We just returned from a trip east for my mother’s memorial service. Though she died in early February, and there was a brief graveside service at that time, this was the first opportunity for family from around the country to gather, and my first trip back since just before her death.

Our time in western Pennsylvania, where my mother lived all of her 91 years, was full of subtly powerful emotion. There was a strange, disconnected feeling about being in the place she lived her whole life without her presence. It occurred to me that there will be little reason to visit the area again, especially if my sister, who lives across the border in Ohio, retires and moves closer to her son, daughter-in-law, and grandchild in New York CIty. A place of memories has its power, but memories live in the mind without needing actual location. And it seemed this time that memories, without the presence of at least some of the people who inhabit the memories, can only hold us in a location for a few days. The heart attaches more powerfully to people than to location. And all the western Pennsylvania people we go home to see are gone.

So the entire visit had a “last time” aura about it, an “almost goodbye” feeling. And though the farmlands and wooded hills are so familiar and so beautiful with their subtle early spring colors, and though they still appeal, they are no longer home. I don’t think western Pennsylvania will be a regular stop on our journey of life anymore. This trip felt more like leaving than arriving.

Seeing my mother’s grave was a bit of a shock. I was imagining a finished grave, flat and grass covered. But because it had lain under snow and winter weather, it was still a raw mound of dirt, not yet settled, leveled and seeded. It made her death seem fresh, and her laying to rest unfinished. My daughters in particular had a hard time with the grave. Their grandmother was a powerful mentor and source of honest wisdom for them, and they did not have the benefit I had of witnessing how full of faith and eagerness she was as she approached dying.

Finally, her memorial service refreshed in people’s minds the possibility of my death from brain cancer. I didn’t notice this at first because I definitely am not thinking that way. But people I love were wondering how much time they have left with me.

So much for the experienced and anticipated loses.

There were also gains in this experience. The memorial service was a full expression of faith, as my mother’s life had been. Retelling stories of her experiences with God, which began when she was a child and never stopped, we realized that we could conclude only one of two things about her. Either she was delusional about her relationship with God, or she lived her whole life close to God. And since she wasn’t delusional about anything else in life, we favored the relationship with God explanation and realized what a gift it is to have lived with and learned from such a woman.

The family gathering was definitely a gain. We have a big family, but we kept the circle for the memorial service small. That allowed for some conversations we wouldn’t have had in a bigger group. My brother, sister and I talked about our father’s drinking years with more openness and courage than I can remember doing previously. Two cousins talked honestly about suffering and loss in their own families. Somehow the last of the older generation being gone safely into God’s hands loosened our tongues to share things we had not shared before. Such conversation was a step forward in who we are together. It is hard to be close growing up in dysfunctional families. We began to know each other in new ways, and it brought us closer.

A third gain was the gift of being able to reflect not only on my mother’s entire life, to see what she overcame and how she lived with honor and achievement; but also to be able to do that for her generation of our family. They are all gone now. But as my cousin noted, we can conjure them in our memories any time we want. And we can see them as people, almost as peers rather than parents, aunts and uncles. I found that to do so brings sympathy and understanding.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow once wrote that “the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.” I find my 60’s to be a time of longer, deeper, wiser reflection than the thoughts of my youth. In my family, we are the older generation now. We are the ones with time and inclination to reflect, and with at least the opportunity to be wise. We are the ones who can have both the experience and compassion to guide the generations after us. We are the ones who have seen lives fully lived to their completion, and the outcomes of how those lives were lived.

I cherish this time in my life, this gift of reflection and understanding about what it means to be human with all its gains and losses. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed is the name of The Lord.

***
A brief health report: It is 10 weeks since I stopped taking chemotherapy. My April MRI showed a small and inactive tumor. I am feeling great. My next MRI will be in early June. Thank you for your continued prayers for many more years. It surprises me now when I find that someone is worrying about my imminent death. I am planning a different course, and hoping I am right.

These words from the book of Judges seem to be happening to me right now. Certainly these words are what I want to happen. I have definitely grown through this two year journey with brain cell cancer. In some ways I now function on a different level of relationship with life and with God. And there have been surprising blessings along the way.

