Category: Fear

Written in August 2018 as my cancer journey and treatment plan were still in the early stages.

Recently I wrote about having a pantry full of resources to use when I face hard times.  What I didn’t specifically spell out was that I had just received a diagnosis of breast cancer.  My update to close friends had a subject line of “A little bit of bad news, a whole lot of good news”.  And that is what it was. Bad news – cancer. Good news – it’s small, contained, doesn’t appear to have spread, clear path was a lumpectomy and not a mastectomy and so on.  The appointment with the surgeon confirmed this. It was described by various doctors as “run of the mill cancer” or “routine cancer”.

Surgery was a week ago.  I was home by noon. No nausea from the anesthesia. Essentially no pain or soreness. I felt great. The surgeon was sure she’d gotten it all and didn’t see any indication it had spread to the lymph node she took just to be sure.

The followup surgeon’s visit on Friday was supposed to be a breeze – a quick checkup on the way to lunch with a couple of people who mean a lot to me.  The incision was declared good and healing. My arm movement was great.

And then the “but”.

But the cancer has spread to the lymph node.  It was a surprise to the surgeon. And it was a shock to me.  

So once again I’m waiting.  When I wrote about my pantry, I was waiting for the appointment with the surgeon.  This time I’m waiting for the appointment with the oncologist.

There’s still a lot of good news.  This doesn’t change the final result – but it does potentially change the path to get there because it puts chemo on the table as a likely treatment protocol.  

And here’s what I know so far.  

The tears that were a gift before are a gift again.  God is still answering my prayer to restore my tears to me, to give me back that particular expression of emotion.  It’s still primarily a tender, private thing between me and the Lord – but it may grow.

I am not afraid.  I am calm. I’m sleeping well at night.  There’s a peace that does pass understanding and I am in the middle of it.

I am being knit to my Georgia community in new ways – and the deeper community I’ve yearned for here is showing up and pouring out love and care in all sorts of ways.  A desire of my heart is happening (even if I wouldn’t have chosen this particular way for it to happen).

The God who I know loved me and cared for me before the news of the spread is the same God who loves and cares for me after the news.  He didn’t change – and this is not a surprise to Him. I may be shifting gears, but He is not.

I can decide – and cling to – what is true even before I know how the circumstances will turn out. There’s a chance this won’t involve chemo, but whether it does or doesn’t, it does not change the truth about God’s character.  If God is good, then He’s good whatever news comes next, whatever treatment is right, whatever side effects it may bring. It’s not a naive need to say the right thing. It’s a conviction based on years of deep relationship.

I’m going to have to develop my voice in new ways.  I will have to learn to say “I need help”, but also be able to say the harder version – “I’d like help”.  Or “I don’t want to be alone.”

I’ll need to learn to graciously receive the care (and potential wisdom) behind the unsolicited offers of medical advice, while still protecting myself from being overwhelmed.  I desire to be open to wisdom – and I know there are new and non-traditional protocols that may be worth considering. There are options and great stories and things that have worked well for others.  But there will also need to be boundaries to protect myself from too many voices.

I’m going to have to decide who I listen to – which advice-givers, which doctors.  My discernment will need to be sharpened to learn to hear the Holy Spirit’s nudge not just in spiritual matters but in medical ones as well.

Do I play out worst case or “what if” scenarios in my mind?  To be honest, I don’t – with one exception. Will I lose my hair?  What will that be like? Would my Connecticut friends – those long standing friends who are also my rock and my lifeline – be able to come be with me at that point if I needed them?  What is going to be my safe place to get used to that? Will it become a reality?

It’s not an all consuming thought process, but it’s the one I wonder about most right now.  That may change. I don’t really know what to expect.

This is the beginning of a story I would never have chosen.  But I’ve learned – even in the times that have involved real and deep and damaging pain – that the stories I allow God to write in my life are full of gifts, redemption, new understanding of who He is and who I am.  I grow. Opportunities arise to care for others as a result of my experience. I end up fuller, not emptier.

So I’m shifting gears.  My circumstances have changed.  God has not. And in the midst of the uncertainty and waiting, I still cling to my verse:  I know and rely on the love God has for me.  (1 John 4:16)

I wrote this in August 2015. And, like so many things I am revisiting as I move posts to a new platform, I love that what was once new and scary has now become more deeply embedded into my “normal”.

