GOD DESIRES ME TO GO DEEPER

The month of August and September have been filled with an overwhelming number of difficult situations. God has been using each of these events to teach me more about how to process what I feel as I have been going through these various challenges. Honestly, trying to embrace my need to deal with my emotions has been the most intimating experience of all, since for my whole life up to September 2023, I have chosen to run away from certain “negative” emotions. I totally detest having them and truthfully, I am scared when these feelings surface. But as always, God has a different and the most perfect plan for me.

Every day now God is showing me how to give him my whole heart.  As I have been going through these additional struggles with my health, he has been exposing the necessary steps that I must take to be true to myself.  As with all growing experiences, the whole process has been and still is very scary and painful, but because I crave spiritual maturity, these endless training sessions are priceless.  I am totally confident that because God loves me with HIS whole heart, he will continually provide me with his peace that passes all understanding as I surrender my all to him in prayer.

Philippians 4:6-7 (NLT)

6 Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank him for all he has done. 7Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

To connect with God on both an emotional and spiritual level, I am now willing to validate, embrace, and process ALL my emotions.  Because most of my emotions scare me, I must constantly trust that God has never designed for me to be alone. (Genesis 2:18 and Genesis 3:8). I have faith that not only is he always there for me, but that God has also graciously put so many spiritual friends in my life. I see God working as you all are in this spiritual battle with me, fighting with the weapons of righteousness—using the shield of faith to extinguish satan’s flaming arrows and the sword of the Spirit, which is his Word and with your constant prayers. (Ephesians 6:10-20) I am grateful for your great love and support.

And to God’s glory, he is unraveling before me his perfect plan for my life.

It all started with a series of different tests in August 2023: 

Please allow me to provide a little background about my current health situations:

I have terminal lung cancer, and I take a targeted therapy pill with a brand name of Tagrisso. This medication is designed to target the proteins that control how the lung cancer cells grow, divide, and spread. However, there will come a time when this therapy will no longer be effective, and the cancer cells will once again rapidly grow. The timing of when this happens varies from individual to individual.

Tagrisso comes in two different strengths, 40 and 80 mg. The studies have shown that the 80 mg dosage is most effective, so I have been taking 80 mg since the end of January.  

One of the potential side effects of Tagrisso is that it can cause heart rhythm problems and heart failure. Since I already have heart failure, the doctors have been regularly monitoring my heart to ensure that I can still safely use this “life-sustaining” drug.

So, the first test occurred in the beginning of August. My ECHO had shown that my Ejection Fraction percentage (EF%) decreased once again to 33-35%, which basically means that my heart is currently failing. The report also mentioned some evidence of my heart being enlarged and trace amounts of regurgitation of the blood in one of the chambers of my heart.

Previously in December 2022, I had panicked with my ECHO results showing that my heart was failing. However, my heart function improved in April 2023. My cardiologist had also previously reviewed with me what to look for with extreme heart failure and when to be concerned.  Since I was not experiencing any of these symptoms, I was not as worried with the ECHO result in August 2023. At that time, I did sort of wonder if it might be an issue with the Tagrisso, but I put it aside, deciding again not to panic because I trusted that God was in control of all of this.

Next was a test of humility. Previously my cardiologist told me that regular aerobic exercise could help improve my heart function, so I began to do a little walking around the neighborhood. During one of my walks, I had tripped, fallen, and hurt my left foot.  I noticed this time that my self-talk was different and that I did not respond the way that I usually do whenever I trip. I felt God reassuring me that I was okay. I thought “God you are in total control. You allowed this to happen so that in my surprise and pain, I would come to you.”  I chose not to give up nor be discouraged but to carrying on with my walk.  Later though after the effects of the adrenaline had worn off, I had to go to Urgent Care since my foot began throbbing with pain. Even though I had to walk with crutches for about 4-5 days, I still felt resolved about the whole thing and was so grateful that my foot was not broken.