Monday was the second anniversary of the day my doctor told me that statistically I had between 18 and 24 months to live. Later, because I was responding so well to chemotherapy, he told me that my chances of living significantly longer would go way up if I survived 2 years. Monday was 2 years.

I had an MRI on Monday, my first since stopping chemotherapy 6 weeks ago. It showed that the tumor remains as it has been for the last year, small and stable. My doctor was ecstatic. He prescribed vigorous aerobic exercise. That would have been unthinkable 2 years ago.

So I have grown. And the Lord who has been blessing me is still blessing me.

The words from Judges are about Samson, who is not one of my Bible heroes. I did not seek out the Samson story. But in honor of my mother, who read the entire Bible every year for at least 60 years, I have been following a plan to read through the whole Bible this year. And Monday’s Old Testament reading, on the 2 year anniversary of my diagnosis, was the Samson story.

The words from verses 24 & 25 will not leave me. They are a description of what I have experienced for 2 years, and a statement of what I want. I want the Spirit of the Lord to stir me. I want to be more finely tuned to the Spirit’s prompting. For my remaining days on earth, I want to experience what it is like for my soul to be stirred by God’s Spirit, and to respond. I want to do what the Spirit prescribes, and not just what my doctor prescribes.

I have already begun, and with something a little strange. In the Judges story, an angel tells Samson’s mother that he is never to drink wine. So I decided, almost on a whim, to stop drinking wine. I can’t say that God told me to stop; only that I felt like stirring something up in my life, and maybe the Spirit gave me the idea. Actually Jinny and I decided on New Year’s Day to give up almost all meat; also most wheat and dairy products. So perhaps the urge to stir things up in our lives began as 2013 began. And continued with the decision to stop chemotherapy. And appeared again about the wine.

I don’t know yet if I am giving up wine forever. On the night he was arrested, Jesus told his disciples “I will not drink this fruit of the vine again until I drink it new with you in the kingdom of heaven.” I am intrigued by that commitment, but not sure that is what the Spirit is stirring up in me. Time will tell.

Some of my friends would say that it is silly or puritanical or without usefulness to give up wine. But I have already discovered what may be the primary value of this decision. I decided on Monday morning, before my doctor’s appointment and MRI, forgetting that Monday evening my men’s book group would meet. We always finish our book discussion with a glass of wine. Forgoing the wine reminded me that I made the decision for a reason. I want the Spirit of the Lord to stir in me again and again.

I think that every time I am offered wine and decline I will silently remember my soul’s desire for the stirring of God’s Spirit in my life. I wonder what else God has in mind for the remainder of my days.

One of my favorite TV shows is Monk, a show about an eccentric detective who picked up a number of unique personality traits when his wife died. They enable him to see things clearer at crime scenes than the other detectives, but they also inhibit his growth and his ability to find joy in life. Again and again throughout the series, when characters ask him how he solves an impossible case, he just shrugs and says, “It’s a gift…and a curse.” That’s how I sometimes feel about my skills as a “fixer.”

The reality is any trait taken to its extreme becomes destructive over time. The issue with spending upwards of 40 hours a week solving problems is that when life throws something at me I can’t fix, I nearly exhaust myself trying to control it anyway. I’ve written about my tendency to want to control everything and everyone around me before. It’s an issue I’ve been working on for nearly two years now with some success.

Or so I thought.

My family started this blog in April 2011 when my dad was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and my husband requested a divorce. The two events occurred in close conjunction and as such, their lives as the primary men in my life have remained intertwined in my mind from that moment on. Each has travelled a different journey since then, their paths diverging wildly. Yet somehow, their “big moments” along the way seem to always coincide. The same is true again now.

As I write this, Cory is contemplating choices that will affect his future, some that are out of his control. His immediate future is unknown and uncertain, a fact that creates chaos in his soul and a problem I want to fix. Simultaneously, my dad has decided to discontinue chemotherapy, giving the remaining 10% of his tumor to God as a tithe to do with as He sees fit. Another decision with an uncertain outcome.

I clearly cannot control the outcomes for either of them. They aren’t my decisions to make. But because they affect people I love and indirectly my own life, I want to control them. I want to offer the perfect insight that influences them to do what I would do, I want to find just the right series of actions to take the burden of these decisions from their shoulders and put them on my own so that I can feel safe about the outcome. I want to orchestrate things in just the right way that my life continues on the path I’ve laid out for myself.

