Gotta Serve Somebody

It is amazing how much my perspective about some things has changed in only seven months. A little more than a year ago I can remember being absolutely devastated because I didn't get the evaluation score at work that I had expected. I felt totally crushed because I let myself be defined by my job. As Bob Dylan says, "Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you're gonna have to serve somebody." I was serving myself and my pride. I needed to receive a "3" at work in order to be validated in my own eyes. In a recent peer evaluation one of my co-workers wrote: "Jayne does not understand the concept of having a work/life balance." That comment was completely accurate.

Looking back over this cancer odyssey, I can see that I have had many of my priorities all screwed up. As a Christian I believe that the proper balance in life is God first, then family, then your job. I paid lip service to this concept, but was really a hypocrite. This belief doesn't mean you don't do your best at work. Before the Lord, I am accountable for every hour I am paid by my company to be the best employee I can possibly be. Before the Lord, I have to be the wife and mother He expects me to be. But I can't make my job or my family into false idols. Only God deserves my worship. I know with my head that if God has first place, everything else falls into its correct place - but with my anal personality it is impossible for me to get the order right without His grace.

Oddly enough, one of the recurring comments you hear among cancer patients is, "Cancer is the best thing that could have happened to me. It has forced me to re-evaluate my entire life." I have to agree. I really feel like Ebenezer Scrooge who has been given a second chance to do the right thing. I know I have been given an opportunity to make things right before Christmas comes. Can I choose to blow this chance? It's all about free will, baby, but what a tragedy that would be. What a waste of this awesome experience. How many people get to go through a recurrence of breast cancer that has metastasized to the brain and bones and get to live to tell about it?

If I could model myself after anyone I have ever met, I would want to be just like Sister Santhi, a nursing sister I met while I was a patient at St. Mary's. She would walk into your room and you could just feel the love of Jesus radiating from her face. She didn't have to say a word. She is GENUINELY kind, and that's what I want people to think about me. Maybe I won't be considered the smartest, thinnest (for sure), best dressed, or most-well read person in the room, but if people would just consider me the kindest I would be satisfied. I especially want to be kinder and more patient with my husband and daughter. It's not easy living or working with someone who wants everything to be perfect. With God's help I will learn to let things "slide" more and focus on what's actually important.

While typing today's entry, I have really felt God's presence. I am crying right now -- not from frustration or sadness, but from the appreciation I feel for His giving me a second chance to stop being a jerk; to realize what is REALLY important. We all gotta serve somebody. Whom do you serve?