Grateful for cancer

Grateful for cancer.

Weird, right.  Read along, and maybe it will make sense.

It is Thanksgiving  after all -- this is the time when we all say what we are grateful for.
So, naturally I should write a post about everything I am grateful for.

The only problem with that is that I know I would forget something or someone and then I would  feel badly and I don't like feeling that way.  That's pretty normal.

Speaking of feelings:
One time (when I was probably 5 or 6) my family was having a family night, and my mom had us play this game where she had cut all these things out of magazines and newspaper (when we still used magazines and newspapers) like a picture of a house and food and clothes and books and toys and so on and so forth.  She put all the pictures onto a "flannel board"  - remember people we are talking about the 80's here -- flannel boards were all the rage before Pinterest.  Anyway, we,  as children, had to take turns eliminating things that we would go without and move them to the other side of the flannel board.  I think she was trying to illustrate to us how really blessed we were to have all these things that were represented on the flannel board, and what really mattered. There were also pictures of people in our family on the board (I think there were like 4 kids at the time).  Anyway, I guess it got right down to the end and my brother Jim had to eliminate something and there was a picture of me (I probably had feather bangs and/or a bowl cut or shaved off eyebrows or something really great like that) and there was a picture of a toilet.  He sat there for a long time thinking about what he was going to do -- and I am sure that my mom was so excited to illustrated the point that if we had each other we could live without all of the things that had been moved to the "elminiation" side of the flannel board...... Anyway, after a long deep breath and thought Jim moved MY PICTURE to the other side of the flannel board and decided he couldn't actually live without a toilet but that he could live without me.
True story.

Which brings me to my point.
I am also grateful for toilets and probably would pick them over a lot of things some days.
Just kidding, that isn't actually my point.

The point is, that if I had a flannel board full of pictures of all of the blessings I have in my life that I am grateful for it would be overflowing.  OVERFLOWING.
and I wouldn't really want to remove anything from it.  Not even cancer.

I mean, there are days and especially nights where I wish this cancer would just go away.
However, if I moved it to the other side of my "life flannel board" I would have to move a lot of other things with it.  There is a lot in my life that I have taken for granted, not recognized as blessings.

Getting cancer sorta makes you think twice or three times (or a zillion times every day) about things like your family and your friends and the fact that you have health insurance to help with financial needs and technology to keep in touch with all of those people in your life and an understanding of a loving Heavenly Father and His son Jesus Christ  and scriptures to read to give you peace and comfort and prayer to communicate with the Lord and food to nourish your failing body and books to read to distract your never ending mind and music to fill your heart and soul and blankets to keep you warm and the hallmark channel for movies to watch (actually I just put that there because Eric teases me about hallmark movies all the time) but really, most of all I am grateful for the things that matter most -- the things that are left on my flannel board if everything else goes away -- family, friends and the understanding I have of a loving Heavenly Father and His son Jesus Christ.  

I should probably tell my mom that that lesson all those years ago, has actually sunk in.
I am highly aware now of all the blessings I have to be grateful for, and I would definitely pick my brother Jim over a toilet -- and I am pretty sure he would pick me too.  Probably.

So, if you need a game to play today for Thanksgiving make a list of all of the things you are grateful for -- start eliminating things you can live without and see what is left on your board.

I am pretty sure your list would look a lot like mine. Maybe minus the cancer, but without the cancer I wouldn't be typing this blog and in all honesty I probably wouldn't be as acutely aware of all the things I do have.

So, in a way, I am grateful for cancer. 

It has showed me that my flannel board is full. 

It's overflowing with blessings. 

Happy Thanksgiving