A Field Guide for navigating Christmas

My heart is grateful.  Yes, I have cancer.  And I’m getting chemo.  But Christmas is still awesome.  Santa is still coming.  šŸ™‚  Still, Jesus was born.  And God is on His throne in heaven.  He is worthy of our trust despite these challenging bumps in the road.  He makes us strong when we are weak.  He provides just what is needed.  Even when that isn’t what it seems like. 

So, when the dog bites, the bee stings, the Scotch tape gets all stuck together, the piece of wrapping paper you cut is too small, your kids are being jagoffs and don’t appreciate anything, the phone will not quit ringing, you burn the turkey, someone else gives your kid the gift you couldn’t wait to give him (oh, no she did NOT!) you forgot the asparagus (that’s a real thing I did) Aunt Martha says something rude about your daughter’s hair, Uncle John has had too much egg nog.  You spill wine on your white shirt, that stupid inflatable snowman will NOT cooperate, someone points out you’ve put on a few pounds.  You’ve run out of money, you’ve run out of breadcrumbs, gas and baby wipes and you’re about to run out of patience…we’ve all been there.  
Breathe.  Acknowledge the frustration.  Notice if you can improve the situation or if it’s outside your control. Fix it if you can.  If not, let it go, move on.  Now stop.  Look around the room until you begin to see the good: your kids enjoying each other and sharing toys.  A hard working hostess flawlessly serving her guests, a gift given out of love and generosity.  New love.  Old love.  Delicious cookies. A teenager helping his grandmother.  Warm glow from the fireplace.  Togetherness despite our differences.   
So, quit your bitchin’.  Look for the good.  It’s right in front of you, Silly.  God is on His throne.  You are blessed.  And you are loved.  

Round 3

As I head into round 3 of chemo, I am kind of amazed.  If you told me that one day I would have cancer, and the evening before a chemo treatment I’d be sitting calmly in front of my Christmas tree, listening to holiday tunes, savoring some homemade applesauce and feeling pretty content, I would have laughed.  I mean, this is one of your worst nightmares, right?  I have advanced stage, aggressive cancer.  It’s no joke.  

But a Scripture passage comes to mind.  The one where Paul says he has learned the secret to being content in all circumstances.  This guy was beaten within an inch of his life on multiple occasions and shipwrecked a few times.  And the one in the Old Testament where the three men are thrown into the fire by the king – they didn’t know whether God would save them or not…but they trusted Him anyway. David writes of walking through the valley of the shadow of death but not being afraid.  
What does this reveal? That spiritual maturity, or a deep connectedness with God allows us courage and contentedness in the face of unsettling, scary, upsetting circumstances.  I’ve got a long way to go.  But I’m beginning to see how it’s possible, by God’s grace.  
Please pray for me.  I need it.  And you need it (your prayers for me will bless YOU.  Connecting with God right now is the best way you can spend the next two minutes.  Promise.) But know that I am confident in God. I am floored by His grace.  By His mercy.  He certainly likes to keep things interesting.  
I’m going to do my part – let them put the poison in me and not be a baby about it. God is going to do His part – be right there with me no matter how sucky it gets.  And you can do your part – pray for me, ditch those mom jeans and maybe send over some non-Gmo vegetarian lasagna or something.  

Suffering is necessary

Tim Keller, in his excellent book “Walking with God through Pain and Suffering” says that suffering is necessary.  That it’s an important way to grow.  That people who escape suffering are typically lacking in terms of resiliency, of knowing their strengths and weaknesses, of understanding the human experience with a depth of wisdom.  

