Part Fifteen: Look Up, Not Ahead

            Welcome words of advice from Dwight, whose wife Julie continues recovery from her long and winding cancer journey were shared with me a week or so before I started treatment: “Look up, not ahead.”  How true these words are for navigating any stormy journey.  Mariners of old looked up for guidance from the stars.  I look up for guidance from Jesus, “the bright Morning Star” (Rev. 22:16, NIV).

            Before chemo began, I found it easy to look up because God had given me such peace through the weeks of waiting, diagnosis, and testing.  I felt his presence buoying me up.  I kept “looking up” through worship, prayer, praise, Bible reading.  Maintaining focus (well, most of the time) on my Savior instead of my disease seemed natural.

            It’s harder now.  Just a week into chemotherapy treatments that will stretch out over the next four to five months, I am prone to looking around and ahead at my difficulties.  True, my stomach has improved from queasy to uneasy since the first infusion a week ago today.  But suddenly it is harder to drink the huge amount of liquids needed to flush my system.  I am already weary of the bitter metallic taste that is my constant companion.  I feel scared and discouraged as I face this disease and its treatment cycles.  I’m tired of my bodily discomforts.  I was used to the ebb and flow of fibromyalgia.  Cancer and chemo are much harder.

            I tire more easily than before.  There’s this weird head zap that sometimes strikes, putting me off balance for a split second.  However, unlike last week, I am doing errands and getting out of the house for brief spurts of time—and, oh, does that help assuage the cabin fever and boredom.  Heartburn is worse.  My back hurts from sitting too much.  I’m walking more—if you count short grocery shopping trips.  I will gradually build on those outings and increase to actual walking exercise, but nothing happens fast.  Slow and steady does it.

            So, yes, I’m guilty of looking ahead.  It is easy to get stuck there. I want to look up instead: pray when I don’t feel like it, worship when I feel utterly earthbound.  Practice joy, sing praise.  At minimum, read a few psalms every day.  Nourish my spirit in God’s Word and in good books.  Yesterday I started reading John Ortberg’s, If You Want to Walk On Water, You’ve Got to Get Out of the Boat, and I am enjoying his profound insights that are, more often than not, delivered with punches of humor.

            I was in danger a mere week or two ago of thinking myself pious, somehow “above” difficult times.  It felt good to be victorious.  I was proud of my humility.  But now, hey, I’m human.  Cancer is very hard.  There is no way I can handle this even with the loving help of family and friends.  Fortunately, I don’t need to.  Looking up, I experience vision that is not my own to navigate by the bright Morning Star.