How Cancer Saved My Life: How to Find the Meaning in Everything

I was talking to my sister yesterday and she was bragging to me about how she just won $900 at the casino.  She told me that she won on a slot machine that kept playing on despite wanting to play on her favorite slot machines that were elsewhere in the casino.  She went on to say that she stayed on the machine because there were three broke, probable drug users sitting right next to her complaining about not having any money but yet loitering around her at the slot machines. 

I don't know about you but if I had been in my sister's shoes, I would have left immediately but my sister felt it was safer to stay at the machine until they left and she won the money shortly thereafter.  I told her that perhaps our mom, who passed away in 2017, guided those three individuals to her so she'd stay at the machine and win the money.  After all, my mother once helped me with money issues when I prayed to her shortly after she died.  At the time, I needed money to complete a creative project and had no idea where to get the money from.  Finally, I said out loud to my mom, "mama, the money's got to come from somewhere" hoping she would here me from the heavens. 

Well, the money did come and I was able to complete the project:  my 5th album:  Oaths of Abundance.  This album represented my first album written mostly from a joyful place and it was a labor of joy and love and I had a spiritual need to complete it.  The money came in 2017 after my ex-husband revealed to me in July of that year that he was having an affair.  I was devastated and my eyes were opened to his malignant narcissism after lots of studying, researching and soul searching.  He had fooled me for 25 years.  I talk more about that experience in my book:  Recovery from Narcissistic Abuse.

Anyway, at the time of the separation and eventual divorce, I had no idea that the selling of house would yield us a financial gain of any kind.  Through the selling of the house we owned, I was able to set aside some funds for the production of Oaths of Abundance. 

I have since reflected on that toxic relationship and how, in the last year of our marriage, he probably had plans to kill me as he had been asking me about life insurance and making comments like "I worry for you that you don't have life insurance."  Does that make any sense?  Why would I care that I don't have life insurance?  We never had kids so he would have been the sole beneficiary if I had had life insurance.  He also rushed me to refinance the house the week prior to revealing his affair to me only because I caught him in a lie. 

Why didn't I have life insurance?  Because I always denied it whenever I applied for it because I had cancer at age 28.  At the time of the cancer, I was trying to make sense of why it was happening to me.  I was able to find meaning in the most adverse situations such as cancer.  This is a gift I have - finding the silver lining, finding meaning in anything.  I speak of this in my book The Gifts of Cancer.  I had cancer in 2004.  I got separated in 2017.  Since getting separated, divorced and recovering from the narcissistic abuse I suffered, I have found even more meaning in the cancer I had in 2004.  I believe that CANCER SAVED MY LIFE.  If I didn't have cancer, I likely would have had life insurance and my ex-husband would have likely killed me and made it look like an accident in order to keep his house and move his girlfriend in without looking like the bad guy.  In fact, he would have been the "poor grieving widower" that would draw sympathy from others instead. 

So, while the cancer and the divorce were huge life events for me, I feel that there is also meaning to be found in the small things that make us agitated or anxious or grief struck in life.  In my job as a mental health counselor, I often aid people in seeing the silver lining in their situation, no matter how grim or dark.  I found meaning in the experience of narcissistic abuse by helping others out of or in recovery from similar relationships whether personally or professionally in their own lives.  And you wouldn't believe how many people are suffering from narcissistic victim syndrome.  And I LIVE for helping others.  Helping others is what motivates me most in life.  I just had to learn that there are certain people you don't want to "help" because they will take advantage of your empathy and good nature. 

So, the next time you are confused, downtrodden, anxious or angry, sit with the feeling and ask yourself, "where is the meaning here?"  If you don't hear an answer, trust that in due time, you will know the answer, even if the answer isn't revealed to you until you are on the other side.  Sometimes, GOD SPEAKS THROUGH CIRCUMSTANCE and we are blocked from doing something we want to do because we are not meant to or perhaps, the timing isn't right.  I knew something was off in my marriage but I didn't know what it was.  I kept praying to God to reveal the truth to me but the truth wasn't revealed to me for several years, if not decades, after I started praying this pray. 

We have to trust that things happen in His perfect timing, not ours.  And things happen in His perfect planning, not ours.  We need to let go of the need to know and be open to any meaning that is ready for us to receive once any barriers to truth have been removed and we are truly ready to handle the truth, no matter how dark and no matter how light.  It wasn't long after I really let go of this need to know the truth about my husband and truly gave it up to God to reveal it to me as he deemed fit, that the ugly truth was revealed to me about his true character.  I believe my mother had something to do with it too. 

In 2020, the veil will be lifted for many more people, light workers and children of God especially, about the dark truths of this world and the dark truth of the evil in this world.  People will start to shapeshift before your eyes and their true nature will be revealed to you whether you are ready or not.  I'm glad I got a head start in this regard.  Since starting the process of acknowledging the narcissistic abuse and then starting the process of recovering from it, my eyes are ever more open to dark personalities that run this world, the wolves in sheep's clothing that once fooled me and that still fool the majority of the population, and the dark truths that are so hard to believe.  Once you been mind controlled for 25 years, you have a great understand for how it happens. 

So, I encourage you to be open to finding the meaning in everything, big or small, good or bad.  God bless you on your journey...