But God doesn’t work that way, and neither does life. Rather than fixing things, I exhaust myself and them with my endless suggesting, nudging, and questioning. Given that I thought I had made progress on this issue, I get annoyed with myself when I catch myself doing it again. I’m determined to get to the root of my behavior, to uncover why I simply cannot fully let go of control.

When I dissect things, I am stunned to learn that much of my behavior is based on fear. The reality is, I simply still cannot fathom that God could have a better plan for all of us than I do. He has shown me countless times He can turn even the hardest moments into something lovely, yet I still question what He has in mind and His character. I want to trust Him. I do. I want to fully believe that if my dad stops relying on modern medicine that God will fill in the gap. I want to believe not just rationally but in my soul that no matter the outcome for Cory that his path was chosen long ago by God for a reason…a good reason. But I still worry. I still am afraid. I still doubt. I still control.

I’m attempting to rest today in the idea that perfect love casts out fear. And since only God has perfect love, only God can cast out fear. So I draw near to Him again, bow my head in prayer again, and attempt to replace fear with love again. And to let go.

-Sara

“And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire, a still, small voice.” 1 Kings 19:12

Since I last wrote a blog entry, I have been trying to listen to God as I decide whether or not to continue chemotherapy. If I could clearly perceive what God wants me to do, I would gladly do it. I know that God is wiser than I, and that what God has in mind is for good, not necessarily for me but for all of us together. My trust level concerning God is sky high, the result of the last two years of reflection and of other people’s prayers. For the most part I am pretty certain I can say what Job said (Job 13:15), “Even though he slay me, yet will I trust him.”

So I have been trying to be attentive to whatever God might tell me about continuing or stopping chemotherapy. I mentioned in my last blog entry that I have “tithed” the last 10% of the tumor to God. And since it now belongs to God, I intend to let God deal with it while I no longer worry about it. But I do want to cooperate with what God wants from me. Thus the listening for God’s voice. Or if God prefers, the waiting for a strong feeling of what is right to do. Or for the vivid and compelling dream. But I haven’t received any of those things.

In Elijah’s experience described in 1 Kings 19, the phrase “a still, small voice” is sometimes translated “a gentle whisper” and sometimes even “a sound of sheer silence.” I have been saying to God, “Could you please speak up?” I have received either the sound of sheer silence or a whisper so gentle that I keep saying “What? What?”

Meanwhile the next scheduled chemo round drew near, and with it the time to decide. I decided to stop taking chemotherapy.

My doctor concurred with this decision. He told me several months ago that I should consider stopping the chemo treatments for now since there is no way of knowing whether they are helping, or whether the tumor would be just as stable without treatment. I have taken this chemo drug longer than most patients because I have lived longer already than most people live with this tumor. I am statistically “off the charts,” with no studies or other predictors of what will happen next, with or without chemotherapy. I asked my doctor last week to “prophecy” my future. All he could say was “Time will tell.” So the plan for now is a new MRI every two months to monitor the tumor. If it starts to grow, there will be options to consider.

For me this was not a decision to go passive and let whatever happens happen. Rather quite the opposite. It was a decision to live a chemo free life trusting God.

While I was in the process of making the decision, I asked myself “What kind of faith story do I want to be living?” I realized that I get to choose the answer to that question (as you also do for your life). I decided that I want my answer to be this: I live a faith story where God has a clear and unambiguous opportunity to bring complete healing; where God is good enough to not only keep me alive until I complete the exciting ministry I am now involved in, but also to give me many years of second retirement to live in contentment with those I love. God is that good. And God can easily do it. Nothing is impossible with God. My hope remains to die in 15 or 20 years of something unrelated to this tumor.

The day after the decision was made and the chemo drugs were not ordered, the scripture in my “year through the Bible” reading (in honor of my mother’s lifelong habit of reading through the Bible each year) was from Mark’s gospel, chapter 5, about the woman whom the doctors could not cure in spite of 12 years of treatment. (My doctor has been clear from the day I met him that there is no cure for this tumor. From the point of view of medical science it is “always” fatal.) In Mark’s gospel she is instantly healed when she touches Jesus.

