Gifts that Lift
By Christie Perkins
Today I’m joining the #ShareTheGift movement through the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints website. I want to share a message about how I know that through the gift of Jesus Christ one of my most difficult moments were made light. I want to bear my testimony of the atonement and it’s great power.
In Alma 7:12 it reads “…and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.”
I felt as if I was carried in His hands through my cancer trial. I could not have done it without the Savior taking upon Him my infirmities.
His is the gift that lifts.
My Most Difficult Day
Early one morning, just before sunrise I sat at the kitchen table, eating oatmeal that I couldn’t taste. I didn’t feel well. Big warm tears dropped from my cheeks. It splashed on the table below me.
I couldn’t do this anymore. I had only done 4 of the 8 chemo treatments (which I refer to lovingly as 5 hours of nuclear waste dumping) but each one was progressively worse. And each treatment had a new complication I had to muddle through.
I was tired of feeling sick. Nights were restless and my anxiety was escalated so that I couldn’t even crawl into bed for a good rest. My legs were antsy. I buzzed around, wearing circles in my carpet, which alleviated my anxiety but complicated my need for rest.
My chemo fog was extreme. I couldn’t read or concentrate. I existed in a muffled brain state. It’s as if someone had shoved a blanket in my head cutting off all circulation, numbing my brain and it’s functions.
I was ugly, bald, and cold. My eyelashes and eyebrows were dropping. And I felt like I was dropping out of everyone’s life… circumstances made it so.
My fast track moment in life began with diagnosis, total mastectomy, painful reconstruction, and now chemo. My body had taken all it could. Mentally, physically, and emotionally I was exhausted.
I couldn’t fight any more.
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Alright, we’ve all said this lame excuse: “I just don’t have time.” In fact even I’ve said it a lot this week. But as we know, the truth of the matter is that we don’t “make time.”
