Well, 10 years ago today, I was standing inside Delias at NorthPark Center, a mall in Dallas, when a doctor called to tell me I had cancer.

It was surreal enough to hear the words, “You have cancer,” but the setting made it even more bizarre.

There’s a song by Jordin Sparks from around that time titled, “No Parade,” and the chorus says, “There was no parade, no lights flashing, no song to sing along the way.” She’s talking about the end of a relationship, but I’ve thought of those lyrics many times in the last decade when I think about hearing the news of cancer and of the day I started treatment.

I’m not saying I wanted a parade; the point is I think we imagine that kind of news having some sort of ceremony attached, something monumental where sirens sound or time stands still. There was nothing like that–people walked past me Christmas shopping, talking on the phone, making plans for Thanksgiving the next day, and more.

Looking back, it feels even more surreal–like, “Did that actually happen?” And though it feels so long ago and far away, my life in the past decade has been marked enough by cancer in terms of my passions, my personal and spiritual growth, and my ministry that I can’t deny the experience and its ongoing impact.

I wrote in my last post that I’d found my prayer journal from 2008-2009, and wow, was it interesting to read through. In rereading my book and my journal from that time, I’ve had some time to reflect, and though I don’t have anything profound to say, I have a couple thoughts I’d love to share.

The night before I got my official diagnosis at the mall, I knew things didn’t look good. No one schedules a biospy if they’re unconcerned, and they for sure don’t say it looks “suspicious of lymphoma” nonchalantly. So there was a sense of impending doom as I waited for the official word and prayed for a miracle (or in my case, a medical mistake).

When I found my journal last month, I started flipping through it, wondering what I would find. I hadn’t read through it in years; in fact, it had been in boxes in Texas since I moved to California in 2015 until my parents drove some stuff out here in January, and before that, it was in my orange bedroom in Dallas (R.I.P.) while I lived in Hawaii and went to grad school. As I flipped through it, I found an entry dated 11/25/2008, that night before I was officially branded with cancer.

Here’s what I found: I was really afraid. I prayed that, actually; the entry started, “Lord, I am scared.” I remember feeling vaguely scared, but we tend to gloss over memories as time goes by, so I didn’t remember actually verbalizing that fear. As I kept reading the entry, I was brought to tears as I read, “I don’t think I’ve used my time up to this point well—and I don’t want to ‘bargain’ with You [God], but it scares me to think of all the time wasted…if this is the end.”

Is it weird for me to shed tears for the terrified 21-year-old who wrote that, when it was literally me writing that, and things have turned out okay? I don’t want to overdramatize things, but I was trying hard to hold things together, and I read that now and take a big sigh, letting out the anxiety rooted deep in that girl’s soul, tearful today over the utter unknown she stood face to face with then.

Later, I wrote, “I’m scared more for the fact that my life to this point has not amounted to much other than my self-interest…” I’d like to think I could say something different today, and I hope in some ways I can. I’m still selfish and full of self-interest, but cancer launched me out into living a life with more risk and less safety, so in some ways, I can look back at the past 10 years and trace a life of greater impact than my timid 21-year-old self knew.

10 years on, it’s easy to feel a bit removed from the experience—though it has shaped my life and will always feel present in some ways. But I think about the girl who wrote this, the “younger me” of 21 years of age, and my heart goes out to her. On this side of things, I know what’s in store for her, and I believe one of God’s many mercies is that most of the time, He doesn’t tell us what’s in store.

“If this is the end….” Wow. Well, it wasn’t, but that was no guarantee. And though every day is a gift and no one ever knows when he or she will meet the end, having to stare down the question of, “Is this it?” was terrifying then and heartrending to read today.

Often it can feel like I’m pouring myself out—into the things I think God has called me to, into relationships, and into whatever is set before me—and not getting the same return or just ending up exhausted. Well, the “you can’t have your cake and eat it, too” lesson of this story for present-day-me is that I can’t get bitter over my exhaustion from pouring myself out or into the people and passions in my life. The alternative is 21-year-old-me coming face to face with the possibility that this might truly be the end and feeling like my life had made no impact, that I had only pursued self-interest.

The alternative to pouring myself out is filling myself up and knowing, when faced with my mortality, that I’ve squandered my life. It’s a good reality check for me: Would I rather feel like that younger me, terrified of having wasted the gift of life that God had given me, or like I do from time to time, exhausted from trying to walk faithfully and follow God’s calling, whatever that entails?

That reads as if I think I’m a martyr or saint—trust me; I don’t. I’m the actual worst, and I have daily evidence of that (especially while driving in California traffic). But on days when I let the pity party start, thinking that my life isn’t comfortable or how I expected, it’s a great reality check to think of the alternative, a sobering thought to confront 10 years ago and to remember today.

If there’s “a moral to this story,” it’s mostly to reflect but also to encourage myself–and maybe you–to make the most of the time we’re given. That’s actually the most pithy saying I could offer, except if you know me and if you had stood outside of Delias hearing you had cancer on the day before Thanksgiving like I did, hopefully you would understand there’s a lot of import to that seemingly trite saying. It’s been sobering to reread my fears and concerns about “if this is the end,” and it’s a great reminder to me today, 10 years later, to give myself to the larger narrative God has rather than to my own selfish and small pursuits.

Tonight, there’s so much I’m thankful for. I started making a list over the last month or so detailing many of the things that would never have happened if that call had truly signaled the end 10 years ago. I’d love to share that list over the next few days in the spirit of Thanksgiving, but for now, I’m profoundly thankful to be sitting here, writing, and living a life that isn’t what I expected but is genuinely a gift.