Is it a coincidence that I read that story on the day after my decision? Maybe. Or is it a whisper so gentle that the natural response is “What? What?” As my doctor said “Time will tell.”

Occasionally it occurs to me that I am going to feel naïve and stupid if the tumor begins growing again in the next few months. But of course there are things to do in response if that does happen. And what I know for sure is that I get to decide what kind of faith story I am living, and what kind of God I believe in.

I believe that God’s goodness is far more personal and far greater than anyone has imagined so far. And I want to live a faith story that is, for the moment at least, chemotherapy free.

My mother died in Pennsylvania last week at age 91. I spent a remarkable five days with her before she died. She has had a strong faith and a vital relationship with God since she was a young girl. She heard God “speak” to her many times in many ways during her life. And she read the entire Bible every year from the time I was a toddler until macular degeneration slowed her reading down. She was in the last chapters of Romans when she went to the hospital two weeks ago; and it probably would have taken her a year and a half, using her big reading machine from the Pennsylvania State services for the blind, to get through the Bible this last time.

I sat by her hospital bed for 12 hours every day, and she slept and woke, and we talked. She was very ready to move on from this world, to leave behind this body that had become frail and blind, to mount up with wings like eagles. She was absolutely unafraid, looking forward to the future, a little disappointed each time she woke and found she was still in this world.

When I left her to fly home, my prayer was that her dreams would be sweet and her journey swift. She had dreamed often while I was sitting with her, and her dreams were always of being young and having fun. She died peacefully in her sleep 3 days after I had gone.

It was her time to go home to the Lord. And it is hard to grieve for someone who was granted what she wanted so much. So I rejoice with her. And being far away on the west coast, it still seems more like she is alive in her Pennsylvania apartment, until I think about calling her. Then my heart feels a little lonely and yet, at the same time, glad. Her apartment is empty. She would not answer the phone. I won’t see her until I see her in heaven. Meanwhile I know she is having fun there, and young.

It was her time to go home to the Lord, and I find, remarkably, that death has no victory, that in this death there is no sting. Rather God has given us the victory. I have always read that verse with the emphasis on the word “victory.” God has given us the victory. Now I think the emphasis is on “us.” God has taken the victory away from death, and given it to us.

I came away from this sacred time with my mother feeling strongly that while it was her time to leave this world, it is not my time. I could have come away jealous, since I do believe that to live is Christ and to die is gain. But I came away certain that my time to leave this world is not close. Rather, I have a calling to fulfill, a vision to help turn into reality, a work given to me to complete. I don’t believe I will die of a brain tumor or anything else until that work is done; until the Lord calls me to come. Then I will gladly go. But now I gladly stay. And I think I will be staying for a while, perhaps for quite a while.

A friend recently suggested that I stop being concerned about the 10% of the tumor that remains in my head. Since it is one tenth of what it used to be, he suggested I should give it to God as a tithe. Let it be God’s tumor now, to deal with as God chooses. And I agree. I give it to God. I am taking it off my radar. I am going to live as though the tumor is not my concern. I am not certain yet how I will live this out. The doctor says I can decide to continue the chemotherapy or I can decide to stop. I guess I will do what feels right when it is time to decide. Whichever I do, that is not the important part. The important part is to give it to God and live like it is not my concern. I intend to think about it less, refer to it less in conversation, urge wife, daughters and friends not to be anxious about it. I will focus on the life and love around me, and on what it means to be fully alive and fully in relationship and service to the Lord.

It feels good already.

Having spent time with her just this past October, her decision didn’t come as a big surprise.  She long ago made peace with death and has spoken of it with great anticipation for years.  She longs to be reunited with people she misses who went before her; to be with Jesus; and to return to her thirty year old body so she can run, jump and dance again.  (She is certain that’s the age we will all be in heaven.)  But while it’s not a surprise, I’m not ready.  I don’t want her to go.

I’ve caught myself a few times today wishing it was my turn.  I’m tired of goodbyes and of sadness.  I want to be in a place where my days are filled with happy reunions rather than challenging partings.  Where I get to be with Jesus and where the trials of the world no longer plague me.  Part of this is driven by fear.  With no descendents of my own, I worry about the rest of my life stretching before me filled with one goodbye after another until there is no one left of my family and I’m here on earth alone.  And yet I imagine if that day comes, it will be my grandma I will think of. 

