A lot happens in the meantime during this journey…… I had no real plan of how I would share my story on this site….I would just make entries as I felt led.  For some reason, I was hesitant about posting this particular entry.  I started Chapter 7 and then tried to delete it, but this website would not let me delete it completely, which is why the number 7 had been hanging in the balance for a few days.  I was thinking that perhaps this was a “personal” story for me and something only a few would ever know, but then I realized that this whole breast cancer issue is “personal” and my story would be void if I did not share this with you.

My girls know that during the week I usually (not always) plan to wake up around 4:30 am, to have some time for myself to pray and read my bible or do absolutely nothing before they wake…..…. it just depends.  They have from time to time asked me to wake them up so that they could join me and we could have “quiet time” together.  So, over the last several months, I’d wake them and maybe we’d do it together for a week or two and then they would not want to get up that early for a while.  Not really consistent, but no problem for me…..I’m selfish.  (At first I didn’t want to wake them cause they really need their rest and also because I like having my time to MYSELF!)  As far as I was concerned, their “quiet time” was at night before they went to bed.  I had absolutely no problem doing it with them then. 

The night of October 7, my girls asked me to wake them up when I woke up on the next morning so that we could spend quiet time together.  Uhmm….OK.  Well, I didn’t wake them the next morning.  Hey, I still hadn’t gone back to work since I’d had my surgery…..no need to be getting up extra early if I didn’t have to.  I must admit, I don’t like standing them up, so I tell them that the next morning I would wake them up.  

October 9, 2007 at 3:00 am, Germayne and Jayme come to our room and ask me if I’m gonna get up so we could have quiet time.  “GET YO BUTT OUTTA HERE AND GO BACK TO BED!!!!”, Gerald and I muttered under our breaths while half asleep.  I mean….who were they to wake us up at that time talkin’ bout quiet time?!  At 4:30 am on the dot, Germayne comes back to our room and asks me if I’m gonna get up.  (Jayme stayed asleep.)  I’m really thinking she’s lost her mind by this time, but I tell her that I would and about 20 minutes later I rolled out of bed and go to her.  Now this was really my LAST day to sleep in….I was going back to work the next day. 

Germayne had written down two scriptures and a prayer that she wanted to read.  Now normally, I would read a scripture and we would talk about it or I would ask them what they thought it meant, but this morning, I was really just wanting to get this over so I could go back to bed.  I didn’t have a scripture in mind and I sure didn’t feel like talking.  Germayne read me her scriptures.  I do not remember the first scripture at all….maybe I was not listening or even paying attention for that matter, but her second one, as she began to read, spoke to me.  She read to me Psalm 27: 1-7.  As she read, “¹The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the LORD is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”, I felt warm tears swell within my eyes….. she continued... “ ²When the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell.” “OK, Ronnetta, DO NOT START CRYING….suck up yo tears”, I thought to myself…..”³Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear: though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident.   ⁴One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to enquire in his temple.” OK….”Breathe…..stay composed….cause if one tear drops, that’s it!”   “⁵For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion: in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me; he shall set me up upon a rock. ⁶And now shall mine head be lifted up above mine enemies round about me: therefore will I offer in his tabernacle sacrifices of joy; I will sing, yea, I will sing praises unto the LORD. ⁷Hear, O LORD, when I cry with my voice: have mercy also upon me, and answer me.“   I was sobbing by then….. When she finished reading to me, she asked me (as if she were the parent and I was the child), “Now what does that mean?”  Obediently, in my humbled state through tears, I told her how this breast cancer issue was of the enemy and that because I am of the Lord that he is my protector.  The enemy (cancer) had come to kill me but I must not be afraid because I know who my comforter and healer is.  I knew who gave me strength but it was up to me to seek it and know that I would win.  Now, by this time, we were both crying….she was probably crying cause she saw me crying and I was crying because I knew that she, my dear 7 year old daughter, had been used to give me a message.   How I adore her!  We prayed and by then, I WAS WIDE AWAKE…not the least bit tired as before.  Perfect!

I never asked her what made her read that scripture or why she only read what she read (I know why), but it was very clear to me that she probably got no sleep that night because she had something she had to share.  She told me that after we’d made her go back to bed that she just stared at the clock until 4:30 because she could not go back to sleep. (Awe…..sniff)  Of course when she came home from school that day, she was exhausted and had no problem at all going to bed.   

Thank you to my girls Germayne and Jayme

October 16, 2007