I turned 39 years old today.
I’m having another birthday. Another year. Another day. A year ago I was in the midst of suffering from terrible reactions to my chemotherapy. Today, I helped my son put on his red button up dress shirt and black vest. I styled his hair and captured silly pictures because he’s eight and can’t handle the idea of smiling nicely (as a documentary photographer, I guess I don’t blame him). I held my daughter while she said “I love you, Mama” for only the second time ever. I comforted her when the cat accidentally hurt her foot (she’s two, I’m sure you can imagine what might have gone down there). I wiped away her tears and kissed her salty, wet cheeks. I rocked her to sleep for her nap, softly singing “Deep in the Meadow” and genuinely adoring her undeniable beauty.
My husband bought me balloons. I put on a dress. I’ll probably put on makeup. It might be cold outside, but the sun is shining and the sky is blue. Today is so different from last year.
Last year. Oh, last year. I haven’t updated since May…there’s a draft from October 3rd sitting in my blog queue, but I never got past the title. I don’t think I ever finished the title. By then, I’d been swallowed in a vortex of self-pity and doubt, my words muted by misery. I couldn’t pray, I couldn’t read my Bible. I really don’t know what happened, how I got to that place. My surgery in May was successful, I healed well. By July we’d figured out a change for my chemotherapy to make it more tolerable. Things weren’t “as bad as they could be.” But I found myself getting lower and lower. Lonelier and lonelier. My fear kept increasing instead of being satiated by stable scans and a mini-vacation with my family and random visits to our church where I often cried or didn’t feel anything at all.
People on the outside want cancer to be easy. People on the inside are torn to shreds, mutilated and trying to remember to smile. It makes them feel better.
In the midst of all that, though, I woke up one morning in early October, just after my Portal Vein Embolization (they basically stuck a very large cable through the side of my body and shot glue into my liver), and felt the strongest urge to write. Not a blog entry, not my novel-in-progress (will I ever get that done?), but of all things — a poetry book. Professor Halpern, if you’re reading this, I thought of you. You too, Christine Hume. “No way!” I remember thinking to myself, “not a chance. I am not good enough to do something like that.” The answer: Yes. That. A poetry book, because I was given a gift from the Lord and I haven’t ever truly used it. Ever. He gave me words and I set them aside where they melted or turned stale. So I retrieved them, and He breathed life into them again.
Over the next three weeks, I wrote. I wrote and I pieced together photographs I’d taken over the years and I listened to Slow Meadow or Jon Guerra on repeat. “A Tiny Ripple that Becomes a Giant Wave,” indeed. That’s what it was, this experience. A ripple caused by God saying, “do this thing,” and the giant wave becoming “More than Watchmen Wait for Morning.” My 48 page poetry and photography book. My spluttering of lamentations and fears, praise and worship. I finished it a few days before the surgery that changed my entire trajectory, which was November 8th.
You can buy the book here: More than Watchmen Wait for Morning
I had my surgery. It was an awful experience, and we’ll leave it at that. But Dr. Clifford Cho helped to save my life. I hope he reads this, too.
And then my brother-in-law died unexpectedly. I was discharged from the hospital and gave his eulogy five days later.
And then everyone in my family got sick. And then my son caught COVID. And we didn’t celebrate Christmas and we didn’t celebrate the New Year. But…God. Everything was spiraling and misery was everywhere, until it wasn’t. I received the news that I’m in remission. There is no evidence of disease in my body. I still haven’t figured out how to process that, a month later. And in the midst of all this, I was contacted by Debbie - a stranger I met through Facebook, who liked my photography and chatted with me off and on, and eventually bought my poetry book. She runs a cancer care ministry at her church, and invited me to come speak and read. And even though I did that very thing last night, I’m still asking, “What? Me? Why?”
Because, God. Because He can use anything and He can make us anything. From nothing. Last night was so refreshing, and so encouraging (thank you, Gary and Debbie) that I actually wanted to write this blog today.
I remember when, well over a year ago, I talked to Pastor Pat Schwenk about my “possible” diagnosis and he said that everything is for God's glory. Cancer is just one more thing that He can bend and move and use. Pat died at the beginning of this year after his own years-long battle with cancer. But he didn’t die disheartened or crushed by disease, he died with his full hope in Jesus Christ, who was about to bring him home. God used Pat’s cancer to inspire and change the trajectory of so many people, myself included, to remember that our suffering isn’t for nothing. Often, wonderful and beautiful things come of it. Like my poetry book, or every chance I’ve had to be a witness for God’s goodness through it all. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had many days where I didn’t give glory to God. I am a sinner and part of human nature is to thrash out and ask “why, why, WHY?” (which, in suffering, can actually be a valid thing) — my point is, I am not some wonderful Christian woman who felt joy with cancer every single day. Far from it. But there are days, like today, when I can say gladly that God is using my suffering for His glory, for good.
What more can I ask for?
Sometimes I wonder
what it must have been like as
He hung there
and waited.
Hard, splintered wood rubbing against flesh,
steel struck into skin no reprieve and
the Red.
The red blood as it dripped
down, it dripped down
into His eyes into His mouth and
along His body.
Fully God and fully man yet
in this moment
in this dying His wounds
were open and raw and
who could bring Him comfort?
Did Mary not despair over this her
Son, hanging there?
Did the Father not despair over this Hi
Son, dying there?
Could we have heard it? The
dripping. Our senses magnified,
just as we hear our children
from the depths of sleep,
Would we have heard it
as the blood fell from the Cross?
From His hands
His face
His feet.
Could we have caught it in our palms?
Would we
have caught it in our palms?
Felt the warmth of it.
The freedom of it.
The weight of ransom upon our skin.
I picture myself at His feet
and want to believe I would have
been on my knees straining my voice
as I call out for mercy or
that I would have pressed my fingertips
into the splintered wood with all
my anger for all the good
it would do,
that I would have tried
to wipe the blood away over and over
and over and over
again.
There was never a more beautiful
never a more agonizing
Red
there was never a more beautiful
never a more agonizing
Death
and I wonder what
it must have been like
for Him who knew
that every single drop was
for us.