Then came test #3. With the decrease noted in EF%, my cardiologist expressed his concern that the Tagrisso may be affecting my heart function. So, on August 31st, I followed up with Dr. Hann, my oncologist at Johns Hopkins.  She recommended to reduce the Tagrisso to 40 mg if a 2nd ECHO still indicated that my heart was failing and if a brain MRI showed no sign of cancer in my brain. Dr. Hann reminded me that since lung cancer typically spreads first to the brain, the Tagrisso would have to be discontinued all together if the MRI indicated any presence of cancer.

I felt good and relaxed about my surrender to God even with being laid up when I hurt my foot and not fretting over the fact that I could not “do” a whole lot. I felt that I was in a good place.  With all that was going on, I felt accomplished because I was able to “surrender” everything over to God and noted such great growth in my attitude of where I thought I was with my health and my life.

Then an even bigger test happened. On the evening of September 4th, I experienced something very strange. During a phone conversation with one of my best friends, God revealed something very disturbing in my character and it floored me. When I was sharing my day with her, I was suddenly shocked to learn that my disappointment in my expectation of God answering a specific prayer had revealed my own self-focus in trying to prove myself to someone else. It was as if I was expecting God to be my genie in a bottle and do my bidding. Instead of quickly going to God with confession and begging him for his help in repenting of this sin, I was basically paralyzed with feelings of shock, shame, doubt, and discouragement so that I was not even able to pray. My friend spent the next 1 ½ hours on the phone with me, trying to help me with scriptures to reaffirm God’s great love and grace for me though satan was constantly attacking me with this self-focus of failing God once again.

Things got worse that night. During the whole time, my friend and I were talking on the phone, I noticed that my chest pain began to get a little more intense. About 30 minutes after I hung up, despite my efforts to pray and to settle my mind and heart about what just happened, my chest pain intensified so much that it was hitting a level “11”. Fortunately, my niece was sleeping in the next room, so I woke her up and asked her to take me to the emergency room. 

After about 4 hours of testing, the doctor released me. He said that he could not tell me what was causing my chest pain. All he could do was reassure me that I was not having a heart attack, that there was no evidence of pulmonary embolism nor any additional fluid in my lungs.  “Hmm.  Okay, God what are you trying to tell me? Nothing physical that the doctor could see.  Hmm.”  Thank God though that after my release my constant chest pain level was registering mostly 4’s and 5’s with just an occasional 8.

Over the next few weeks, I knew that I must limit most of my activity because of this chest pain so I had a lot of “time” on my hands to reflect on what had been happening.  I guess the chest pain had served as a major emotional trigger for me because two days later, I woke up and I found myself in a panic. What Dr. Hann had said finally donned on me. A series of random thoughts popped into my head. “That’s right! The brain is typically the first place where lung cancer spreads. What if the brain MRI show that I have brain cancer!  Wait a minute. Brain cancer, that means I could forget God!”  I started to cry. To me, life without God is not tolerable. It is meaningless. It is suffering without a purpose! Soon afterwards though, I was able to calm my anxious thoughts, and I began to think: “Once again, God, you are in control, and you only give me what I can bear. (1 Corinthians 10:13) You will be with me, and you will make certain that I don’t ever forget you.”  I called this whole thing another victory and I went on.

However, it did not stop there.

Then came the final test, that exposed one of my major character flaws. On September 5th, I had a very emotional encounter with a friend where she had thought that I had violated her confidence. Since the incident disturbed me, on the next afternoon, I sought some advice from my best friend Christine about how to process what had happened with this specific encounter. Then our conversation led to how I have been “handling” these previous tests. As we were talking about the tests, it felt like that famous can of worms had just been opened. UGH! I began to realize that I was not being true to myself and that my fear of my “negative” emotions was preventing me from being real before God.

As I said earlier, I totally hate having any type of “negative” emotions and when they surface, they scare me.  I have seen where my own anger has led to violent acts, so I don’t like it when I get angry (like the Incredible Hulk).  I have too often been in the wallows of deep depression with frequent thoughts of suicide so that I hate getting sad.  I have seen myself so consumed with worry that I have been paralyzed with fear. 

