the (very) messy middle

Ugh for the messy middle. I'm feeling it keenly today for some reason. This very untidy space of loose ends, unfinished things, raw emotions, more questions than answers, tension, unknown outcomes... all the messiness of life here and now. The question looms, "How to live well in the messy middle?"  And it's a tough one. Here are my thoughts. Surrender, rest, breathe out and learn to live with tension. I have no idea what the outcome of MANY things/situations in my life might be. I'm honestly shocked (for some reason) at how much surrender this life requires. The illusion of control has got to be one of the most toxic and addictive aspects of human existence. I crave it. I do not have it and I cannot get it. The temptation is to try to control everything that is feasible. I can definitely get stuck in this space. Practicing opening my hand with even the little things is something I have to keep tabs on, keep exercising surrender, keep letting go. 

Rest. So hard, so necessary. Rest, in my experience, comes from dumping all of my messy middle things at God's feet. Blah. There you go God! I'm sick of carrying all this crazy tension and messiness around! You can have it! What's the worst that can happen? _______________, so if that happens I know God is still here, still loves me, still holds all my atoms together. He is unchanging. 

So here I am in this tense pregnant moment. 11 days til another defining PET scan for Alex. And how many days until I'm not measuring time in PET scans? No idea. At the moment I'm keenly aware of how fraught life is. The tension of this life eases at points, but it never truly abates. So living in the tense pregnant moment bends me to a posture of surrender, prayer, hope, longing and supplication. 

Welcome to the messy middle.

Dichotomy!

 It's been a hot minute since I've written a blog post. I think I've needed a tiny hiatus. Life has been blessedly even for the past 2 months (well, sorta even anyway). The danger is that it feels like we've all moved on from cancer when cancer hasn't actually moved on yet. Maybe it's in the process of packing its bags and vacating Alex's lymphatic system, we don't know. Or it could be plotting a coup and fortifying it's positions, we don't know. Which leads me to thinking about how very little we know in general. We humans bluster about with great authority and confidence, making plans, sometimes even executing plans. But the reality is that we are all a hairs breath from life changing news, the upending of all things planned and the unknown all the time. In some ways it's almost a comfort to be in the upending, it makes me feel like I'm already in this trench, so whatever is gonna fly I'm ready. Of course on the flip side I'm hoping nothing else flies at my head in this moment. I am at maximum capacity for upending circumstances! Oh dichotomy!

Ok. Well, that's all I wanted to say. For now.

16 years...

16 years. That’s how long it’s been since my dad died. It was a Thursday in late March. The skies were threatening snow, potentially a lot of it. I had taken the boys to school and then hustled over to the hospital with little 3 yr old Grace to bring a gift to my brother and sister in law who had just welcomed their third, a baby girl! The snow was starting to fall thick and fast as I arrived and just as I was leaving the hospital I got the call that school was cancelled due to weather. I drove back to the school and picked up my boys who were 8 and 6 at the time and then made a quick stop at Safeway to buy some pizzas for dinner that night. The snow began to seriously accumulate as I made my way home to spend a cozy afternoon. Later in the day Daniel took the kids outside to sled while I got pizzas in the oven and just as they came in and pizzas were coming out I got a phone call from my mom. “Your dad is gone.” 

Just a few hours earlier dad had gone out to shovel the deepening snow so that he and mom could drive to Wendy’s for a burger. As she pulled into Wendy's drive thru dad suddenly slumped over next to her and she knew he was gone. She pulled out of the drive thru and drove straight to the hospital where she called me. Daniel and I left the kids with his parents and for the second time that day I made my way to the hospital. 8 hours earlier I had come to celebrate and welcome a new life and now I went to say goodbye to my dad. Life holds such strange moments. 

Dads death was a delineating line in my life. Up to that moment I hadn’t really experienced loss or grief of any substance. After his death it felt like the floodgates of hard things were thrown open. We would subsequently have to let go of our beautiful home in the foothills, our business, and pretty much all of life as we had known it. It was an incredibly hard stretch of road. At the time I didn’t know it would be one of many, I just knew the immediacy of that pain. 16 years later I can see how God used those first hard losses to teach me how to open my hand. To recognize that I have no control and to hold all things as loosely as I can by continually handing those I love and the comforts that can appear so solid back to God on repeat. It was my first really big lesson on loss and letting go, but by no means the last.

