Life is a journey, full of twists and unexpected turns. But when we submit our ways to the Lord, He “makes our paths straight.” (Proverbs 3:6)

Have you ever felt Satan is hovering over you, zapping you with everything he has? Doing his utmost to discourage, defeat, and destroy?

In February of this year (2024), I had just begun radiation on my two most active cancer spots (base of skull and lower back.) At that time, my weight had fallen to an all-time low. I was told by an oncologist nurse to eat 2,000 calories a day to try to bolster my weight. I was determined to do my best to regain my lost pounds and look and feel better.

Within days of beginning this new “beefing up diet”, I started to notice I wasn’t tasting as well. I mentioned it to my radiology techs, but they just said, “Huh. That’s odd.” I suspected it had to do with the radiation to my skull, but only had a few treatments left, so pressed on.

Days after my final treatment, not only was I not tasting, but I had sores on the roof of my mouth, my tongue was so sore I couldn’t chew, and the back of my throat so raw I could hardly swallow. (Not very conducive to trying to eat extra calories to gain weight!)

POINT OF DESPERATION

In desperation, I started drinking supplemental drinks just to survive. Thankfully, within a few days my throat, mouth, and tongue improved. My taste buds, however, did not. The few foods I could taste, tasted like cardboard.

I noticed my tongue was white and, being told by my radiologist it may be thrush, I made an appointment with my doctor’s nurse practitioner. After two rounds of thrush medicines with no improvement, yesterday (two months after finishing radiation) I went a see about my tongue a third time. This time requesting my PCP.

Upon looking at my tongue, she immediately determined it was radiation burn which hopefully will improve in time, but there are no guarantees. I’d suffered damage to my taste buds and likely my saliva glands. Not what I wanted to hear.

Within the past couple of weeks, I’d also had a severe round of neck pain that made it hard to swallow, extreme fatigue from anemia, lack of appetite, and TMJ with my jaw that made it nearly impossible to chew. It seemed Satan was attacking my ability to eat every angle he could. The two pounds I’d worked so hard to gain, turned to a loss of three within a week. And I just wanted to cry. In fact I did.

THE FULL ARMOR OF GOD

Satan is out to discourage, defeat, and destroy with his fiery darts. But we can’t let him win. He likes to hit us when we are down, at our weakest point. I took a prayer walk yesterday to try to gain encouragement from the Lord. And He brought to mind the passage in Ephesians 6 about putting on the full armor of God.

“Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 

Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” (Ephesians 6:10-12, 14-17)

Combating Satan is a spiritual battle, and to win against him we must arm ourselves with godly trappings. Satan has no power to defeat us when we rely on God’s strength to infiltrate our lives. Life is hard. We all face our giants, but how thankful we should be that we don’t face them alone. When Satan throws his darts at us, we need only to saturate ourselves with Scripture, prayer, praise music, and grateful hearts.

I thank the Lord for reminding me my strength comes from Him and that Satan can not and will not defeat me so long as I cling to the Father.

Are you being bombarded by Satan’s arrows of discouragement? May you draw strength from the Lord to see you through.

INSPIRING READS

Inspirational Historical Romance set during the Civil War era

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