Andrea Gressman

My takeaway from my daily devotional which focused on Proverbs 3:5. Trust God with all your HEART and MIND (this is the “lean not on your own understanding” part). This means that we don’t meditate on our problems, wrapping our minds around the problem over and over again - we hand it over to God and trust Him with it. He will keep our path straight. He has an excellent track record of keeping my own path straight - something I cannot say for myself. When we don’t trust Him with our hearts and minds and continue to meditate on our problems instead of God it only causes negatives in our own lives - one of which is stress. Stress is toxic for us in many ways - specifically our mental and physical health. But God has the perfect solution to protect us in both areas - hand it to Him. Let Him work it out on our behalf. Stop thinking we have to be the world’s problem solvers. When the “worry” starts to creep into our minds push it away. Tell yourself you refuse to worry about

In my last post... Seven Years ... I talked about where I was at in the present. Definitely some mixed emotions. It is hard not to get stuck in the reality of my situation and knowing how much closer I am getting to my higher risk of a secondary cancer. It is really hard in fact. Sometimes it takes some work to let the "grateful to be alive" trump the "what if I am diagnosed again." I am just being real here.  In my pursuit of wanting my "heart of gratitude" outshine all the doubt I thought it would be helpful to reflect on where I was 7 years ago. I blogged continually during my treatment. I am so thankful for this record in so many ways although it is so hard to go back and read sometimes.  Funny story... someone actually reported my blog as being "offensive" on Facebook and it was banned from being posted there. So that is when I had to come up with another one and to be honest, that was really disheartening to me and  I had two blo

Today marks 7 years of being “cancer free”. It is hard to describe how I feel about it - I have such mixed emotions to be honest. I posted a lengthy post on my personal Facebook page and I felt it fitting that I share it here as well. 7 years ago today I was declared “cancer free”. The truth is... once you are diagnosed you are never really “cancer free.” It remains apart of your life. If I am being honest I would tell you that I battle fear daily. Most of the time I can keep it in check but I do have my days - especially when I hear of a friend being diagnosed or even worse, when they lose their battle. Those moments are hard. The last 7 years haven’t been easy. I have dealt with extreme fatigue - especially the first 2 years into remission, I struggled daily to get out of bed and with 4 small children that was not a fun place to be. I have dealt with criticism that I “didn’t bounce back” quickly enough. The expectations of others that the day I was done with trea

For a while now I have been out of the habit of writing. It went from something I did every single day (most of the day as I was being paid to do it) to less and less to where I wouldn’t write anything for weeks at a time. I don’t quite know why it became so hard for me other than I just got burned out. I have an alarm in my phone that I have had for years and it simply says, “Time to Write.” But day after day I ignore it. This actually makes me quite sad that I have gotten to this point because writing was like breathing for me at one time. Now I am feeling the urging to get back into it. Not necessarily from me. But definitely from the Lord. However, I have so much doubt. What if I can’t do it again. I have tried to commit to this so many times in the last couple of years to just give it up again. I feel like it isn’t fair to my audience. Well, this week I was reading a devotional and it was talking about our own willpower and how if we rely on that alone we will fa