She is the last remaining member of her original immediate and extended family.   As in all things, she accepted this, faced life as it came, trusting God had the perfect plan for her life, that He knew best and that His plan was created for her benefit.  I’m trying to remember and hold to that now, and I’m trying to feel joy on her behalf, for when she goes, it will be a beautiful reunion.

There is simply no way to sum up what she has taught me and all the ways she has influenced me.  She shows up in nearly every aspect of my life and the right words simply escape me.  And I so badly want to find the right words, to do her justice in this blog.  I want everyone who reads this to know what a beautiful soul she is.  I want them to know that with her passing the world will lose a steadfast prayer warrior, a staunch defender of all that is good and right in the world, an incredibly brave person, and one of the greatest examples of unconditional love and acceptance I know.  I want them to do more than just read this blog for a few minutes and move on, but to appreciate her life for the inspiration it is and go forward aiming to do better, to be better.  I know I will.    

I was born the second child of a second child of a second child, a chain that began with her and ends with me with my dad sandwiched in the middle.  Given that they are the wisest people I know, I feel some pressure to measure up.  A task that seems insurmountable and yet it is because of her that I even stand a chance. 

She is responsible for directly and indirectly shaping any good trait inside of me.  From her I learned how to not only tolerate but to appreciate those who choose to live differently than me,  how to find beauty in life’s hard moments, how to forgive, how to hope for and believe in the redemption of people, how to love unconditionally, how to put God above all things, how to live in the present moment, how to make the best of challenging situations, how to laugh at the unexpected, how to hold tight to those you love, how to put others before myself,  how to apologize and take responsibility, how to be still and listen, how to trust God even when it’s hard, how to let go of things I can’t control, how to love Jesus, how to butter toast perfectly, and so very much more. 

I intended for this blog to be a thank you gift and note for her, but how do I even begin to thank someone who has given so much asking nothing in return?  Words are inadequate.  So instead I will try to live out the example she taught me.  I will do my best to live the remainder of my life around these principles, to carry on her legacy so others may catch a glimpse of her beautiful and perfect soul through knowing me.

My dad posted a conversation he had with her on Facebook today.   My grandma has read the bible cover to cover at least 60 times in her life, returning to it year after year.  He asked her if she would like him to read it to her today.  Her response?  “Already got it.”  And she does.  She has more biblical knowledge than trained scholars and has faithfully lived out its principles day in and day out year after year.  Yes, she’s got it.  And because of that, the idea of dying brings her nothing but joy.

I don’t want her to go, but even though I’m just beginning to “get it,” I know we will meet again.  At the end of my life when I hope that I too can claim to fully “get it,” I will have a happy reunion with her and it will be another special moment in our long journey together. 

I look forward to that moment. 

I love you Grammy, your life meant something here on earth, and I will miss you so very much.    

-Sara

The Apostle Paul talks about an experience of being “caught up into Paradise” where he received revelations of an “exceptional” character. By his own testimony, this experience put him in danger of being “too elated.” And so, again by Paul’s own interpretation of events, God gave him a “thorn in the flesh” to keep him from becoming too elated. Paul prayed three times for God to remove this thorn, but the answer was no.

I have been thinking about this story since last month when our prayer for the tumor in my head to totally disappear was not answered in the specific way we requested.

I am different from Paul. Being too elated is not normally a risk for me. Rather the opposite. I seem by nature to be visionary about what is possible and pessimistic about whether people will embrace what is not yet a reality. I am not a person who gets “too elated.”

But I have been asking myself whether the tumor remaining in place might help me change in some way. If I removed the words “too elated” from Paul’s sentence, how would I fill in the blank? I am not suggesting that God is leaving the tumor “to teach me a lesson.” That would seem an over-dramatic loss of perspective on God’s part. I don’t think God acts that way.

But it might be good for me to think more about who I am, and who I could be that would be better. Paul’s thorn in the flesh apparently was for his own good. The remains of the tumor may be for mine. Its continued presence seems to prevent me from jumping out of my contemplative thought processes of the last 21 months. It keeps me focused on spiritual things, and who I want to be as a spiritual person.

So my question to myself is “In order to keep me from being too…what?” Or maybe, “In order to help me stop being too…something?”