Interestingly, the same devastating or traumatic experience can destroy one person, yet strengthen another.  We have to approach it in an effective way, specific to our particular variety of suffering (whether it be illness, physical pain, facing possible death, experiencing the loss of a loved one, suddenly imposed physical limitations, lack of basic needs, even a nasty break-up) to glean growth rather than bitterness.  Our hearts will be broken now and again in ways mostly small, but sometimes big.  My big one is cancer.  Some days that feels a little like this:

Maybe your “big thing” is totally different.  And maybe it’s from the past.  Or it hasn’t come yet.   Not trying to scare you.  But my hope is each of us can do a little “prep work” to help us be armed against suffering totally destroying us.
This is by no means an exhaustive list for how to deal with suffering…if you want that, start with Keller’s book.  However…
Some ways to prepare ourselves to be pointed in the direction of growth and away from the direction of bitterness:
Let’s expect that we will suffer.  Ok?  Something upsetting is going to happen at some point.  So let’s not fear or be overwhelmed by it but let’s notice that chances are, something devastating will occur in our lifetime.  That’s life.  Life is full of joy and fun and boredom and annoyance and tragedy.  It just is.  
Let’s deal with our illogical notions that if we are well behaved, we will escape suffering – it’s not Biblical, and it’s just not true if you look around.  You know perfectly nice people that have suffered.  
Let’s wrestle with the difficult reality that encountering suffering does not mean God does not love us.  Because, umm, like Jesus totally suffered and he’s God’s favorite.  
Let’s believe that suffering can produce many things: perseverance, character and hope, to name a few.  But also glory.  Straight up glory.  When all seemed lost, as Christ died on the cross…they must have thought “game over.”  A skinny naked teacher hung there dying.  A crude and tragic sight.  What fools they must have felt like, following him around for those years.  But little did they know what was happening. Little did they know the spell was being broken.  That Death was being defeated.  That God’s love was pouring out.  
Maybe God’s love is pouring out in the midst of your suffering and mine.  God can be quite subtle in His ways.  Look for the evidence.  I bet it’s there.  

Thankful for Cancer

What!?

Thankful FOR cancer? Yup. I know, it’s crazy. Let me explain.

Do I enjoy having cancer? No. I am praying like crazy every day that all of the cancer cells are gone and they never come back. I am kind of mad that I have cancer. I mean, it’s totally not, like, fair. Not that anyone deserves it. No one does. Or maybe we all do, depending on how deep you want to get from a theological perspective. But I definitely hate it that I have cancer. I hate it that my life has been so totally disrupted. I mean, I’m busy. Not just busy getting my nails done or something, but busy raising a daughter to be a (hopefully) really great person. Busy raising the operating budget of a large nonprofit organization that helps homeless people. Busy kicking everyone in my league’s butt at Fantasy Football. You know…important things. I do not like feeling tired. I am nervous I will lose my hair (but maybe just the hair that enjoys to appear on my upper lip? Please, Lord!) I hate it that I have to be so “all about me.” I like to help other people with their problems. It’s unnatural for me to be the recipient. I hate all of this medicine I take. I am tired of doc appointments. My hands and feet don’t feel normal. So…don’t get me wrong. Cancer blows.

But I’m still thankful. I mean, what good does sitting around crying and worrying about it do? Bitterness is dangerous. It chokes everything around it. Have you met someone you would describe as bitter – embittered by some bad thing they feel happened to them? Do you want to hang out with them? Me neither. Some emotions like fear and sorrow are legit, of course. It would be inauthentic to pretend they don’t exist. But, in my opinion, they ought to be acknowledged, invited to stay for a short while and then politely asked to leave so there is room for better emotions like hope and peace and confidence. The long and short of it is this: God is working together all things for my good and His glory. Sometimes it takes a little effort to bring our minds back to that truth. But what a solid place to live from!

I am thankful to be thinking about the things I am thinking about, in terms of who God is, who we are and how we are to approach life. See previous blog entries for a lot of thoughts about that. I am thankful that it is possible to have HOPE every day. I am thankful I am not sicker. I can drive and walk and work. THANKFUL for that.

I am thankful that this has pushed me to think seriously about what I eat and what products I use. I have learned a lot. I have also confused myself and stressed myself out quite a bit. But I’m learning new things.

I am thankful that cancer has brought a few familiar faces back into my life. We all let friendships fade for any number of reasons. But serious illness snaps us all to attention and reminds us how much we love some of the best people we’ve had the blessing to know.

I am so thankful for the kind things people have done for me. Seriously! So much niceness! So much thoughtful generosity. Just this week:

-meals delivered to or prepared at my house by people who are encouraging my new, developing eating habits.

