Sandy's Journey of Faith: VBS Week

Monday, July 21, 2008

VBS Week

The girls and I spent most of last week participating at Glenkirk's Vacation Bible School. VBS is my favorite week at Glenkirk because it involves over 500 campers (and 200 counselors) on the campus and in the sanctuary, and they are all learning about God. Last year I missed being a part of the excitement due to radiation. This year, I helped with snacks in the morning. I had a few days where I could just sit and soak in the excitement and fun that was going on all around the church.

Rachel was a counselor this year for the first time. She worked with the 4-5 year old kids. It was a real learning experience for her. She was wiped out each day and needed some quiet time in the afternoons to recover. Ha! She now understands why I need a 30 minute nap each day!

Michelle was a camper, and had a great week with her friends learning about God. On Thursday, she said they had a very special moment where they put their "sin" on a sticky note and left it at the cross. She was excited to tell us that she accepted Jesus into her heart (again).

The theme this year was science, and our youth director, Anthony, gave a wonderful analogy of God and boiling water. Water boils 212 degrees exactly. If the burner is turned off, the boiling stops and becomes inactive. Once the water has sat for awhile, it takes awhile to get back to boiling again. Anthony compared the boiling water to our walk with God. We need to keep the flame going so that we continue to have the intensity of a relationship with God. If we stop reading, attending church, or praying, it takes awhile to get back that intensity and relationship with Christ.

It is my prayer that you have found time this summer to appreciate the beauty God created, and that you feel the intense and perfect love of God in your life. We can all take a lesson from the VBS campers this week and come to God with childlike faith and the knowledge that He has the power to change our lives for good.

I wanted to close with a little note from a friend who is also battling cancer. When I read it tonight, I knew immediately that I had to share her thoughts on cancer. Here is a note from Delisa Celaya:

"I guess the day you hear your diagnosis your survivorship begins and so I am over the year mark, having heard sometime in June. I'm not really at all sentimental about that time. One thing I am learning is to live each day to the fullest, to live in the moment because this very moment is the only moment of this life any of us is guaranteed. You've heard that adage: "Yesterday is history, Tomorrow is a mystery, and Today is a gift"? It is also said that cancer forever changes you, but God's Holy Spirit is greater than cancer and the transformation He is at work completing in me is all good. He tells me not to worry about tomorrow and so I won't. He tells me He has a plan for my life, so I seek to discover it each day and I hope my choices bless Him."

Have a glorious summer!

Love,
Sandy

The Salvation Prayer

This prayer is an example of what to say to Jesus when you want Him to come into your heart. It is a humble statement between you and God that recognizes that we all fall short of being good enough to face God on our own. Jesus had to pay the price for our sins so we could come before God pure and blameless. You don't need to clean up your life before you pray this prayer. Jesus will come in and help you draw close to him.

Lord Jesus, I need You. Thank You for dying on the cross for my sins. I open the door of my life and receive You as my Savior and Lord. Thank You for forgiving my sins and giving me eternal life. Take control of the throne of my life. Make me the kind of person You want me to be.

My Journey (Revised 07/12/13)

Romans 8:28 says that in everything, God works for the good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.

This is often a tough verse to swallow. We see our life falling down around us due to finances, broken relationships, or disease, and it becomes difficult to trust that God can work through these trials if we look for His purpose and trust in Him. There are times when it seems impossible for God to work anything for the good because things are so bad.

I was diagnosed with cancer in April 2007 when I had a stiff neck that would not go away. For four months I tried chiropractic care, massages, and stretching to try and loosen the knots that were all over my neck and down into my upper back. The stiff neck made sense to me because we had moved into a new house and I thought I had strained something.

Four months later I could not stand the pain any longer. I went back to my trusted chiropractor and he sent me to have an MRI. It was through that test that he saw something horribly wrong. My C5 vertebrae was gone, and my neck had collapsed! He called my husband and I into his office and told us the news that would change our life. There was some type of disease in my neck. He suspected that it was metastatic breast cancer.

We contacted City of Hope, and they asked me to get a bone scan. My life plunged further into darkness when the test came back showing lesions all over my bones. Several tests later, a small tumor in my breast was found, and I was officially diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer. It is incurable.

My family decended into the valley of the shadow of death. It was a dark and painful time, and all of our lives changed forever. However, it was during that time God revealed His purpose for me. I have cherished my relationship with God all of my life. Because I had a spiritual foundation, when the bottom of my world dropped out from under me, I had a loving God to catch me. In many ways I feel that God had prepared me for this battle my entire life.

We shared the news with more family and friends, and the prayer support was amazing. I visualized the "switchboard in heaven" completely lit up with prayers for me. We tried to keep up the communication with everyone via e-mail, but a better solution came to mind.

On the eve of my surgery to repair my neck at City of Hope, I started a Blog, and called it "Sandy's Journey of Faith." Little did I know that this was the gift and ministry that God had been training me for. It started with us giving updates, and then turned into a forum in which I could share my faith as I walked hand in hand with Jesus through this trial. Jon would sometimes be a guest writer, and we were getting lots of interest and encouragement from everyone to keep it up.

I am still in awe that I can continue to write and share the ups and downs of living with cancer in such a powerful way. God uses our technology for His glory. I am just the typist, but God is the true writer of this Blog. There are often times when I wake up in the middle of the night (when it is the most quiet) and just start writing something that God has placed on my heart. It is a humbling journey to know that the God of this Universe cares about my Blog, and can use it.

I am forever thankful for the brilliant, and compassionate doctors at City of Hope. I trust them to do what is necessary to give me a good quality of life. My cancer journey has been a roller coaster of chemotherapy, radiation, surgeries, and on going treatments. I believe that God brings doctors into our lives to help us, but He is the ultimate physician, and I have seen miraculous healing as well.

My journey still involves metastasized cancer. God has His reasons for not healing me, and I have learned that His road for me is better that mine. Through it all, I have grown personally closer to Jesus, and I have seen miracles in the lives of people around me that are better gifts that the healing of cancer. When a loved one comes to know this amazing and loving God that I worship, my cancer journey is worth it.

There are hundreds of promises that God has made to those He calls His own. My favorite promise is from Hebrews 13:5 "I will never leave you or forsake you." I can say, without hesitation, that God has never left my side throughout this journey of mine. Sometimes the answers have come slower than I would have liked, and often times not in the way I would have envisioned, but God's love is constant and unconditional.

God has taken a broken vessel (me), and has shown His light through the cracks. I am humbled and thankful that you took time to read this Blog. I pray that it has inspired you to seek out a relationship with the one who went to the cross so that you can be free. Jesus makes promises, and He never breaks them.

-Sandy Boulware

Prayer for Salvation

There is not specific prayer that needs to be prayed word for word. It is just a humble statement between you and Jesus as you recognize all that He did because of His love for you. You don't need to clean up your life before saying this prayer. Jesus will help you find a way, through faith, to draw closer to Him.

Lord Jesus, I need You. Thank You for dying on the cross for my sins. I open the door of my life and receive You as my Savior and Lord. Thank You for forgiving my sins and giving me eternal life. Take control of the throne of my life. Make me the kind of person You want me to be.