Shaking Things Up

            I don’t know how it happened, but suddenly Google is gone and I’m back to Bing.  My default search engine on my laptop disappeared.

            I spent a whole evening fussing and fuming over this turn of events:  After I clicked to place a blog post on Facebook, both Facebook and Google vanished, leaving me with a basic Microsoft screen that is virtually useless and, come to think of it, a disappeared desktop.

            For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, sorry.  I don’t really know what I’m talking about, either, except that I am frustrated.  Loss of a familiar screen has shaken me. 

            I guess this is a computer-age version of circumstances as old as time:  the sudden loss of the familiar.  Or you could say, having control ripped out of one’s hands.  The unexpected occurring at the worst possible moment.

            The past week or two God has been invading my heart with joy.  I’ve been resting in a season of serenity despite unresolved problems on the home front.  Perhaps part of my mood is from the oral prednisone treatment that stopped a major eczema flare in its tracks.  Whether supernaturally or medically induced (or, I suspect, a bit of both), the presence of peace and the absence of pain is wonderful.

I did not expect a screen change to shake me up.  I’ll adjust.  I’ll cope.  Maybe I’ll even get my computer fixed.  In the meantime, every time I flip open my laptop, God’s object lesson will stare me in the face:  scenery and circumstances change, but He does not.

Cathie

            Memory rises to fill my vision.  Blue sky, sun-shot surf rushing the shore near the bottom of the hill.  The curve to the right on Hastie Lake Road.  The memory of my dear friend Cathie, who took her flight to heaven on January 2, 2016.  Grief is a bright looking back, the knowing that time spent with her is gone this side of glory.

            I still imagine her zipping about Heaven in her electric-powered wheelchair.  Silly, I know.  But that sight somehow sums up the Cathie I knew.  Her rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes and low vision did not stop her.  The chair gave her freedom and speed.  I remember her zipping down an aisle at a flute recital in which I played.  She was going for a seat near the front. 

            It’s not that we knew each other long—five years?  In fact, we became close only the last months before I moved away from the island.  It’s that I felt so at home in her home.  My visits back (just three of them) defined by tea and ginger thins near bedtime, dinner and wine with my brother at her house, conversation and cold-brew coffee mornings.  Sorting through mail, sharing stories, going on errands in her van.

            Why this sun-filled scene today?  I don’t know, but grief’s bright looking back is both hollow with loss and brimmed tight full with joy. 

           

           

           

Life Itself

            Two years ago tonight, I discovered a lump.  My life changed.

            Now a full year out from cancer treatment, my life continues.  I am the same but different.  It would be nice to claim some huge leap into life after cancer.  However, life still plods along in its ordinary way.  Simple joys, everyday problems, daily routines define my days.

            I had imagined some grand and glorious new beginning for my cancer survivor life.  Instead, ordinary is my life.  And there is something to be said about that. 

            In an odd way, the year of cancer treatment was both peak and valley.  The peak was in an inexplicable peace and joy—the presence of God—that sustained me through the valley of suffering.  (Whether that sentence is sentimental or splendid I do not know.)

            Everyone says that after cancer, you find a “new normal,” and I guess that is true.  Health-wise, this new normal is more confusing.  Are my various complaints—fatigue, skin rashes and sores, more memory glitches, aches and pains—from fibromyalgia or cancer treatments or a complicated combination?  (I don’t know.)  Am I emotionally and spiritually healthier?  (I hope so.) 

            So I am going to post this nighttime journaling because I want to mark today on my blog.  It’s 11 pm, just about the same time I discovered the lump two whole years ago.  The miracle to embrace every day, in the midst of the ordinary, is life itself.

Text and Pray

Last Sunday, a series of texts from my dear friend Lee appeared on my phone over the course of several hours.  (Lee and I became friends because of breast cancer:  she was starting chemo about the time I was finishing radiation.)

At 12:17 pm, she sent two texts:

            Are you OK

I don’t know why but I’m very anxious for you praying for you and I love you please be careful

I did not see those texts for over an hour.  At 1:31, I replied:

I’m fine.  Just saw this.  Prayers always appreciated.  Morning service went very well—God showed up. (that’s what I always pray for)

Lee texted back at 1:41:

What were u doing at 11:30--?

I saw that text at 2:26 pm and wrote back:

I was talking with people after church.  Who knows?  You could have been praying me up for some later (or even earlier) time I need prayer and protection.

At 5:40 pm, there was one last exchange:

            Are u busy

            No

And then I called her.  She told me that during the sermon at her church, she suddenly had a load of anxiety crash down on her concerning me.  As soon as church let out, she nabbed a prayer warrior friend and they prayed fervently for me.

Do we have any idea what that was about?  No, but God does. 

And I am struck, once again, by the Father’s care for me.  And blessed by Lee’s immediate prayer response when she suddenly sensed danger. 

To quote Rick Warren, “God is a caring, consistent, close, and competent Father.”  He knows all our needs---past, present, and future—and often calls on His children to pray at just the right time.  Imagine all the intercession happening at any given moment all over the world, and all because our Father, the great I AM, loves us and prompts us to pray for one another. 

Reading Power

            In recent weeks, God has gotten my attention through reading. 

            First was discovering Christian author James L. Rubart.  After finishing his novel, The Five Times I Met Myself, I knew I wanted to read more.  The other book of his on the new fiction shelves at Bartlesville Public Library was The Long Journey to Jake Palmer.  I finished it the day before its March 5 due date.  Absorbing storyline and profound truth packed into 374 pages, the book tells the story of the protagonist’s difficult path to healing of old emotional pain and, finally, the freedom in living into his God-given destiny.