For most of my life I didn’t see myself as “strong”. Growing up, I was “compliant”, not “strong-willed”. I was shy – and it’s hard to see yourself as strong if you are too afraid to speak up. I was fearful – again, not a great underpinning for strength (or so I thought). My identity was wrapped up in being “nice” and “understanding” (in some good ways and in some unhealthy ways) – not in being strong. I was a people-pleaser and craved approval – which meant I didn’t tend to take stands that were my own. I was told more than once that being strong made me undesirable and that “meekness and gentleness” disappeared if I was strong. And on and on.

 There’s a somewhat clichéd quote, usually attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt, that says “A woman is like a tea bag. You never know how strong she is until she’s in hot water.” As much as I don’t like clichés there’s something about this that has been true in my life. I discovered my strength during the hard times. I don’t think I became strong during them. At least a core of strength had to have been there all along. It didn’t magically appear when things got hard. But it emerged and it became visible.

I didn’t see it at first. My friends and counselors saw it before I did. In my mind, even now looking back, I was just doing what had to be done. It didn’t feel as if I made a deliberate choice to be strong. I didn’t even feel like I was making choices. It felt like a constant slogging through pain and fear, taking the next step and then the next one. “Of course I throw myself into all that counseling provides.” “Of course I keep going.” “Of course I cling to the possibility that grace will get me through.” “Of course I try to be wise about what I say and do.” “Of course I run to the Lord.”

It didn’t feel like strength. It felt like survival. In hindsight I see a pattern and I do see choices that I made out of strength. I did choose to embrace counseling and let the Lord work through that. I did choose to cling to the Lord rather than run away from Him. I did choose my words and actions carefully. But in the moment, I didn’t see choice and I didn’t see strength.

So what does strength – which may have emerged during hard times – look like during other seasons of life, the ones that aren’t necessarily difficult times? For me, an intriguing concept began to surface. Does it mean I can be “dangerous”? An odd word for a shy, introverted, quiet person to resonate with. But it came from different places and it always stirred something in me. Even before I could believe it, I could feel the stirring, the twinge of hope that would come even when it didn’t yet make sense or seem possible. Even before I had the courage to think that it could describe someone like me.

Erwin McManus wrote and spoke things that brought a perspective to my life in the midst of pain and struggle – I’m part of a bigger picture and I’m made to be dangerous in the spiritual realm. My counselor urged me to consider the possibility that the enemy was trying to derail my ministry because it was significant in the Kingdom and important enough to be attacked. An in-depth profile of how I’m wired surprisingly revealed there’s a bit of “rebel” in me – a quiet and subtle rebel, but someone who had changed how things were done. Lynne Hybels wrote a book called “Nice Girls Don’t Change the World” and provided a picture of a Christian woman that was not limited to the “nice Christian girl”. Much of her journey, many of her assumptions about herself in the early years of her life, lined up with my own. 

So here I am. Fairly content to describe myself as “strong” these days. Still not at a point where I would put “dangerous” on a top 5 list of personal descriptors – but wanting to grow in that.

Lynne Hybels has a prayer, a “creed”, in her book and online. I return to it time and time again, asking the Lord to make this more and more true of me: 

Dear God, please make us dangerous women.

May we be women who acknowledge our power to change, and grow, and be radically alive for God.

May we be healers of wounds and righters of wrongs.

May we weep with those who weep and speak for those who cannot speak for themselves.

May we cherish children, embrace the elderly, and empower the poor.

May we pray deeply and teach wisely.

May we be strong and gentle leaders.

May we sing songs of joy and talk down fear.

May we never hesitate to let passion push us, conviction compel us, and righteous anger energize us.

May we strike fear into all that is unjust and evil in the world.

May we dismantle abusive systems and silence lies with truth.

May we shine like stars in a darkened generation.

May we overflow with goodness in the name of God and by the power of Jesus.

And in that name and by that power, may we change the world.

Dear God, please make us dangerous women. Amen.

So grateful that all these years later, the Lord continues to teach me how to use my voice.

Intro when originally posted in April 2015: This is the second part of a discussion. Part 1 was Sorting out Shyness, Fear and Introversion. Coming soon in other posts – thoughts on being a strong (dangerous?) woman and thoughts on being an introverted leader.) 

This second installment in the series has proven troublesome. In part, it’s because something keeps intruding into the story that I hadn’t intended to talk about. After two weeks of being stuck, I’ve concluded that it’s not going away. I can’t talk about being a strong woman without talking about the need to find my voice.

Remember the 1999 movie Runaway Bride? Maggie Carpenter (Julia Robert’s character) has left several fiancés at the altar and a reporter does a story about her. As he talks individually to each former fiancé, the interviews often take place over breakfast at the local diner. Each guy orders his eggs in a different style. In the course of conversation, every one of them mentions that Maggie likes her eggs the same way he likes his.