Sheer mercy

Wow. It has been a week. One week ago today Alex went in for another PET scan to get a base line for where his cancer is at before starting Salvage chemo. The morning of his scan I messaged a friend who is one of the prayer warriors who I know has my back in this very challenging season. This is what I texted her: 

"Today is Alex's PET scan... all morning I can't help but pray for a miracle... that the scan would inexplicably show him to be cancer free. I know that most likely that won't happen, but this is literally the last off ramp before he undergoes a grueling 6 months. I'm struggling with this tension between acceptance and contending..." 

She said in reply: "It's completely ok to beg the Lord for this! I'm with you in the begging! His will be done... but until it's done let's beg!...I am contending... begging alongside you!" 

Then God dropped this scripture into my heart/mind to pray over Alex, Isaiah 41:12,13: "You will seek those who quarrel with you, but will not find them. Those who war with you will be as nothing and non-existent. For I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand, who says to you, "Do not fear, I will help you." 

I told her: "This is what I am praying over Alex this morning against all probability that "though they search for the cancer (enemies), they will not find them. Those who wage war (cancer) against you (Alex) will be as nothing at all..." 

By the sheer mercy and grace of God that PET scan revealed that his cancer had shrunk inexplicably by a 3rd, it's speed of growth was reduced by a 3rd and the cancer has not spread in the last 50 days. He has done 3 low dose chemo infusions in the past month and a half, but if these results are due to that chemo alone then it's a pretty phenomenal chemo!! It feels like nothing short of a miracle to have this news at the 11th hour! There aren't really words to describe the relief.

Oh blissful edge of darkest sea

Oh blissful edge of darkest sea

all tumult, foam and fury

Where do thoughts endless go

to meet their death?

Blackest thoughts of rot, decay

down to the depths are cast,

a ferment for future growth.

Rest. Your time is not now.

painting by Carolyn Roberts

Neuroplasticity and stuff

Today I read an article on the neuroplasticity of the brain.

"Your brain is an instrument of limitless potential in constant flux. Research across the fields of neuroscience, neuroimmunology, neurometabolism, psychology, behavioral science, neurology, and psychiatry all point to the same conclusion: You have the tremendous opportunity to change yourself for the better when you take agency over neuroplasticity and chart your brain’s future." --By Dr. Austin Perlmutter

And I couldn't help but chew on how whatever I'm ruminating on shapes my brain.  Philippians 4:8 anyone?

"Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies."  (The Message)

Crazy how science and God line up eh? 

Right now I'm in a fight to fill my mind with truth and beauty when in life I'm feeling all things January.  I'm trying to thread the needle of looking at the real hard things with clear eyes while still holding on to hope, joy, peace and yes, beauty. This is not easy. Cancer is ugly. It wants to take up all the oxygen in the room, all the space in the brain. Every minute of every day I'm fighting back against this. I'm releasing my grip and allowing God to do the heavy lifting, breathing in the oxygen of His word, his lightness of being to replace the heaviness and the dark. (Also, how cool to be worked into God's most excellent harmonies! Yes please.)

Did I mention this isn't as easy as it sounds?  I did?  Ok, well, back to work then.

the exceptional need to be ordinary

 I awoke this morning with a word on my tongue left over from a shadowy world that played like the highlight reel of an epic movie. Mind groggy and brain slow moving I reached for the word before it crumbled to ash just as I got to it. Gone.

What was it, I wonder? That singular word that had the power to change worlds, alter realities and usher my conscious into light filled realms of joy and glory. If only I had retained it.

And now? Just the ordinary day stretched out before me. No deep sense of rightness with the world, no bursts of glorious light as music swells, just today.

I have an exceptional need to be ordinary. To feel the thrum of life grinding on towards...? Without this grounding of ordinary, what framework would I have laid for light strewn days? I am weaving a trap of ordinary days to catch the outlier. In one glorious moment I shall have it in my grasp, and this time it won't escape me.