(I started this entry on April 20th and I am releasing it today. I needed some time to make sure I was willing to share this publicly.)
Fair warning. I'm not going to work to make this readable. I'm not going to care how many grammar rules I break. I will try to take care of spelling errors. What is in my head right now are random moments and events that feel like they need to be noted.
I'll be shocked if very many hang in there to the end. So don't feel bad if you just can't read through all that I'm about to write.
Context: In January I started having what is called a flare of Interstitial Cystitis. It's painful. The amount of pain varies from day to day and the severity of it ranges from 0 to 8. I never know how little or how much will hit each day. This started on the heels of caring for my Mom and being with her and family through her passing away. There is a connection to stress and what stress does to the body and this condition. Solving it is a mystery. It's often slow and multifaceted.
On the day of my Mom's delayed funeral service in March, Dave came down with a fever. Five days later we were in the ER. The next day he had major surgery which confirmed Stage IV Colon Cancer.
We have been told that chemo will likely go on for six months and will begin as soon as his body has recovered enough from surgery.
We have been surrounded with love, help, and thousands of prayers. Our family and friends, far and near, have done everything people can do. They would do a lot more if I had stuff for them to do.
Dave's work colleagues have given him their blessing over and over again to focus on healing and the promise to cover what he can not do. What words honor how big a gift that is to us?
The support is absolutely incredible. We have been showered with generosity.
My interior journey: I am confused, hurting, overwhelmed. I am doing the only thing I know to do which is pray, listen, and share with others when I am able to form words. Sometimes I don't have the emotional energy to form words. At others times I simply can't find them.
The purpose of this blog since its beginning has been to write down the stories of God's involvement in my life. In the years I have been doing this, I was taught that one of the purposes of participating in creativity is to heal and to help others heal too. The possibility of healing through writing is on of the things that drives me to write. My journals contain everything I think, feel, want, let go of and cry over. Once I get a glimpse of something that makes sense, I'm willing to write it down for others. Today I'm writing both things here.
From early January to Dave's diagnosis I was doing less and less due to my illness. I was researching solutions, trying them out and resting because laying down would help the pain to go away. I lost the ability to go on my daily walk. I lost the ability to do yoga stretching and strengthening. I lost the ability to meet with others for coffee or lunch. I lost the ability to travel. While the world was opening back up I was in a lock down that rivaled March of 2020. I felt like I was losing my life. The longest flare before this one was 4 weeks or so and four years ago. To be marking week 8, 9, 10 was leaving me on the edge of despair or full-on in the pit of it. I kept most of my Spiritual Direction appointments because I did all I could to manage pain to the point that I could sit undistracted for an hour at a time. That usually meant Friday evening and Saturday were a total loss because I needed to recover in bed or on the couch. My vocation felt fragile. Could I cope with this much uncertainty and pain and still stay present to others? Before all this, I'd say, as long as I can hear people, I will be able to do this to my dying day. Assumptions. I understand more than ever the phrase, if the Lord wills it. We do not know the future. My whole life felt fragile. Would I ever recover?
So you can imagine what happened to my heart when I found out what was going on inside of Dave's body. The threat of losing him, our life together of truly losing my whole life as I have known it was before me. The shock. The fear. The grief. The questions. The confusion. I've readily talked about how disorienting a life of faith in God can be. Disorientation does not even begin to describe the feeling. I needed help finding a way to becoming something less than shattered and oriented again. During a phone call with a friend. one of the visuals God gave was connected to swimming. My friend was talking about clinging to the side of the pool. As I lay in bed that night, I told God that it feels like you forgot that I don't know how to swim and you are inviting me to swim the English Channel and expected to trust that it will all be okay. God, you are asking too much. God, I can't do this. All I'll say now is that the Lord keeps working with my heart and that image.
I've had so many questions about suffering. I've been doing my best to ask them and listen for perspective that I do not have. Jesus suffering over a will of the Father that he wondered if it could pass. Jesus choosing to suffer. Does Jesus suffer with me, with us now? If victory over death happened at the cross why would Jesus be suffering? What is the now and not yet of all this suffering for Jesus? What was it like for the disciples to suffer in everything that did not make any sense on the Saturday before Resurrection Sunday?
The Welcome Everything prayer hangs there. Begging me to trust that God does not allow anything but what can be used for good, our salvation, our redemption. That there are things I need to let go of to have the life with God that I desire. God forgive me, I would not have longed for that if I had known this was the road.
When I am in pain, it is only by the power of resurrection grace that I choose acceptance, surrender, and love. Those moments have happened in long, deep places of prayer. Grace. Only grace upon grace.
I've asked God to help me receive His prayers for us. To receive the prayers of others on our behalf.
I have watched Dave accept, be sobered by and place His hope in God.
I have watched my son grieve, love and accept.
I have watched my friends long for goodness to be restored to our lives through healing and grace. I've seen the sadness and their sense of knowing when they have suffered like this before me. I have watched us all look for and cling to hope together.
The crazy thing is, I did want to go here. I wanted to be able to trust God with anything. I wanted to be on the road that would lead to transformation. A few times I have had a serious encounter with the words: be careful what you pray for.
I'll keep writing in my journals, at times I'll write here too. I'll keep sharing as I am able.
I'm praying for a beautiful story of redemption, grace, glory. May it be. It's promised. By the grace of God, this I believe.
Photo Credit: Photo by Artur Stanulevich on Unsplash
