"An Awakening"

by Karen Rice
(Houston, Texas)

When I was first diagnosed with "Breast Cancer", a few years back, I reacted like many do when they receive bad news; the first thing that came to my mind was,"a death sentence".

However, I found out later it was truly "An Awakening" for me.

A few more years later down the line I got more bad news; I was diagnosed with "colon cancer."


But I'm still here, among the living. I first began asking God, why?

Why would you do this to me? What have I done so wrong in life to have this placed upon me?

But suddenly, I knew that I was going to be OK.

I also realized that I was about to face a new beginning, a new hope, do and see more with a whole new prospective on life.

When I think of the "gift of life" my Savior has given me, I know that I will develop and gain strength from this experience.

Even with all the current complications I now have to live with, and with all the struggles I've dealt with all my life, I still feel truly Blessed.

For a while, I wasn't happy with the way I looked after my surgery, nor with the pain that I had to endure every day.

Until one day I decide I had to snap out of it.

I thought about the individuals that are no longer among us and I realized that there will always be someone worse off than me.

I only lost some skin, who am I to complain? I still have my life.

I was shown just how blessed I truly am, during one of my surgeries.

Something so very strange, so peaceful happened to me; something of a miracle. I knew that I had to write it down.

I turned my experience into a poem and I called it Peace. I took this poem, along with many other poems I had written during my "breast cancer period" and created a book. I was blessed enough to have it published.