-someone saved me a parking spot with their car. like “here, I’ll give you this one so you don’t have to walk in the cold.”

-home-roasted coffee beans, delivered to my desk

-lovely visits over lunch at favorite restaurants

-treats dropped off with sweet notes

-offers of child care

-wine deliveries

-a text that meant the world to me

-people sharing my blog with others – I can’t believe anyone but my mom reads this, so that is pretty cool.

Being thankful for something that on the surface is very bad.  It’s the stuff Scripture is made of.  The last shall be first, the first shall be last.  Weakness leads to real stregnth.  To receive, we must give.  Jesus won it all by the humble act of losing everything.  Rejoice in ALL circumstances.  (Not just the ones that involve cake and ice cream or healthy babies or a sale at Anthropologie.)

I am thankful for the perspective that comes from a diagnosis like this that points to toward valuing each moment and each day a little more. Seeing more clearly, noticing things I haven’t before. Directing my thoughts toward things that are worthy of my brainspace. “Did I make it count, today?” I ask myself. Was today as rad as it could have been? Did I love as fully as I can? Did I let go of the things not meant for me, and cling to the big, wonderful things? Did I trust God more today than yesterday? Did I yield my own will to His? Did I look for the opportunities set before me? I may have many more days on this earth. But if I have one or 100 or 20,000…I’m living like I mean it, yo. That is something to be thankful for.

Perspective

So they are saying that 10,000 people died in the typhoon that hit the Philippines.  Can you even fathom that?  It’s a half full hockey area, roughly.  When I read numbers like that in the same sentence as the word “died” I kind of automatically shut down and decide to think about something else. My brain finds it difficult to compute.  My heart doesn’t have the capacity for the level of grief that such a situation requires.  My spirit rages at the seeming injustice.  I look heavenward and give God the stink eye.  

