St. Therese, The Little Flower

There are many of you who might scoff at what I am about to tell you and say it is coincidence. Maybe it is. There are also many of you who will see this story as a gift of faith. At this juncture, I go with the latter.

A friend I have not heard from directly in many years sent me a healing mass card this week. In it was a novena to St. Therese of the Child Jesus, also called the Little Flower of Jesus. When I was a child, we learned all about St. Therese, the Little Flower and one of the good Sisters of St. Joseph wrote a book about her life and came to speak to us in class - maybe third grade or fourth. I remember my mother bought the book and the author signed it for me. I haven't given St. Therese a lot of thought, lately, except when I received countless e-mails with novenas to her in them to be passed on (and you all have read how I love these chains!) There was something which pulled me to this card and so deeply touched me that I prayed the novena prayer to her and have been continuing this prayer. St. Therese, who died at 24 in 1897, promised she would "let fall a shower of roses" to let you know of her intercession on your behalf.

Yesterday afternoon, I was cleaning out flowers that were fresh for Thanksgiving but ready for tossing out. As I started to throw out the flowers, I noticed that one bouquet had red roses tucked in the center (which I had not seen earlier.) They were deep red (my favorite), their fragrance beautiful and the velvet petals still moist with dew. I did not think much about it at that moment but put them in a vase along with a few other peaked blooms which could survive another day.

Towards six o'clock in the evening the phone rang. It was the nurse from MSK saying that they needed a few more old CAT and PT scans to compare with the new one of my lung but that they felt very strongly that the lung had stabilized and were going ahead to schedule my pancreatic surgery for Thursday, December 11. So Jack and I went to pick up these CDs this afternoon and I will take them in to MSK when I go in on Monday. (If my appointment is canceled, I will overnight these tomorrow.) Unless something else shows up on Monday, there will be no lung biopsy and by next week this time, I will be on the road back to good health.

My novena prayer was to let this pancreatic cancer not be a result of the lung cancer spreading. I prayed I would not have to have the lung biopsy and that the surgery to remove the current growth in my pancreas happen as soon as possible.

I believe in miracles and signs. I am thankful to the Little Flower for her intercession and with this day's blog, I hope I am spreading her news!

I will never look at a rose in quite the same way again.

Believe!

As always, love from me to you.