THE HOSTILITY OF GRACE

This was the debut bald image of a woman I hardly recognize. It may remind you of some distant past, but now is the season when God is asking me to enter into new territory.
From the outside, it will look as if I have come full circle.
But I am in a new place.

I am not the same as I was before.

To be in this position is more curious than confounding—
Sometimes it feels as if it isn't happening to me at all,
sometimes as if there is nothing of me but this.

Two months ago, before recent developments, I asked my dear friend Jordan [who formats and posts this journal}, "Are we done with the cancer story?”
His reply, “It will always be a part of who you are.”

This week, the doctors confirmed that the subject of our poet musing is in fact front and center in my now.

To say it has come back is not exactly accurate.

Like a tattoo, cancer can be covered over but never completely removed.
So, we face this new season of bald.
Not something I wanted.
But something I will rush to as if saving a life, in this case, my own.

My wise doctor conveyed, “To beat this we must create a hostile environment where cancer cannot thrive.” How breathtaking that in this case, Hostility means a new level of Purity—

In the thoughts that I entertain
In the foods that I eat
In the conversations I enter into
In the words that I speak

isn't it ironic that sometimes the only way to eradicate the enemy is to live a life of grace?

My job at this crossroads is to take every thought captive, to fill every room with the mystical quality of a kind of goodness that must be lived not simply named. Then to draw my strength from the One who goes before me in every situation, as if a wall of fire.

And I will be to her a wall of fire all around, declares the Lord, I will be the glory in her midst.

Zechariah 2:5

NOTES: 
There is nothing I covet more than prayer. If you feel led to join in this effort, please reach out to DuAnne Seeley at dseeley_win@hotmail.com or Portia Keena at landynmom@cox.net