My first thought was—too pessimistic. Creative pessimism has come naturally to me for most of my life. But I find that these last two years have made me less pessimistic. It must be all the thinking about this world and the next, all the drawing nearer to God and being aware of God’s goodness, all the support and prayers of people around the world. I find I am not the pessimist I used to be. And I am surprised. But I like it.

Too harsh? Too willing to be critical? Perhaps most people would not use the term to describe me. But some would. And I would. I think that in some ways I have become more kind in the thoughts of my heart since the tumor appeared. Perhaps God’s hope for us is that we become all kindness and no harshness toward one another. I hope I am moving a little in that direction.

Too impatient? For sure I can be impatient. And is impatience really anger that I don’t control the world and can’t make everything go as I want it to go? Is impatience really a complaint about other people? About God?

Too willing to put sounds and images in my mind that are unpleasant, unedifying? Can I learn not to watch that violent movie, that latest of a long line of TV shows degrading to human beings?

To keep me from becoming too…what? To help me stop being too…what?

The old theological term for this process is sanctification; the Biblical term is “growing up into Christ.” God wants me to be a better person than I am. Somehow the last two years have helped. Somehow still having the tumor seems to be helping.

I recently read that the poet Walt Whitman once suggested we examine what is going on in our minds, and dismiss anything we find there that is insulting to our souls.

I am looking inside for the things that are insulting to my soul. And asking God to help me dismiss those things.
I find the process refreshing.

I will never forget the moment I learned that being good at controlling things wasn’t necessarily a personality trait.  I was sitting in a room full of godly women who were all taking the same bible study class.  We were in a rally as we kicked off a section of our class about identity and learning who we were in Christ.  The leaders of each of the small groups were sharing their personal stories of transformation and every single one without fail had a piece of their story that was about struggling with a need to control.  They spoke as though it was a struggle we all had in common, and a desire we had to learn to surrender to experience true freedom.

When we got back to our small groups I was uncharacteristically quiet.  My fellow students talked excitedly about the upcoming section as I stared at the wall, my general world view a bit shaken.  The leader noticed my silence and asked what was on my mind.  I remember asking the girls in the room if they too would describe themselves as needing to control the things and people around them.  To a person they responded yes.  Looking back now, I don’t know how I didn’t realize it was a universal trait, but I really didn’t.  And more importantly, that it wasn’t a trait, but rather a crutch with the power to negatively influence my life.  I truly thought my need and ability to control things and people was a piece of my character, a gift from God.  After all, it was what made me a good manager in my professional life. 

At the time, I was in the class because my carefully crafted world was tumbling down around me.  My marriage was in a freefall, my professional life had been turned upside down, I’d lost much of my support system, and my dad had been diagnosed with terminal cancer.  I was running myself ragged trying to implement any strategy of control I could to change what was happening around me.  It had always worked before, but this time no matter my response, my effort, or my actions, I couldn’t seem to reverse the course I was on.  My ability to control was failing me, and adding this piece of information suddenly explained why…I’d never actually been in control.

That moment in the class was both one of my lowest moments and my best.  It kicked off one of the hardest weeks of my life, a week I spent grieving deeply for the things I knew I’d have to surrender to God’s control knowing He may choose a different path for me, and grieving for the years I’d wasted controlling every person, situation, and detail around me, often hurting those I loved in the process.  It was the week I faced my fear of losing everything dear to me head-on, wrestling with God over who knew better the way my life should go, and surrendering the ultimate outcome to Him.  But waiting for me at the end of the grief was the perfect gift of freedom, peace, and surprisingly, an abundance of free time. 

In the end, wrestling with God and concluding that my need to control things didn’t make me unique nor was it a quality gifted from God, made it easy to give up the tight hold I had on every area of my life.  Suddenly it was clear the only things I could control were how I responded to people, how I viewed them, what I did with my time, and my relationship with God.  That was it.  Nothing else. 

Fast forward two years to this moment now, the moment we didn’t get the exact response we’d prayed for, the moment we learned my dad’s tumor still remained stubbornly in place.  Two years ago that news would have shaken me, tested my faith, and sent me into a frenzy of research as I attempted to uncover what else we could try to get our intended response.  Yet in this moment I feel strangely peaceful.  My dad’s health falls squarely in the category of things I can’t control and over the last two years, I’ve learned to surrender that category to God.

