"When you've been struck by lightning as many times as I have, you start to expect the worst pretty much all the time." -Jennifer Bosworth
I experienced some tragedy at a fairly young age. I learned all of the valuable lessons that come from such experiences. They refined me and helped mold me into the person I am. As a whole, I believe that person is better because of her trials. But such dramatic challenges have left me altered in some ways that aren't exactly positive. Traumatic events have left me with a few somewhat crippling side-effects.
When your father is offered a job promotion in another city, it is an exciting thing for a teenage girl. When your whole family packs up and leaves their house of 12 years to settle in a new city, it is an exciting and scary thing for a teenage girl. When, three months after moving to a new house and a new city, your father is diagnosed with a rare terminal cancer and as a result is given a job demotion, and your family spends the next three years living barely above poverty while watching their father slowly die, it is a very traumatic thing for a teenage girl.
I have overcome many of the scars and difficulties that come with such an experience. It has, after all, been almost 20 years. But there are a few challenges that remain. One such challenge is that constant underlying anxiety that something awful lurks around the corner. I can not make a decision that may alter our life for good without being haunted with that fear, that if I make such a decision, I will be struck with some horrible disease and my husband will suddenly lose his job. After all, if it happened once before, it can certainly happen again.
The very realness of disease, death, and tragedy has lingered with me over the years, and I can't seem to kick its dampening effects. My poor husband has had more tests than he'd care to have, because every time he complains of a minor symptom, I instantly scream cancer and send him to the specialist. After all, if they found a bizarre cancer connected to the outside of my dad's small intestine, a cancer that they only knew of 50 other cases in the world, then it is entirely possible that they might find one of those in my husband. And let's not even begin to discuss the common cancers. I am at the dermatologist every other month getting things frozen off, when the doctor assures me that it is nothing to be concerned about. But you know, just in case, let's just remove it before it morphs into some deadly mass. I watch my children with trepidation. Any lump or discoloration on their body sends me into panic-mode.
I feel guilty for struggling with these feelings. I am supposed to come out of such experiences with an undeviating faith in God and his plan for me. And I do have faith, because despite all that tragedy, my family ended up being ok. But it is hard not to walk through life with the fear that lightning might strike again. It is difficult not to go along without flinching at every life change. I find myself cowering when opportunity knocks. Rather than embracing these blessings, I hunker down and brace myself for the storm that most certainly must be on the horizon.
It is something I am fighting to overcome. It is interesting what small struggles come after overcoming big challenges. I suppose to expect to come away from such a trial unaltered and unaffected is ridiculous. I just wish I could get a handle on this particular problem so that I could make a decision for my family and just relish all of the happiness and excitement that it brings. Living in Faith not Fear. It's not always as easy as it sounds. But I'll keep on trying. Do you think I'm too young for a colonoscopy? Just kidding. What about a mammogram? Yes, I think I better call for an appointment.
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