I shared with our pastor, the cross Ben and I have had to consistently bear in our marriage has been uncertainty. Over the past 15 years of navigating life together, we have rarely known what life would hold in a year or two, moving every few. When cancer came and then left, it placed us in a 3 month cycle of uncertainty compounded. We will do this for a handful of years. Then continue, Lord willing, with the regular old uncertain life. 

There's a quote somewhere that I can't find again, but it goes something like "to gain the virtues one must go through the crucible of the vice." In other words, to grow in patience, one has to face down all kinds of situations that require long suffering. To grow in love one is often thrust into unlovely relationships and so forth. It's where the joke comes of being careful what you pray for. Asking for virtues sometimes means welcoming the development of virtues. Problem is we often don't anticipate what that will look like.

 Whether this theory is entirely true always or not, I don't know. I will say, however, I like to ask myself what God might be up to by picking this particular story for us. Humans are meant for meaning, and one way I can help my own heart find it is to ask God "what good can come from this?" 

 I don't think God gives us hard things just to teach us lessons, like a schoolmaster with a pop quiz of pain. So please don't hear that. Some hardships have no answers and God makes it clear that following Him- through all the twists and turns- will come with a fair share of them. We, I have learned, must learn to trust in Him, mostly through gazing at who He is, and not in an explanation of our circumstances. I've wrestled with this entirely-goodness me, I love my answers-but I now get why they put Job in the Bible. I know acutely that explanations don't comfort the way the Holy Spirit does. I think God is after our whole selves, not just intellectual acquiescence. 

But, back to it-what could God be working in me through all this uncertainty other than raising my blood pressure?

 If you had known me a few decades ago, you would have known and understood the smile behind the pastor who jokingly referred to me as "meticulous," and perhaps you would have reiterated in some other way my intense dedication to bringing about specific ends. I can be a lot, I know. Pray for Ben. 😅

 But at the heart of it is a freckle faced kid craving peace. Chasing after shalom-that tranquil heart. 

I'd wager, it's the same thing we're all after. 

Yes, the virtue I want is peace. 

Fortunately, it turns out, my King wants it for me too. 

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. John 14:27

Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,’ says the Lord, who has compassion on you.” Isaiah 54:10

The Lord gives strength to his people, and the Lord blesses his people with peace." Psalm 29:11

We still live in uncertainty today. Scans are next week again (so please be praying we won't drink the bitter cup of cancer and chemo again.)

But I'm hoping, I'm begging, that through every crucible of the looming question mark, my heart will rediscover the sufficiency in the finished work of Christ. I'm learning that this virtue of peace I so often chase after is turning out to be more beautiful and unsuspected. Peace isn't just virtue. Not quite. Peace goes by a different name. And those who spend time with Him come back with his character left on them. They get the peace, but they get even more thrown in. They get Him.

And he knows the way to shalom, wholeness, telios, Christian maturity... He invites us, not mincing words, to pick up our cross and follow. And as Philippians reminds me, he'll do the heavy lifting. ."I am sure of this, that he who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." 

If this complex uncertainty is the fiery crucible God is allowing in my life, may I take heart that my Christ, the Virtuous one, the Risen lamb is found in the flames. As I look out from this place, couldn't I argue my God is giving me what I've always known I've needed?  

I think God is up to something good, even in (especially in) this life of uncertainty. While I hate the anxiety, the unsettled and the million question marks, I can't say I'm truly surprised. He promised we'd have trouble and the human experience affirms it. But he also promised life abundant. Shalom. He invites us to keep going anyway, saying this is so momentary by comparison to what's just up ahead. So I'll pick up my cross and follow. He knows the way, so I don't have to. He went first.

 What other god joins you in the pain? 

 

When I was a kid, I got to sit at the table with many missionaries who had experienced incredible pain. As I would hear stories of their hardship, I often only attached myself to their words, not the tone of them. I didn't hear them recount God's faithfulness, nor did I take note how they were returning to the pain unafraid. No, all I saw was that God often calls us to painful realities. A trembling question formed: " Is there anything God won't take?" 

I began to not want to hear the stories. Afraid they were somehow contagious, especially if the narrative looked too similar to my own. As a mother shared of her stillborn daughter while I swelled with pregnancy, I was paralyzed with the thought God might allow my daughter to be stillborn as well. As I read the accounts of Elizabeth Elliot, I feared God might take my husband too and so on..

And then, God gently brought us into our own story of pain. First financial, then through miscarriage, and then through marriage woes and international living... So it goes. Until we've now found ourselves here with a diagnosis of our youngest child. 

As I share with others, I sometimes see the same widening of eyes I often had. I see the same computation happening. "If God asks that of her, will he ask that of me?! Is there nothing God won't take?" 

Even now I'm not immune. Now that we're nearing the end of the treatment, I notice a similar fear creep up in my heart. I don't want to hear stories about relapse, afraid they might attach themselves to me. 