I recently visited my grandmother, one of the wisest women I know.  I spent three days with her, just the two of us and felt deeply blessed to have her and her wisdom all to myself.  During one conversation I asked her whether she had ever audibly heard God speak to her.  She told me a story of a time when she had three small children all under the age of five and was pregnant with a fourth, a boy who was stillborn.  She remembers being exhausted one day, sick with a pregnancy that wasn’t going right and worn out from attending to the needs of three small children.  Desperate for rest, she sent a plea to God asking if He’d watch the children while she took a small nap.  He answered with, “Aileen, you take care of them when you can, I’ll take care of them when you can’t.”

She explained from that moment on, she never worried about her children, even when she sent my uncle to Vietnam or when my dad was diagnosed with cancer.  She figures God promised to care for them when she couldn’t and since she can’t be with my dad now, he must be on God’s watch. 

And surprisingly that’s how I feel about this recent news.  While we prayed for a different outcome, my dad has always been and will always remain in God’s care, his path under God’s perfect control.  Sure I still pray for his complete healing, I still pass on any articles I stumble across that could positively influence his health, but the underlying feeling and motive is different.  Gone is the frenzy, the anxiety, and the fear.  It has been replaced with a peace that came when I fully released every aspect of my life during that painful week two years ago.  A peace that came when the worst outcome was realized for my marriage yet my capacity for faith, forgiveness, and love remained intact.  A peace that came when I finally humbled myself before God and admitted His plan was better and wiser than my own.  Most importantly, a peace that could only come when I unequivocally surrendered control. 

These days I’m thankful that my description of myself would have a slight variation.  It would end with, “…organized, driven, and fully trusting of God’s plan.”  

It was a hard trade, but a beautiful one.        

-Sara

“I walk before the Lord in the land of the living…” Psalm 116:9

It occurred to me overnight that if we had not made the specific prayer request for the tumor to totally disappear and for the December 10 MRI to show its absence, we would have been elated with yesterday’s appointment with our doctor.

Always the professional realist (a.k.a. pessimist) about my prognosis, this time he bordered on optimism. He said that none of the available statistics regarding this tumor any longer pertain to me. I have surpassed the statistics so completely that there is no available information about the course my treatment response will take. Most people with this tumor would have died three months ago. Yet I remain strong, with the tumor small and stable. My body is highly tolerant of the chemo treatments, and the tumor is highly responsive to the treatments. Every year I live (approaching 2 years on April 1) significantly increases my chances of living significantly longer. And for the first time, he mentioned some potential research breakthroughs that may create more effective treatments in the intermediate future. I told him that my goal is to live with strength until I am at least 81, and at that point to die of something unrelated to the tumor. While he was probably skeptical, he did not deny that possibility outright. This is progress toward optimism for him. And I, having the luxury of not being the professional medical expert, can be more optimistic than it is professional for him to be.

I also factor in God and prayer and stories from the scriptures about God’s personal covenant with people. I know the last word is always God’s word; not my word, not a doctor’s word. I am fine with that. I would not want it another way.

So without the focus on a specific prayer for tumor disappearance and MRI confirmation, we would have been thrilled with yesterday’s meeting. The more I think about it, the more I am thrilled. A friend emailed me this morning saying “I think the news you received yesterday is a miracle. You are the only person to ever respond to this chemo in this way with the ability to continue. That is miraculous.” I totally agree.

Yet we felt strongly prompted, by God we believed, to pray this specific prayer request. So what was that about?

I think I have been changed emotionally and psychologically by the prayer we prayed. The dullness I was experiencing has vanished though the tumor did not. The feeling of oppression in the daily awareness of my mortality has lifted, and for now at least is gone without a trace. Somehow praying that specific prayer so loudly and so widely put me at peace about God knowing what the issue was for me (irrational I know…God already knows before we say even a tentative, whispered prayer). Somehow that issue is over because so many of you prayed that specific prayer with me. It is in God’s hands now, right where it should be. I am content with that. My daughter Katy suggested that God may still answer that specific prayer in that specific way some time later, perhaps when we are not even noticing. I am ok with that too. I have room in my experience of God for that kind of God behavior.