Needless to say, I thought the best way of coping with these “negative” emotions was to either denying having them (the “oh it is all good.  God is in control” flippant attitude) or to just say “ok this is how I feel” and then throw all my emotions and thoughts back at God (calling it surrendering to his will) so that I could be comforted and feel those more “positive” emotions once again and go on with my life.

But faced with this new revelation, I began acknowledging my deceit and my cowardice before God, and I started to pray for his help to get deeper convictions and to repent of these sins.  As I began processing all of this, God uncovered a deep-seated false belief that I had clung onto for so many years: Despite knowing that feelings are neither right or wrong nor good or bad, deep in my heart, I could not let go of my belief that these “negative” emotions were sinful, preventing me to be with God.  I have been so biased in my thinking and beliefs because of certain painful experiences that I have associated with my “negative” emotions, and these preconceived notions were what have controlled me and were separating me from God.

So, in this, God exposed that I am afraid to feel those “negative” emotions and that I have been so wrong in the way that I have dealt with them in the past.  Trying to “sweep them under the rug” is no longer an option.  To process all my emotions, I must experience them and think them through and do this all with God.  I must do my part and not just think that God is going to make them go away only because I don’t like them.  God wants me to be motivated by HIS LOVE and not by my fear of failure or fear of not being good enough as satan tries to convince me.  God is unconditional in his love.  He wants me to experience all parts of these opportunities so that I can also deeply feel his great love for me as I rely more on him and connect with him on a more emotional level.

It is not that fear perse is bad because being scared is an emotion and we have them.  They are always valid neither right nor wrong.  It is when we stop trusting God and give into that fear that it is a sin.  So basically, I was allowing my fear of experiencing my “negative” emotions to linger, affecting my thinking, and then trusting in that false belief rather than God.  Go figure, I was sinning trying to avoid sinning!  Geez!  (I am now rolling in laughter at how comical that statement is.)  Thanks be to God for revealing his plan of repentance for me.

I now believe that I can feel these challenges more in the way that God intended for them to be.  I can see how God wants me to rejoice in those difficulties.

James 1:2-4 (ERV)

2 My brothers and sisters, you will have many kinds of trouble. But this gives you a reason to be very happy. 3 You know that when your faith is tested, you learn to be patient in suffering. 4 If you let that patience work in you, the end result will be good. You will be mature and complete. You will be all that God wants you to be.

It also has helped meditating on a couple of quotes from Guy Hammond in his “Tempt Away” book:

“…every change in our circumstances, whether considered positive or negative, offers us a test in life that we will either pass or fail.  How we deal with the blessings and curses of life are all tests, opportunities for us to move closer to God or mover farther away from him.”

“While it is true that satan is the one doing the tempting or takes advantage of our evil inner desires to sin, what the devil intends for evil and chaos in our lives, God actually turns into good, in the form of opportunities for us to honor him and grow spiritually.”

I know that God is in total control of all things because even satan must go to him to get God’s permission to even tempt us as we go through suffering.

Job 1:8-12 (ICB)

8 Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you noticed my servant Job? No one else on earth is like him...” (I can just see God beaming with such pride about his child.)

9 But Satan answered God, “Job honors God for a good reason. 10 You have put a wall around him, his family and everything he owns. You have blessed the things he has done...11 But reach out your hand and destroy everything he has. Then he will curse you to your face.”

12 The Lord said to Satan, “All right, then. Everything Job has is in your power...”

So, I now realize that all of these are humbling moments—tests of varying kinds—are all just ways for God to call me to be deeper with him.  God has used these particular tests as an opportunity to expose my false belief.  Now, I can choose to be true to myself and be humble before God.  I can elect to allow him to work in exposing my attitudes about my feelings and what role my emotions play in my relationship with him.

