THE POWER OF AND

I stood in the center of the March morning and I wept. Not because it was snowing in March. But because of the overwhelming feeling that my life is not my own.

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Of all the things that steal my energy, indecision is at the top of the list. And so, I stand, rooted in my slippers in precisely the spot that gives me with the ideal vantage point from which to determine if the batten boards [the nice man in the black beanie is installing] should be 12 or 24 inches apart.

"This is what I do," I say to myself with a confidence of the designer in me spanning thirty years. And then I scurry back into the house and proceed to fall to pieces. What I can control seems paramount now, the mundane offerings of a brisk morning seem all-consuming, all important, when compared to my body’s own “reconstruction,” the control over which I have none.

May I tell you that the most important thing that you can do for another is to stand in the center of their crisis and speak life?

In the span of 72 hours a barrage of soul-depleting words have been repeated in my presence for the sake of “my own good.” "Maybe you have one good year," my oncologist said. "I think it's closer to two," said the radiologist. While my mind has done what I can only describe as a “miraculous job” at processing overwhelming information, apparently my spirit is struggling…

Enter my meltdown at being asked to simply decide the spacing of the new battens on my sweet little lake house.

Over the next several days I have decisions to make that eclipse any notion that what I have always believed to be important actually is. Seemingly little things, cast into the shadow of something incomprehensibly big...this is what my world has become about.  

Facing your own mortality does its best to diminish the purpose of the ordinary minutes of our days.

Yet, what if that purpose is poised within the framework of noticing how beautiful all of life is? For me these are not simply battens but pieces of a life lived fully, as necessary as breath.

I marvel that the Creator of all things is captivated by beauty for its own sake, to the degree that for seemingly no other purpose than to be gazed upon and delighted in He formed the details of our existence here on earth.

Name the things that bring you joy, let them run like a movie in your head—
Walks along a moonlit beach. Evening’s sunset sky. A robin’s egg. Fall’s changing leaves.

While life [and death] go on around us, Beauty and its value does not fade.

Those with good intentions will do their best to steal our hopes and dreams as they dictate the value of our lives inside the context of a difficult reality—
For me that difficult reality is cancer in large supply.
But I am proof that all the little beautiful things still bring joy.
Perhaps I am a hopeless romantic.
But life is not either or…

What if we were to see all of what we go through as the AND in our lives?
Hard AND inspiring
Difficult AND enormously rewarding
Fearful AND fascinating
Confounding AND mysterious

Can there be joy in sorrow? Yes. Absolutely. At least there was for me today.
Standing in my slippers on a snowy March morning.

"In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps."
Proverbs 16:9

NOTES:

Of all the things that bring me joy, THIS…the Journal…is at the top of the list. When difficult news comes, my first thought is, “How can i place this in context of a greater hope?” Not for my own sake, but for yours. 

This past week, amid conversations with radiation oncologists and surgeons, I felt a shift in my spirit, as if there was a part of me that had somehow given in. 

From the moment of my cancer diagnosis I have been what I can only describe as “supernaturally resolved to the existence of a higher purpose.” This resolve has never wained…not through chemotherapy, not through uncountable treatments and uncomfortable [even painful] surgeries and procedures that came in such rapid succession that I was literally unable to catch my breath. 

Some days, like today, the cost of these accumulated moments is evident. Today was a day of tears and apologies for having acted in a manner not pleasing to myself. 

Though I am doing remarkably well [due in large part to my alternative therapies] I am receiving more pressure from what we would all define as “Western Medicine” practitioners to “get serious” with my care. This is where my heavy sigh comes in. In my robust, all-in alternative approach to my cancer treatment I have [in recent days’ completely dismissed the notion of more Integrative Care. 

How did this happen when I am a sold-out believer in leaving ALL options on the table? I reminded myself this week that it is this dogmatic thinking that got me into this predicament in the first place [reminding you and myself that I had refused a hysterectomy when told it was necessary saying, “I am going to my grave with all my body parts.”

Life, I exhort myself, is not either/or but AND. I have always discovered the best version of my life…and myself…in this place of revelation that makes room for many options.

During this season of my disease I am faced with difficult decisions. I have become aware of how concerned I am that I may make the wrong one[s]. 

I have asked God more than once, “Why are you such a mystery,” when the answers haven’t come. And then I hear a quiet whisper, “You are ahead of me.” 

The answers, it seems, will come, when all the information is given. It’s really as simple as that. And so I do my best to open my mind and listen. And I take a breath. The right choice will reveal itself. I am confident in that. 

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