So what is next? I feel freer now. Freer to live into the life that is before me rather than constantly asking myself whether I will have the time to do this or that; to accomplish this goal or experience that experience. I still don’t get how not receiving what we asked for can feel this good. I can only testify that it does.

Another friend emailed this wisdom: “Time to shake the dust off your sandals, depart the land of uncertainty and spiritual dullness and dance into the land of faithful hope. Labor boldly and live radically. Permit others to love you as you love and whatever time you are accorded, let it be lived with integrity and faithfulness.”

Sounds like a plan. Not sure about the dancing, but if I can take it figuratively instead of literally, I am ok with that too.

Jinny and I, our church, and hundreds of friends have been praying for the last several weeks that my December MRI would show the last 10% of brain cell cancer in my head has disappeared.

Yesterday I had the MRI. Today we met with our doctor. The MRI shows that the cancer remains. Jinny and I thought the tumor looked a little smaller. Our doctor thought any difference was negligible. Whichever of us was right, the tumor is definitely still there.

Interestingly, in the context of our overall meeting with the doctor, the information that the tumor is still present did not bother us. I thought I might be depressed with such news, or suffer a mini-crisis in faith. Instead we are feeling pretty positive. I don’t know yet all the reasons we are reacting as we are. But since many are waiting to hear how our prayers were answered, I hurry to share my initial thoughts.

We are glad we prayed that God remove 100% of the cancer and that the MRI confirm this. We are glad that we asked others to pray that specific prayer with us, and that many did. Both Jinny and I felt strongly that we wanted to pray in that way, and even that we were prompted spiritually to do so. We are glad that we prayed specifically and publically. There is no doubt in our minds that we made our desires and motives known to the Lord. We don’t have to ask ourselves if we should have made a better prayer effort. God definitely heard what we were asking. We have no doubt about that, and can relax about that issue. God heard, and will remember, and will respond as God chooses.

A friend said to us on Sunday, “God has this covered. Whatever happens, you know God has got this.” That feels right.

Somehow feeling this way seems to also free me from feeling dull, from feeling oppressed by my daily awareness that a “fatal” cancer is still present in my brain. I was struggling with 20 months of carrying this knowledge. That burden seems to be lifted, and I feel like I have a green light (or have given myself one) to get on with the things I am excited about doing without the nagging questions “Will you have time to get this done? Will you have time to experience this event?” Now the answers to those questions are up to God, and trusting God’s wisdom, I can proceed as though I had all the time in the world. I have all the time God chooses to give me. That is good enough.

It also feels ok with me that I have not received (not yet at least) the “miracle” I was asking for. Most people don’t get the miracle they pray for. So I remain among the “common” people, not receiving specifically all that I have asked for. Yet receiving much from the Lord and from good people in support, love, and the sharing of their strength.

I am tempted to remind God that there was a great opportunity here to encourage people and to strengthen their faith or even, with some, to begin their faith; and God let that opportunity pass, for reasons hidden to us. I have to trust God on that one. And I pray that no one’s faith was hindered or damaged by disappointment that we are not now wildly celebrating the wonders of God’s love shown in specific prayers specifically answered. Please don’t draw any conclusions about the personal nature of God’s love or God’s personal commitment to us just because the MRI image still shows a tumor.

I find I am also feeling an inner peace that I am not separated by a miracle from dear friends who did not get the miracle they wanted for a loved one that they eventually lost. I would hate to have people hear my story and ask “Why him, and not my daughter, my son, my husband, my friend?” So I am content that God is wise.

The good news is that my doctor seems to be growing a little optimistic about me. He said today that most people who get this type of brain cancer die within 18 months. I have lived with it 21 months already, and am doing well. He said again that if I live with this cancer for 24 months my chances of surviving much longer go way up. He said again that I am so far off the statistical charts that there is no way to predict my future, except that I am trending toward good results. He also talked for the first time about advances being made in research that might lead to treatment breakthroughs in a few years.

So I walk before the Lord in the land of the living. I have learned to count my days, and am also learning not to worry so much about their number. And I am remembering to be grateful for the remarkable response to treatment that I have already been given.

Before my doctor’s appointment this morning the thought came to me “The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything.” That seems to be where I am right now.