ACCELERATED FAITH

I am standing on the edge of a cliff, but I’m not looking down. Instead, my eyes are fixed on the tall trees lining the vista across the river, like mighty soldiers of hope, rooted and strong.

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In fairness, it was a balcony [not a cliff] suspended over the manicured lawn that flowed out to the river’s edge. To the left of me, this fast flow of sparkling water. Something just as breathtaking unfolds as I glance to the right.

A woman joins me as the wind does its best to tangle my short hair.
This is where I wrestle with whether I should stand silent in the awe of the dappled sunlight, or speak what I’ve been wrestling with since we arrived.

ME: Perhaps I shouldn’t say this aloud because speaking it somehow makes it real.

HER: Go right ahead.

ME: I feel this enormous pressure not only to choose where I will live, but where I wish to die.

[My mind flashes to a convertible with the top down. A familiar daydream since my daddy passed. Ron and I are accelerating down a tree-lined country lane and I am wrapped in a cozy blanket, warmed by the sun…then, just like that, I’m in Heaven.]

 But today, I am standing on a balcony of a home that might soon be mine, inside of sixty-minutes from the moment I learn my cancer numbers have continued to climb.

And there is this fast and furious imperative to get this decision right.

My companion mistakes my silence for being lost in the view. In truth, I am absorbed in the One who dips us down in water and raises up new life.  

This accelerated moment. The one we’re living. Me. You.
So many life-altering decisions on our minds.
How do we discern from all the choices what it is that we should do?

I think the problem is not so much that we get ahead of God in our comings and goings, as it is that we have gotten so very good at standing still.

Petrified. Stifled. Enormously regretful. Insecure.

[I am remembering my chiropractor would instruct, “Scoot toward your feet.” And I would subconsciously panic in confusion, knowing that when I scoot down, my feet move farther away. This “getting ahead of God.” No matter how far we scoot in his direction, He is a light-years beyond.]

The God of sparkling waters is perpetually on the move, preparing our intended future, even when we stray, and delay.

In my moments of great challenge and change, I take comfort in the knowing that I cannot out-think or out-maneuver Him.

Do not be fearful or be dismayed because the God of the Universe dwells in your future…

If you’re wondering, He is already there.
Preparing. Expelling. Advocating.

I stand on that balcony for what my companion must be thinking is a little too long.

And I search for the river’s end as I lean over the iron rail.

It’s there, even when I can’t see it, that beautiful ‘what comes next.’

Mysterious and sparkling, rushing forward and away.

Not accelerated fear but accelerated faith.

NOTES:

This past week, we sold our lake home. If you’re wondering why, I refer you to the cost of integrative cancer and the substantial investment in saving my life.

I am grateful for having the means to upright our finances. In the same breath, I advocate that we must get better in this country at allowing coverage for alternative modalities that have proven to prolong our time here on this Earthy plain.

As for my climbing numbers, we [my team] have many options in our toolbox that we can employ at just the right time. Cancer Learns. If you take only one thing from what I’ve shared throughout this Journal, it’s this.

The best way to stay ahead of this disease is to keep it guessing. And never, ever throw everything you have at it all at once. An exhaustive commitment to a chosen regime is the best place to start—adding what is necessary when your labs tell you it’s time.

Timing is everything, in all aspects of life—
A time of holding tightly, a time of letting go.
A time of new things coming, a time to lean into what’s next.
And I am leaning in all the way.