Let us be thankful boys and girls...

"Let us be thankful boys and girls, for eyes and ears and toes, and puppies with wet noses. Let us be thankful boys and girls, for lessons we have learned, love we have not earned. Follow the beat of amazing grace, Oh let us be thankful boys and girls." -Billy Crockett, "Thankful Boys and Girls"

Billy is on to something. Gratitude has proven itself a helpful medicine for the heart. I think its benefits are even undisputed in the world of psychology, where nearly nothing is undisputed.  I know it's been true of my journey so far. On one particularly dreary evening, soon after my diagnosis, Jonathan found me buried sour-faced under the covers. I'd been there for a while; despondent, melancholy, grumpy and otherwise pitiful. What a mess.

So he got under the covers too, which was his first wise step. Then he chose to say nothing, his second. He just hit "play" and let iTunes do the talking for us, praying God would choose a song that would minister to my heart. He didn't know what song would play or that it would start smack-dab in the middle of one of our favorites. This is what we heard:

"Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you for loving. Thank you for coming. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you for loving. Thank you for coming." The voice moved up and down the scale in a maddeningly carefree chorus of gratitude, which could not have been more opposite of the chorus in my heart. The contrast between she and I was so dramatic that it prompted one of those "time stands still" moments. I felt like the world stopped, flipped inside out, and came undone.

Of course, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for coming. Thank you for loving. Thank you for solving my biggest problem: that I was once condemned in your presence and sentenced to an eternity apart from you. Now I am not. Thank you for coming, thank you for loving.

Thank you that I can call you Abba. Thank you for assurance of an eternity where I will be what you originally created me to be, where I will sing and dance the praises I'm meant to offer you and no longer spend my time hoarding praise for myself. Thank you that I will be free.

Thank you that I know there is purpose in all suffering, and while weeping lasts for the night, joy will come in the morning.

Thank you for your sweet voice, spoken to deep places of my soul since I was a little girl. 

Thank you that my cancer symptoms ALL disappeared one week before I started chemo. Night sweats, exhaustion, chest pains, a racing heart, an absent appetite, nausea, are all gone! I had a hunch those symptoms were unnecessary.

Thank you for blood banks and blood donors, but thank you that I need no more transfusions. Thank you that my red blood cell count stopped decreasing for the first time in six months and actually increased by a whole point before chemo started! Thank you that I no longer look like I should be cast in a "Twilight" movie and that my cheeks and lips are starting to get rosy again.

Thank you that I feel better with chemotherapy than before it started, minus a day or two of the week. Thank you that I have energy to do laundry, walk up the stairs, and dust my ceiling fan now.

Thank you that I still have all of my hair. Even though the doctors and nurses said it would fall out by now, thank you for each day it hasn't.  And if it does- although this also seems to me to be quite unnecessary- thank you for my wig, scarfs, and cute hats with big earrings that I'm ready to wear.

Thank you that I can imagine myself curled up under your protective wing, so safe, and that I can imagine little super-power white blood cells armed with sparkly, lethal light-rays breaking apart the mean, ugly cancer cells like a battle scene from Star Wars.

Thank you that I can continue to pray for every cell in my body, for every chemical being put into my veins to come under the ultimate power and authority of Jesus Christ- the power that brought dead cells back to life, put a beat back in a heart, and commanded open wounds be healed. I will pray that prayer for myself and all of my friends whose bodies are at war with cancer today.

Thank you for loving. Thank you for coming.

All I Ask of You

Good news! My port has a name.

It's Manilow, as in Barry. Shortly after Nurse Amazing (aka Diane) successfully accessed my port for the first time, an ad for the Barry Manilow special edition, best-of-the-best, solid-gold hits collection flashed across the screen of our community tv. Barry posed with his arms outstretched to either side, chin tilted to the sky, singing his heart out in a tight, white-leather, bling-bling jump suit.
"That's just the personality my port needs!"
 Charming. Engaging.
You're afraid of getting too close, but definitely glad he's around. I told Nurse Amazing and she humored me by referring to it by name the rest of our first chemo session.

In other good news, I've made it through two chemo treatments now, ten more to go. It wasn't what I expected, if one can have expectations for something so unexpected. The dreaded "c" words have lost some of the power their mystery previously afforded them. It seems that CANCER is  more like cancer. CHEMO is chemo, and I'm still....well, I'm still me. I spent the first Friday after chemo waiting for something to be different, expecting some outward, physical sign of the internal war begin waged within my body, but there were none. Some minimal side effects made the weekend a bit uncomfortable, but overall I was surprised that life kept going on, as did the dishes and laundry. Ahh, normalcy....well, except for one thing: Jonathan and I are being ridiculously and outrageously loved.

It's crazy, really, and I feel spoiled. We have been surrounded by supportive servers, which is a bit new for me. I've always been a pretty self-sufficient person. You can call it independence or maybe pride, I'm not quite sure, but this experience is new for me. I'm humbled and a bit convicted by the way people (even strangers!) have prayed, encouraged, and sacrificed time and money for us. Thank you. You have given us a new glimpse of the character of the Father.

Actually, being loved isn't the easiest thing for me.  I know that sounds crazy, but I'm typically more comfortable as giver rather than receiver. I suppose this allows me more control, less vulnerability, a self-protective strategy to meet my own needs and protect myself from pain, yada, yada, yada. Even though I prefer to appear like I have it all together, I so clearly do not. Being needy is kind of scary for me, yet I've heard Jesus challenging me to do one, and only one thing these past few months: Be Loved, beloved.

A good friend let me know that God had reminded her to pray for me through the night. I felt known and seen by her and God, but my conversation with God the next day went something like this:

"God, that was really sweet of you to get Barb involved, but you didn't need to wake her up just for me. I'm ok, really. I've got this. No need to keep her up all night on my account."

Instantly, I felt His presence settle and speak. "Let me love you. Let me love you through others."

Who am I to tell I AM who to love? Who am I to tell Him how to love? I wonder how many of His love notes I've missed, too busy striving for the love of others instead of resting in His love for me.

I want to share a song that, although not written by Jesus, sure sounds like Him to me.

 "All I Ask of You."

Will I let myself be unsettled by love? Will I say "yes" to the outpouring of support around me? Will I recognize it as the extravagant pursuit of my God? I hope I can! To those that have sacrificed, thank you for loving us, and thank you for letting God love us through you. I pray we each have eyes to see His pursuit in our lives. I pray we take time to be loved.