one year ago...

have you ever sat and thought back to what you were doing exactly a year ago?

well it hit me today that exactly a year ago i was sitting in a hospital while my mom was having surgery for breast cancer. it seems crazy that it has been a year since that all happened.

its scary enough when your mom is having surgery for cancer, but it gets even worse when the doctor comes in to the waiting room halfway through the surgery. i still remember going into the side room with the doctor, my dad and my brother aaron and hearing that the cancer had spread further than they had originally thought. i shook pretty much through the whole conversation.

thankfully, my mom is doing great now. the rest of the surgery went fine. they were able to get everything out. she completed her chemo and radiation treatments. and is now doing great. her hair is growing back. she feels well and is currently relaxing on a lounge chair at a resort in riviera maya, mexico, which definitely beats a hospital bed!

it was quite a journey with the Lord through the past year with all of that, but it was a good process at the same time. one of my favorite passages that i was leaning on last year at this time was psalm 116:
¹I love the LORD, because he has heard
my voice and my pleas for mercy.
²Because he inclined his ear to me,
therefore I will call on him as long as I live.
³ The snares of death encompassed me;
the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me;
I suffered distress and anguish.
⁴Then I called on the name of the LORD:
"O LORD, I pray, deliver my soul!"

⁵ Gracious is the LORD, and righteous;
our God is merciful.
⁶The LORD preserves the simple;
when I was brought low, he saved me.
⁷Return, O my soul, to your rest;
for the LORD has dealt bountifully with you.

⁸For you have delivered my soul from death,
my eyes from tears,
my feet from stumbling;
⁹I will walk before the LORD
in the land of the living.

¹⁰ I believed, even when I spoke,
"I am greatly afflicted";
¹¹ I said in my alarm,
"All mankind are liars."

¹²What shall I render to the LORD
for all his benefits to me?
¹³I will lift up the cup of salvation
and call on the name of the LORD,
¹⁴I will pay my vows to the LORD
in the presence of all his people.

¹⁵ Precious in the sight of the LORD
is the death of his saints.
¹⁶O LORD, I am your servant;
I am your servant, the son of your maidservant.
You have loosed my bonds.
¹⁷I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving
and call on the name of the LORD.
¹⁸I will pay my vows to the LORD
in the presence of all his people,
¹⁹in the courts of the house of the LORD,
in your midst, O Jerusalem.
Praise the LORD!