Light in a Foggy Day

 

At 5 am I wake up, recognizing the stabbing shoulder pain that signals the need for my medicine. A protein drink and cinnamon bread accompany the pill, and I go back to sleep for another few hours.

Outdoors there is fog, and my brain matches it today. My personal fog unsteadies my balance and makes me list to the left. I need to be careful, but I make it through morning shower and getting ready for the day without incident.

Retreating to my recliner with a cup of rooibos tea in hand, I open my Kindle to Advent for Everyone: A Journey with the Apostles devotional by N.T. Wright. Therein I find wise reflections by Timothy on what I was pondering yesterday. How amazing it is when God affirms and confirms through His Word what I wondered!

And another part of the message involves staying true to God’s call. Let me explain.

There have been more than a few times in my life in which I knew God was giving me a definite assignment. One was back in 2008 when I was offered the opportunity to leave teaching to go help my youngest brother care for Mom, whose dementia was worsening. I gladly did, leaving Kansas to live with her in her home on John’s Whidbey Island, Washington property. It was like moving into paradise. Yes, caregiving gradually became more challenging, but living a peaceful life in the woods brought spiritual and emotional healing I needed in my life. A book was born out of the five years that followed, Three Corners Has My Cat: Caregiving in Alzheimer’s Time.

Last July, when I learned that my breast cancer of eight years ago had recurred, I realized that God was moving me in an unanticipated direction, away for a time at least from the part-time pastoring he had dropped into my lap back in 2019, and toward a deepening of faith. I knew from my last encounter with cancer that it would be a difficult road ahead, but one that would push me into relying on God much more than I usually do. What else is there to do when suddenly all your plans and projects get stripped away by disease?

That’s where I’ve been since September. First, the mastectomy, and now the chemotherapy. Believe me, I would not have chosen this, but I trust my Savior in allowing another time out from a busy life to teach me lessons in his grace. My hope and prayer are that through my blogging that helps me cope with the endurance test called cancer, you will benefit as well.