A Road Less Traveled ~ Cancer & Depression

" 'For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, ' declares the Lord. 'As the heavens are higher than the earth so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.' " ~Isaiah 55:8-9

We moved to North Carolina in the summer of 2006. We settled nicely into our new home, church, town, and my new faith in my eternal heavenly Daddy. We made friends and life was going well. We thought for sure that this would be where God would keep us for a very long time, however this would not be His plan...
We had been living in this new routine for almost a year. My dad had helped the church grow in many ways, my mom was leading a huge women's ministry, and my siblings and I were all growing close to our new friends. Like a sheep in wolves clothing so did they end up to us. The longer we were there, the more light was shed into the shadows. We soon found out that the pastor was doing many things which were not Biblically correct. My parents tried to help and guide him back, but he wanted only to follow his desires. He became deceitfully hateful. He began verbally attacking my mother saying the most spiteful and vicious things one could imagine. He tormented her and cut her down. He then proceeded to do the same to my dad. We had to leave yet another church and move again into yet another house. To nine year old me though, it could all fall under an adventure... Right?

Overnight our family crushed into our biggest trial yet. Mom suddenly went into severe major depression. All I could do was watch as she sunk into the deepest pit ever.

I was enrolled into dance. As I continued to dance, my mother continued to get worse. We found another church, but this time my father would not be the pastor. Dad found a job as a patient advocate at Duke Hospital. The years went by. Mother was in the hospital over and over again, she had treatment after treatment. She still schooled us from home, taking care of us the best she could, but there was no life in her. To be honest I quickly forgot who my mother had been before. My memories of who she once was slipped away. Her frail body was still with me but her spirit seemed gone. She would never be the same again. Who she was now was a cold block of stone, and if the Lord answered our desperate prayers, she would forever be changed. Changed for the worse, or for the better. She tried many ways to get out of this black hole, but despite our prayers God did not heal her.
I grew up quickly during that time, though I never like to admit it to my mom.

In August of 2011, right after my birthday, and on top of her depression, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. I was terrified our family would fall apart. That would we not be able to withstand the damage. That we would break, that my parents marriage would fall apart. I was terrified that this would be the end of any happily ever after I held on to. I lay beside my little sister many nights listening and comforting her as she cried, but holding back my own tears, I tried to be strong. 
My mother eventually had to leave us for ten weeks to try and get better. It was one of the hardest ten weeks of her life, and all I could do was pray. His ways are higher then our ways. Five years piles up quickly, but this was not just five years of pain and sorrow, it was five years of prayer. And with her gone fighting, fighting for us, for her life, we only prayed harder. Weeks later, all praise to the Lord, He answered our prayers, and I met my new mother. She was completely healed of any depression. After a five-year battle she had been set free, and after many surgeries following the next year she would be rid of her cancer as well.  A miracle. Truly a miracle from the Lord bestowed upon us.

  The easy part was supposed to be next. The stroll in the park, no longer fighting, no uphill climb. I thought this would be our victory party, and it was for a little while. You must understand however that the woman who came home to us was a stranger. I knew her not. I had grown to live with the sick woman before, and had taken on the role of “Mother”. That woman had died and my father seemed to have remarried. No longer was I taking care of our little family, dethroned if you must. She marched in vibrant, full of life, ready and wanting to re-live the past five years. Wanting to re-teach me all the lessons I knew, but she had not taught. She took my place, rightfully so, but that child that had grown up quicker then most was asked to become a child again. ...so I did.