With God’s help, I can be more like David as he shared in Psalm 56:3-4 (NIV)

3 When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.4 In God, whose word I praise—in God I trust and am not afraid.    What can mere mortals do to me?

For me, I can declare “what can these “negative” emotions do to me”?

So this new found belief was recently put to the test.  My second ECHO was scheduled for October 5th and on the day before, I was filled with so much anxiety that I cried throughout the day. 

I have been feeling anxious off and on since the morning I woke up with those random thoughts.  Throughout the month of September, I have been confessing with many tears my feelings and thoughts both to God and to my friends.  In addition to praying with me, my friends have provided me with great love and support, sharing beautiful scriptures with me, which have helped to lift me up at varying times.

So on October 4th, I sought out this new way of dealing with my “negative” emotion and I was blown away by God’s power and promises.  I sent texts out to my church family all over the country asking them to pray for me about this great anxiety.  I asked them to petition God to help me not be anxious about the results of the test but to totally trust in his plan for my heart and for my cancer treatment.  Then I spent several hours that evening just crying and talking to God about all that I felt and all that I thought.  I just kept asking for his peace.  Finally, before I went to sleep that night, he answered all those prayers and at that moment, I had his peace. 

And as it says in Philippians 4, I will express my deepest gratitude as I continue to petition and present all my requests to God, letting him know all about what I am feeling and thinking. I know that this is a continual process because feelings are so fleeting, and thoughts are constantly changing. I understand that it is never a one and done deal and that I cannot on my own just decide that I will not be anxious about something because it is an emotion. All I can do is acknowledge that I am worried as I am experiencing it and talk to God about what I am feeling and thinking at that moment. Since he is the only one who can change me, I must go to him as I am trying to process anything that I feel.

I now find myself clinging to Psalm 73:26 (NIRV)

26My body and my heart may grow weak.    God, you give strength to my heart.    You are everything I will ever need.

God is my comfort, and he has proven to me that he is all I need as my physical heart has now failed me. To God be the glory! Amen.

COMMENTS WHEN BLOG WAS FIRST POSTED ON CARING BRIDGE SITE:

Patty Felker: I posted this on my FB page. But, it's appropriate here. https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid029ugn4xx5xqFhTUrsj7tMihEF8TGpmqnFJMVK63an1KaQnj4dFAeUKd5EBZYnpom3l&id=661738490&mibextid=CDWPTG1hearts

Vicki Sandiford : Hi, Kim, Thank you so much for being real, vulnerable and raw with your struggles and emotions. I have many of the same struggles with facing my emotions, especially the negative ones and not wanting to deal with them. I am just starting on this journey (reading the book Spritual Transformations dealing with emotional intelligence) and it is helpful hearing from someone who is further down the path! I am very proud of you for fighting so hard to go deeper with God and persevere through these very challenging times and circumstances!! You are inspiring others along the way! Love and prayers, Vicki S.

Patty Felker : Dear Kim, I am truly sorry for the stress you are under right now. I had a taste of it lately between the time Rick had his heart attack and later passed away. Up until the time of his funeral I was dealing with levels of anxiety I had never known. But, I didn't think of begging God for forgiveness for having fear, uncertainty, weakness, etc . When I pray, I ask God for help, and always try to verbalize all the things I'm thankful for. This lets God know I see him working. It also helps me focus on God's love, His many gifts He continues to bestow on me, and His kindness. Keep asking God how you might be able to spread love, hope, and kindness through His Spirit at work in you, Kim. If I had a sick little girl trying to overcome cancer, I'd be upset if she were beating herself up for being afraid. If you keep thanking God for His promises, you will remain in a state of hopefulness. His Spirit will continue to bring those promises to the forefront of your mind. Are you still working, Kim? Do you still drive? Can you cook? I remember you making homemade pasta when you were living nearby. I was so impressed! I'm trying to understand the state of disability you are in. I hope you answered 'yes' to those questions. Keep shining your light to the very end, Kim. Give, and it will be given to you. In His love, Patty