As I was praying through my fears this morning, I realized something. God, the incredibly gentle, incredibly kind, incredibly supportive, incredibly wise, deliberate narrator of this story.... Is infinite in his storylines. The Bible holds no two stories the same. 

One of the most masterful things about my God is how he reveals himself uniquely to all who call on him as Lord. Yet, they all conclude the same characteristics of Him. He is good. He provides. He loves us so...And the fruit of walking with him is the same. Joy. Peace. Patience. Kindness. Self control. Faithfulness... 

Our God, I'm finding, doesn't type cast. He isn't a lazy writer, plopping new characters into old plot lines. He's more creative, more lovely than that. He takes his beloved children and leads them into stories he wrote with care... each filled with joy and grace and pain unmeasurable. Each unique. Each unlike the other. Each time revealing to those walking their narrative his character, his deep love for them, his relentless allegiance to their good. I have begun to worship him for his incredible ability to take every situation-every evil and terrible and good and whole situation- and weave its threads so that those wrapped in the narrative of his story all say: "what can the Lord NOT do? He can take sorrow and turn it to joy, death and defeat it, he gives fortitude to the much-afraid....Yes, he takes it all. And He gives us abundantly more. " 

As Simon Peter says " Where else can we go? Only you have the words of eternal life."

When I appreciate how God weaves individual stories through time, all tying into this incredible larger narrative... I begin to understand just how precious the church is. I see her purpose more clearly. The church exists so that we can see and be seen. So we can come and know the story. So we can see where God's been, what He's doing now, where He's going. 

There is good work in the seeing: We who are part of His body see Him working in others when they can't see it. We speak that truth over them so that they too can then see God at work. We volunteer to have others see sin in us and gently help us kill it before it ruins us. We celebrate God's goodness in song and testimony and weep together at this world's brokeness as we wait for what we know to be true to be seen. God is coming. He'll make it all right. He makes things right even in the land of the living. Many have resigned they won't see it until heaven, but His word says otherwise and I've seen him perform miracles and do the unthinkable under the same skies I currently live under....No, my God is working even now. I believe those who have resigned to such a reality of "only at heavens gates" have, through much pain, resigned to no longer seeing. I understand how. I just wish them a different hope. 

All of this to say, I don't fear relapse quite so much as I did a few hours ago. Of course I beg God to allow this all to be done when our treatment plan is finished and I believe he delights to heal and may have already. But I simply do not know what story God is weaving. While I see terrible sadness from others who have faced similar, I have also seen a missionary woman share of deep grief and then smile when she returns to it. 

I didn't understand it now. I couldn't see it. 

But now I see, when Christ is walking alongside, he gives the fortitude for the journey. Where he calls, I'll follow because he's there. I can smile at what's coming because as the hymn boldly proclaims:

" because He lives

I can face tomorrow

Because He lives

All fear is gone

Because I know

He holds the future

And life is worth the living

Just because He lives"

This life is worth the living (although I've at times prayed to die) just because (for no other reason) than because He lives. He's writing a narrative I've never read before. I'm honored to be one of millions of characters before me who get to show his Goodness- however he chooses to show it-and experience his deep love and faithfulness during the journey. 

There is nothing he won't take. And that is good news. Because everything he takes he heals. He makes all things new.

2 degrees of separation

"What are your weekend plans?"

I was just explaining to my husband before driving to this late night grocery run how much this diagnosis has changed everything. I used to know how to navigate conversations; to keep things just real enough to be meaningful, but to not make the other person uncomfortable. 

But this grief? 

It's invaded everything. It's like the 2 degrees of separation thing where you're just two handshakes away from a famous person... But instead I'm two questions away from sadness and from paralyzing the other person with not knowing what to say. 

What do you say to someone when they tell you their 5 year old has cancer? 

What does that someone do when everything in their life revolves around how their 5 year old has cancer?

So I ponder a second before answering her question. It gets a bit weird. How hard can weekend plans be? 

Instead of something casual like "oh, laying low." I choose honesty. 

"My son has cancer and has chemotherapy tomorrow. So, this late night grocery run is to try to buy him all the foods he might like to get him through the weekend." 

I've learned to quickly tack on an escape phrase. "Good thing is he's doing well! Only a few treatments left." 

I see them sigh relief. "Oh good. Hope he feels better soon!" 

But one cashier didn't take the escape route. She looked at me and didn't look away. Then she got flowers and chased me out in the parking lot and said "I hate that that even exists in the world... but keep going. You've got this." And I cried. And her eyes began to match mine. 

It wasn't an anthem. It wasn't a trite "you got this." It was a gentle shared hope. 

I balled all the way home. Yet again, I shook hands with sadness. 

I've been tempted to wear the mask of okayness, but then I'm building a fortress that might keep out more than I bargained for. 

I'm perpetually two questions away from tears. But, sometimes, I'm two questions away from kindness.

I'm two questions away from sharing gutting news. But I'm also two questions away from shared hope. 

This week, both were wrapped up in weekend plans.