Seriously, what the hell?
One could say the same about cancer.  In fact many people have.  To me.  And I’ve thought it once or twice.  But here is what I’m coming to understand little by little.  God is going to bring about justice one day.  He is going to make right all that is wrong.  He is coming to rescue us.  Sometimes I question this as we all do.  Why not now?  Why not in this way or that?  Why does anyone have to suffer?  Why so much blood spilled?  Why can the bad people…the really bad ones triumph, ever?  Why does the weather get to take out thousands of people?  Why miscarriages?  Why devastating injuries?  Why cancer?  Just fix it.  God can fix it – why doesn’t He?  And quickly before the next terrible thing happens!!
If you think I have easy answers here, go read something else.  I’m just a person who frets and fumbles around like everyone does.  But I do have, for whatever reason, at this particular time, a surprisingly solid amount of hope and trust in God.  And, here’s what I think:  
-We can’t know the full truth, the full extent of the reasons for these things.  So don’t think you can grasp it fully.  I’m pretty sure we can’t.
-We do know that God is good.  One because scripture says so, but also from a logical perspective, we can conclude that if He created us and everything, He is the standard.  The creatED cannot judge the creatOR soundly.  He says He’s good.  He makes the “rules” if you will.  From our limited human perspective we cannot rightly approach the throne of God and say “You there, your plan doesn’t fit the Hallmark movie with the happy ending I imagined myself living so therefore 1. You are bad and maybe even 2. I no longer believe in you.”  That’s dumb, right?  I mean it just doesn’t make sense.  If you don’t want to believe in or follow God because you don’t like how things are going…it’s like saying soccer doesn’t exist because you didn’t win your game.  There are more logical reasons to not believe in God (I would argue that, ultimately, they don’t hold up logically, but if you’re going to quit believing or never start – come to the table with something a little more interesting than “I don’t like how things are going.”  Lame.)
-It’s possible that there is another belief system that is more representative of the absolute truth of the universe/life/etc.  But here’s why I don’t buy them.  They all either have 1. a relative truth like “my truth is x and yours is y and we’re all ok.” or 2. require us to follow particular rules to achieve some ultimately good thing: enlightenment, zen, heaven of some form, your own planet – yup, thats a thing.  On the first point, it does not resonate with me that what is true “for me” is not true “for you.”  We can perceive things differently and we might conclude certain things differently.  But one of us is right, or neither is.  If our views are diametrically opposed, we cannot both be correct.  If there is a group of goldfish, and I say there are 7 and you say there are 9, we can’t both be right – one of us counted wrong.  Or maybe we both did.  But there is a correct answer.  My thought is – lets try to find it and not be jerks to each other in the process.  Secondly, It does not resonate with me that we can earn our way to heaven.  Follow rules and receive X.  You know what people do with rules?  Figure out how to get whoever is charge to believe they are following the rules while bending or breaking them as much as we think we can, undetected.  I.e. it’s ok if you don’t get caught.  Or only do it on the weekends.  We manipulate our way around rules.  We do the bare minimum.  We don’t follow them full-heartedly rejoicing in the glory these wonderful rules bring us.  We plod along begrudgingly, hedging our bets on what we think we can reasonably get away with and then label ourselves a “basically good person” and hope that whoever is in charge…God, Buddha, Oprah…will agree.  You see how that’s kind of crazy, right?  It simply can’t be about rules.  God is smarter than that..  
-So what’s it about then, if not rules?  Well, I say it’s about trusting God.  And that’s about it.  He doesn’t want our thinly veiled good behavior.  He wants our authentic hearts – messy, broken and wounded as they may be – following after Him believing He’s got this figured out better than we do with our terribly limited perspective from our pinpoint on the globe and on the timeline of history.
Look, if The Bible is true, and I do think it is, ( it’s fine if you don’t) it tells us that God’s way of saving us from our selfish, messed up, manipulative selves is to lovingly sacrifice the greatest thing He had to give – His son.  (Are you tempted to quit reading here?  I would be.  I know it may have started to sound cliche and boring there if you’ve spent any time around weird Christians who spout the Jesus died for you stuff without warning.  But give me a chance here.)  
The Jesus died for you part…It’s Him saying “look how much I love you.”  
Do you have kids?  Would you ever send them to the cross for someone else?  Nope.  That’s crazy-level love.  Unfathomable.  Just like we don’t “get” the cancer, the typhoon, the unemployment, the pimple the day of the prom…we don’t get God’s ways. But we can be confident that in all things, He works for the good if those who love Him.  Because He gave His son.
A little preachy today, I know.  You don’t have to buy it.  It’s wrought with questions and “what about…”. It’s taken me about half my life thinking about these things to come to this particular place.  And its not even close to the whole truth.  The Bible says that we now see, but like we’re looking through a glass darkly.  We see some, clouded, but not all.  We squint, fumble for the light switch, ask our neighbor what they see.  We get frustrated and put the glass down.  We shut our eyes and are content to just listen instead thinking we’ll never see it right.  We give up.  But I say, keep squinting.  It’s worth the trouble.  

Chemo Smackdown-O-Rama-Fest: Round 1

Morning of first chemo treatment.  Most people wear sweats.  I say, intimidate Stupid Cancer with fierce style.  It’s easier for me to stay upbeat and my usual charming self when I’m looking presentable.  Leopard print all the way.

We arrived at the treatment center and got hooked up via Mort the Port to an IV of pre-meds.  (Steroids and anti-nausea stuff.)  We then met with my doc, Dr. Mehta.  He gave us good news: my cancer has NOT spread.  They hadn’t assumed it had but its good to know concretely.  Also my blood work (white blood cells, etc. were all in normal ranges.)  **These are answers to prayer.**  When God answers our prayers so clearly – its worthy of a moment of our time and consideration.  We have to pause, acknowledge, give thanks.  He does not always answer with what we are looking for – sometimes the journey is longer than the one we planned for.  But sometimes we get a simple gift like this.  I am grateful.  I give thanks that this cancer hasn’t spiraled out of control.  There is an army in my body fighting it, and it’s doing an amazing job.  I’m thankful for my surgeon who did a difficult surgery well and removed what was visible.  Thank you, Lord for all of your provisions.  

