THE THIRD SPACE

Life’s surprises are sometimes packaged as 4am wakeup calls, when the body tells the mind that something is terribly wrong. The secret to everything is to accept that these are not a departure from life but the essence of life itself.

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I close my door and leave the commotion of monitors and moans behind. My room measured in inches is 72 x 120, most of these dimensions taken up by a bed just big enough to cradle the children that used to occupy this hospital wing.

You may think it sounds like a prison. To me, more like A cocoon.

I wrap myself in the notion that the plans I have painstakingly made for the next several days, have been thrown aside, making room for something “other” that I apparently need.

You may call it irony. To me, more like answered prayer.

Just two days before driving myself to the emergency room at 3am I had spoken words out loud to a friend that would set my destiny, “Lord, if the plans I have made aren’t yours cause me unrecognizable pain.” It must be said that during the entire three years of my journey with uterine cancer I have not once experienced the kind of discomfort that could come anywhere close to this.

Less than forty-eight hours after uttering these words, what can only be described as unrelenting, unbearable pain took over my body and in an instant everything changed.

You may call it tragedy. To me, it is answer to prayer.

While machines pump fluids and medication into my port, nurses meticulously inspect belly, fingers, and feet. “We want to ensure that nothing infiltrates the Third Space,” they whisper at seeing the concern on my face.

In clinical terms this Third Space is found between the interstitial and intravascular compartments that readily exchange water and solutes in a safe and effective way.
In other words, the mysterious place in our bodies I call, "the in between."

As miraculous as the way our bodies work, it is equally tragic how little about this we really know.

I climb into my bed and hear the voices of a thousand children who have laid here in painful slumber in what was a pediatric unit just a few months before. The lessons on the workings of their tiny bodies came too early, enveloped in walls dancing with images of forest flowers and fawns, as soothing to me now as to them .

This room is my unexpected sanctuary, my Third Space of refuge and relief. Between the plans made and upended, there is no other explanation than this must be a gift of solace that I need.  

There are those adept at shoving open doors that may not be ours to enter into.
There are those who in impatience get ahead of what God is doing in their lives.
There are those who seek concrete answers instead of bathing in the mystery of the undefined.

In the quiet darkness between blood pressure checks come the words prayed over me...“Lord, allow Janene to focus on the Healer instead of the healing.”

THIS is the Third Space neglected. Between what is...and what I think I know...is a vast and endless territory of a love that insists and invades—

that seeks us out and holds us,

that slows us down and shows us,

that breaks us down and molds us.

There is no fear in this space, often overlooked and neglected, between the busy minutes of our days.

NOTES: If you previewed my calendar for the next ten days, you would marvel at the plans I had made—An appointment to discuss potential radiation, Two rounds of IV Vitamin C, Ozone therapy and a cancer workshop, A zoom call with my integrative oncologist, A trip to Los Angeles to undergo a state-of-the-art scan. And then, I prayed. In all my controlling disguised as preparation I sensed that I had brought confusion upon myself.  Was I doing the right thing? Would the answers be clear?And then, my prayer was answered in precisely the manner in which it was prayed. I had asked for pain as a way of slowing me down and bringing clarity.  And in the midst of all the chaos, pain came—debilitating, unquestionable, pain that forced me to cancel my plans and to simply fall on my face and at His feet—An appointment with the Healer, instead of the healing. After five days of tests and rest we have more answers than we would have received if I was running myself ragged from one appointment to the next. Even more compelling, I am learning that sometimes our best efforts get in the way of what is taking place in the supernatural realm of the Third Space. Where is your Third Space where you run to for comfort and relief? What is the prayer you know needs praying to bring you a sense of clarity and release? What great fear is holding you back from entering the solace of the space between this world and the next? Proverbs 31:25—26  She is clothed with strength and dignity, and she laughs without fear of the future. When she speaks, her words are wise, and she gives instructions with kindness.