New Strategies

My first treatment has allotted me to 2 new strategies. The first is, the cancer center saves my life and I show up at the right times for appointments. I think they like that plan as much as I do. My other strategy is to keep switching nurses if I can help it. It seems each time I see a nurse she moves the side effects further out, with some careful maneuvering maybe I can slide right through this easily. My nurse yesterday said it is her experience that the majority of patients begin to experience the more difficult side effects after the third treatment. So far I just feel sleepy.

A lot of people have asked me what treatment looks like and I had wondered this as well. Seeing people devastated by the drugs gives dark images of "what they are doing to them." It is so boringly not gruesome. I sat napping in a comfortable recliner looking out large glass windows over fields of beautiful Kentucky with an iv bag dripping chemicals into my bloodstream, then they sent me home. At this facility a row of these recliners line the outside walls as nurses monitor and switch out bags and visitors chat with their family receiving treatment. The sounds are chatter and iv polls rolling back and forth all day to the atrium for lunch and the bathrooms which are frequently visited due to all the fluids being pushed in with the drugs.

I finally thought to send Jocelyn a picture which calmed her nerves a lot. I think she had gruesome images in her head and was pleased to see that the facility is bright and cheery. She replied that it was much better than she thought and her texts slowed down considerably after seeing the picture. Pierce stopped in briefly, to show support and I think to see what it was all about as well. Really in any experience the not knowing is the hard part, fighting a battle is much more desirable than anticipating it. I snapped a bunch of pictures to bring home for everyone to see.

My heart thoughts today continue along the same themes of peace and rest. 

So much of my life has been spent striving to grow spiritually. My "church journey" is a truly blessed one. I have not always, in my striving and pain, viewed it this way but as I learn to rest hindsight changes continually.

My early church experience gave me a base that would permeate the entire rest of my life - my eternity. I left those youthful years with many insecurities and questions and hurts but with a direction that would never change. Those early years in the chaos of church growth, awareness, ministry goals, leadership skills, outreach potential, etc. that was thoughtfully, lovingly imparted to me - at the bottom of it somewhere lied the true goal - rest. Just recently my youth pastor pulled out of my past and onto my doorstep. What a precious reminder (before this struggle I did not know at the time that I was coming into), that I am loved. Not only do I remember the love he invested in me in my unloveable youth but he chose to come and bless my present as well. He has this way of using approximately 10 words at a time to cut to the the quick of your mistake and/or place you in the bosom of love. 

Next would be the college years where I would begin to come out of the insecurities of youth led into a world of seeking wisdom. I recently attended the funeral of another man who touched my life deeply. This man did not use ten words at a time but hours of words in stretches that felt like moments. From this man I began to see going beyond myself rather than being limited by discovering just the gifts and potentials within. Rather knowing the power of a Holy God that I could embrace and admire and watch do mighty things. What a wonderful time of celebration at his funeral, listening to family and friends rejoice in the life of this man who imparted to countless others the tangible presence of a Holy God. 

Next came marriage and babies. Nothing in all of life undoes anyone more quickly than these family relationships that now are not experienced ignorantly from childlike perspective but wittingly with adult accountability. In marriage we discover if we are liars. 

I have this thing about lying. I hate it. I really, really hate it in all it's forms. Lying is the ultimate insult to God, self and other. To embrace lying is to deny the fabric of exactly what we were created to be in the first place. Created to be united, nakedly exposed with a loving tender Father and then from the context of this joy and exultation to rejoice in that love in relationship as a body before Him. To lie is to simply defile that place that is holy, pure, cherished. That place is in our everyday life and conversations. Nothing hurts more than a lie. It defiles relationship. This theme is raw on my heart as my family was recently deeply wounded by a web of lies like I had never known others could or would administer. I can honestly say if this cancer is going to help me to the bottom of knowing how to to walk out of that memory in true death to self and sacrificial love for the liars I will say it is worth every moment and then some. I know a righteous anger from this hurt now I must come to know a graceful rest and love. 

There was the true confession, now back to the journey. Once marriage and babies started coming, love changed meaning. Suddenly there becomes an internal war, will life be about me and my needs and escaping the work of marriage and parenting or will life be about these unbelievable precious ones that fill me with unfathomable depths of love. Will I be honest or will I be a liar. There are many dynamics that come into play in the family relationship. Some, more all the time, find that the lies of dishonestly clothing/hiding ourselves are too divisive and the marriage falls apart. Some struggle in anger, in disfunction and conflict for years or decades. Some learn to weave a life of allowing the lies by forming habits together that become acceptable with moments of emotion later chosen to be ignored and allegedly forgotten. Some learn to weave a net of deception together as a couple, a family, excusing one another for the sake of peace by joining in a team of deception. And as a society we learn to call it all sorts of things that lead us all to believe the pain of separation is not real, only brief and imagined and there are a great many strategies available to help us move on in health and happiness. It's all the same defiling God, of self and of others - the great thief of rest. 

I remember a day I had a specific epiphany. It was as though all my church experience became symbolized as a totem poll. It could all be piled up on this poll in carvings of books, lectures, studies, training, programs -  ministry. I realized my faith, my true goal would never be obtained by getting to the top of the ministry totem pol. My faith, depth, love, rest would only ever be defined by my relationship with Jesus. Everything changed for me in that moment. I knew that somehow I had to die to myself.  

As I said, I have been so blessed to have been "invested in." Next in my life came a woman who's "big pink book" would change my life. It is affectionately called that because it is a pink covered, 3/4 inch thick 9x13 book that has now been rewritten into smaller chunks and continues to develop as her time and ministry expand. Unbelievably, these words that turned my world inside out and upside down would be ministered to me in a season of being personally discipled by the author. As I share more she will be quoted often, for now I want this to be about the idea of rest and not her so I will continue to be evasive with names. All the words in the big pink book, the weekend conference I listened to her speak, the fellowship in our homes, the phone conversations, the emails were filled with tons and tons of wisdom and words and things that made sense and things that just were good and right. BUT, while I understood, while I could help her in her ministry in small ways in conversations with others, while I knew I was swimming in wisdom as I have said before, I knew I was still not getting it. When I am in her presence, it is not her that I am enjoying, loving, experiencing, receiving from, being with. When I am with her I am with the Lord. She is dead to herself. She has a precious personality, and fun sense of humor and enjoyable countenance and is in and of herself a very desirable friend but it was that something more that I have longed to embrace. With her, there are no lies, no dishonesty, no clothing hiding her true self.

Finally, I am to the verse that opened on my Bible program randomly this morning and spoke all of this to my heart. 

Genesis 2:2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which He had done; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which He had done.

Yes, this verse and theme have been preached and written about as much or more than any. Somehow my dense self is finally getting it. Be honest. Be naked. Be real. Rest. He made the world, He made Adam and Eve naked and honest before Him fellowshipping in rest. Sin interrupted, we had the whole Old Testament thing of wandering and figuring it out that we are a dishonest people and then came the New Testament and Jesus to lead us back to our naked honest selves. We don't need strategies, helps, hobbies, date nights, books, church, healing prayers, tools, goals, accomplishments, ministries, etc. (understand what I am saying in context - these things all have their appropriate time and place in our lives). The point I'm getting at is that we just need to rest. His work is done, we may rest in naked, honest fellowship with Him and one another. When we choose rest we choose honesty, we choose joy and peace and grace and love. My new strategy, instead of striving, rest!