            A few hours later that same Sunday evening, I decided to finish reading a brief Parker J. Palmer book, Let Your Life Speak:  Listening for the Voice of Vocation, which had showed up at the top of the library’s e-book home page.  I’ve read at least one other book by Parker Palmer before and loved his perspective and his way with words, so I immediately checked it out.  I’ve been reading this book in short spurts.  To my amazement, his last chapter’s discussion of leadership dovetailed perfectly with the ending of Rubart’s novel.

            Both books speak of the power of transformation.  It’s interesting that our Bible Study Fellowship lesson from February 27 covered Romans 12:1-2:  Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. ² Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.  (NIV)

Those two verses seemed to sum up the truth God was emphasizing to me.  Then, the March 7 lesson on Romans 12:3-8 spoke more specifically into my life.  Along with the 40 Days of Prayer series we are doing here at Good Shepherd, I’m receiving the encouragement God seems determined to give me.  Incidentally, one of the recent readings was Romans 12:1 from The Message:  So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.

            Let me backtrack a bit.  It’s been a year since I finished cancer treatment, and I have not jumped back into life as I thought I would.*  Energy and motivation levels run low at best.  I am wary of making commitments I cannot keep.  My daily life plods along at a snail’s pace. Bothersome physical ailments weigh me down.  I guess I thought that once the cancer treatments were done, the fibromyalgia would disappear, too.

            The book about Jake Palmer, the book by Parker Palmer, and the Romans verses I’ve read over the past few weeks remind me that my identity is in Christ, not in what or how much I can accomplish each day.  My part is to offer all that I am to my Savior and stay “tuned in” to his purposes, which are spelled out in Scripture.  Pray, read my Bible, love the people in my life, keep trusting God, and learn to trust him more.  Take care of my body.  Do what I can and rest when I need to.  Ask God to direct my days.  Use the gifts he’s given me to bring him glory.  And thank him for everything along the way.

*Except, of course, helping out with my darling grandchildren!

What I Don't Remember

            What I don’t remember must fill volumes

            I’ve started the endless task of going through the stuff jammed into my office closet.  I did a few of the boxes from the floor—thank goodness for my son who can lift heavy boxes of papers, books, and miscellany—and now have turned to the top shelf.  Sunday’s sorting included pages from my Franklin Covey planners of 1999 and 2000 as well as random cards, notes, and letters from the 1990’s.

            The planning pages reveal the schedule of the busy single mom I was.  My planner was my brain and to-do list on all fronts:  work, home, and church.  I jotted down work meetings, student appointments, lesson planning reminders, and notes about which stack of essays to read and grade first.  Occasionally, I see a familiar student name, but most are minus the facial recall.  Grocery lists reveal my penchant for shopping the specials and using coupons, though I had forgotten about buying ten packets of Kool-Aid for a dollar.  Doctor appointments, school activities, packing lists for family trips, phone calls to make, board meetings and committee meetings to attend, Bible studies to lead . . . you get the idea.  There was even a lengthy Bible study on Exodus that appeared to use several sources.  I don’t remember preparing the study or leading the class.

            Evidently, I was involved in a coffee prayer (or was it prayer coffee) group that I sometimes led.  There are prayer lists for people I do not remember and Sunday notes from sermons long gone from my memory.  A stray poem or church newsletter rough draft or committee report show up here and there.  Unfamiliar names to call or projects to lead or tasks to undertake: it’s all in the planner.

            I keep only a few pages for future reference—the date I received my first (and incorrect, it turned out) diagnosis for the pain and fatigue that dogged my days.  The day Joseph broke his foot at Taekwondo class.  A sad poem, an upbeat Faith Promise testimony. The rest, literally hundreds of pages, I throw away.

            The random assortment of cards and letters from friends warm my heart, as do the homemade cards and notes my children made for me.  So much love, so many blessings that I had forgotten.

            And there is more to come.

           

December 27 Long Day

            Leave house at 10:15 am.  Drive hour to Hillcrest Medical Center.  Check in at Outpatient Imaging before 11:30 am.  Fill out paperwork and register with nice middle-age woman with waist-length hair.  Wait.  At noon, follow the technician back to the MRI area.  Mention that the vein on the top of my left hand has a history of blow-outs mere seconds before it blows out. Endure second stab to base of left thumb.

            Lie perfectly still on stomach for twenty minutes while machine clangs and bangs for breast MRI.  Savor sound of a radio station through earphones during brief silences.  After technician injects contrast dye into IV, continue to lie still for last minutes of MRI.  Wait as table slides out of machine. Sit up and wait till dizziness passes; then, go put on top-half clothing again. 

            Walk short hallway to Peggy V. Helmerich Women’s Health Center and check in at  Leta M. Chapman Breast Health Center at 1 pm for right-breast mammogram.  Find out  appointment is for 2 pm.  Wait.  Complete registration, have hospital bracelet removed and new one put on.  Wait. 

            Follow technician to changing room.  Change.  Follow her to 3-D mammogram room.  Try to follow her directions to get into and maintain impossible positions for mammogram.  Stop breathing and start breathing as instructed.  Feel grateful that squeezed breast does not hurt as much as it did six months ago. 

            Walk back to changing room, but don’t get dressed yet.  Wait to see if radiologist needs more pictures.  Suddenly start feeling afraid, remembering diagnostic mammogram and ultrasound from May 2016 when radiologist gave cancer diagnosis.  Breathe sigh of relief when technician reappears and gives the all clear.  “See you in six months,” she says cheerily.

            Follow hallways to main hospital entrance and purchase from Starbucks an Americano and bakery treat.  Freeze outside as walking back to car. 

            Drive home.  Arrive at 4 pm and collapse on couch.