of do more, be more. To fight this tendency I will be doing constant check-ins through God's word, journaling and therapy. A recipe of success in my opinion!
As for a medical update, I went in for scans last week. I received both an MRI and CT scan plus blood work. I am happy to report it was all good news! As of now, my medication (Alectinib) is doing it's job and keeping my cancer under control. Both the tumors in my brain and lung were reduced in size. The next step is another set of scans in three months. I am doing my best to not live my life by my scan date, but let me tell you it's a real challenge! When there is such an unknown hanging over your head it's a heavy weight to carry around. I am beyond grateful that God has allowed my body to respond to Alectinib so well. My hope and prayer is that I have a long run on the medication. However, not knowing if I'll stop responding tomorrow or two years from now is a struggle. I am working a little more each day at accepting this reality. All the prayers are welcome!
So all this being said, be ready for many more posts and lots of new things in the works! Also in updating my site I realized the email tied to my communication was one I no longer have. I apologize if you have sent anything I haven't responded to. Feel free to resend it!
With Love,
Tara
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