So then we got hooked up to the real stuff.  Chemo.  Oxaliplatin is the big dog of chemo drugs that I’m taking.  So into Mort the Port it went.  It took about two hours.  It was uneventful.  During that time, I read funny texts from friends, watched videos on You Tube, ate some cheese and carrots and talked to Kevin.  They have a snack bar at the center.  It’s not very healthy which I think is weird.  A poor diet does not help in the cancer battle.  But I guess with chemo patients, whatever you can get down the hatch is good.  And sometimes that is Lance brand neon orange peanut butter crackers.  Blech. I tired to imagine how I could politely suggest some organic fruit or air popped non-GMO popcorn.  But…I want them to like me.  So I’ll bring my own snacks and Kevin can eat the cupcakes.
So they also gave me my oral pills.  I have to take five in the morning and five at night.  This drug is called Xeloda.  
Kevin meticulously filled my giant pill box for me.  He will almost certainly do this for me every week.  The fact is the man is significantly more responsible than I am in such matters.  That’s why he’s the precision baker and I’m the chef with full creative license.  Recipes, schmecipes.  So Kevin is the family pharmacist.
The infusion was complete and we left.  We were both hungry so we went to Mad Mex.  a friend’s response: did you really think Mexican was the best choice immediately following chemo?  Fair question.  First of all, I got black beans and rice and tofu in a dry tortilla so it wasn’t like I got the drippy, crazy meat-filled enchiladas.  I passed on the margaritas, too.  šŸ™‚  But I really haven’t felt super nauseous.  Just a little bit queasy.  So far, eating helps.  So bring on the tofu!
What I have had in terms of side effects in the past 24 hours have been with neuropathy/very high sensitivity to cold food/beverage and touching stuff that’s colder than room temp.  
The very bad thing that happened was when I took a huge swig of iced tea before I knew what would happen.  Awful. I felt like I drank Drano.  It scared me.  I had no idea what they meant when they said “cold sensitivity.”  It was pretty horrible.  Like trying to swallow a raisin that suddenly turned into a tiny porcupine.  All scratchy and spiky out of nowhere.  Also, strong tasting things like olives, vinegar and sharp cheeses do something weird to my mouth.  It feels like biting into a giant lemon.  That “sour” reflex is in overdrive somehow.
On the tactile front…touching something cold is like grabbing onto an electric fence.  It’s very strange to have your own body mess with you like that.  I’m so grateful to not be vomiting all day like some people do with chemo (fingers crossed on that one!)  But it’s weird and inconvenient to have to adjust what you eat, drink and touch.
Right now I’m feeling ok.  I’m a little bit apprehensive because I know that it gets worse before it gets better.  The last day has told me that I cannot predict what’s coming next and I don’t like that.  This may be the toughest one for me out of the 8 rounds, simply because its all a mystery.  Everything is fine and then my body betrays me.  I’ve spent 35 years in it.  It’s like if a good friend who has always been kind and dependable suddenly starts acting like a total bitch.  
So this is where we give ourselves a moment.  Acknowledge the difficulty.  Acknowledge the frustration.  Choose to accept it.  Then turn our thoughts and our hopes heaven-ward.  People say I’m strong.  I am.  It would be false humility to argue that.  I was raised to be strong.  I have experienced success that galvanizes my trust in my own abilities.  Whatever you’ve got, bring it.  I love a challenge and I plan to win.  It’s my job to get people to understand why they should give their hard earned dollars to help unemployed, homeless drug addicts.  I’m not selling sports cars to men in the midst of their mid-life crisis or pacifiers to desperate new moms.  Lets just say I’ve chosen a field where it’s not an easy sell.  A former supervisor once said about me “she could sell snow to the Eskimos.”  Well I’ve never tried.  But I would probably give it a shot.  
But I can’t do it all.  
I’ve gone as far as I can go on my own strength at the moment.  So “I lift my eyes up…up to the mountain.  Where does my help come from? My help comes from you – maker of heaven…creator of the earth.”  
So, I lean into God today.  Giving Him my anxieties and worries.  Believing He will provide whatever is needed at the most appropriate time.  Sometimes that comes in the form of a good test result, help from a loved one, a cheerful card, an unexpected moment of peace.