That’s a woman who didn’t know how to use her voice. That was me.

I mentioned last time that part of the process of letting go of fear was that I discovered I had a “voice” and that I wanted to use it. I also said God did the deepest work on my fear during a scary stage of my life. What I didn’t say is that it was as my marriage was ending after 25 years. I was a stay at home mom. I’d never been driven by career aspirations. I really just wanted to be a wife and mom. I loved volunteering. But suddenly I was looking at re-entering the paid workforce, being more completely on my own, facing an “empty nest” without a companion and all the other things that go along with that. 

(Just a side note – there is a danger in oversimplifying any divorce and I don’t want to do that. And this isn’t the place to share details. This is about a profound work the Lord did in me during that time frame.)

The person who should have been my biggest cheerleader no longer played that role. When you live with someone who doesn’t treasure or value your voice, you get confused. You wonder if you are really what the other person says. When you are put together the way I am, you keep trying to prove that you’re good enough – but it never makes a difference. You ask counselors if your thoughts are normal and they try to help you see that even asking that question indicates there is distortion in your marriage and in your thinking. 

It was in this context that God was working on my fear and shyness. But He was also telling me I had a voice – one that it was okay to use. Over the years, I had grown in confidence in certain areas. I knew my stuff when it came to heading up Children’s Ministry. I was competent in a number of other areas. But at my core, the part that was most intimately connected to my hopes and dreams, my likes and dislikes, the things that made me laugh and the things that made me cry, I didn’t know how to use my voice.  There was a tentativeness around most people.

Some of the most tender moments in my journals came as the Lord told me that not only was it okay to have a voice, it was important to use it.  He told me I had value and He gently encouraged me to believe that. He, the Lord of the universe, showed me His delight in my voice.

Some steps were big. Some were small. I grew enormously through the years of counseling before the marriage finally ended. And in the midst of the intense pain that was my life for those years, this growth felt like a gift – the hidden gem. It felt like weight being lifted off my shoulders. It felt like fresh air. I was coming alive in ways that were exciting to me. But to my husband it seemed as if the ground rules were changing and he could not rejoice in the things that felt like freedom to me.

Eventually, I was the one who filed for divorce. I had begged God that if my marriage was going to end, please have my husband be the one to file. In the end, for a number of reasons, I had no choice but to do it. And in doing so, I found a new piece of my voice – one that I believe the Lord knew was important for me to use. Admittedly, it was a piece I had never wanted to use, a piece that initiated me into a club I had never wanted to be part of (divorced). But it was a voice that came from a place of realizing I had value and importance and a call on my life. Perhaps most importantly, that there were lines it was appropriate for me to draw and there were things that were important for me to say.

Toward the end of Runaway Bride, Maggie Carpenter has figured out more of who she really is. She’s an artist, among other things. She’s built a successful following in the city. She’s found her voice. She’s eaten every style of cooked eggs and she announces to the reporter: “Benedict. I love Eggs Benedict. I hate every other kind.”

Finding your voice matters. And egg preference is just one of the fun parts.

To be honest, I’ve been dreading this moment. When I get to this original post (posted December 16, 2012) and it’s the next in line to transfer to my new platform. It’s probably the post that I’ve done the most rethinking on in the ten years since posting – and I know I need to do an update blog when I start posting new material. I considered just skipping it. But I don’t shy away from hard conversations. I try to embrace them. And there’s enough here to post – it’s an accurate reflection of one stage of my struggle with this. It’s not the end of wrestling with how to respond. The need to figure out that response has grown stronger in the intervening years. But the belief that God is still God, even when we can’t make sense of circumstances, does remain. It’s not a full answer though – and the issue is important enough that I need to keep wrestling.

Twenty seven dead.  Twenty of them children.  There are no words.  And publishing thoughts still in process is a risky thing, but it seems important to try.

Children.  Not a teen angry at classmates – although that is equally tragic.  Not an employee angry at perceived wrongs by a boss or company – also tragic.  But children – most of them 6 or 7 years old.  There are no words.

How do you attend 27 funerals?  What about the one grade level that will always be smaller and gradually work its way up the ladder over the next 12 years?  How do parents and teachers guide young children through this, deal with questions and sleepless nights and fears that no child should have to experience? 

When will this end, this seeming escalation of violence?

During Advent and Christmas I’m always spiritually watchful for some new insight into, or connection with, the story that is so familiar.  Jesus born in a manger.  Shepherds.  Wisemen.  We’ve heard it so many times.  The incarnation is an incredibly wonderful miracle and I never lose my wonder at that event.  But the story, the biblical narrative, seems so familiar.

In an unexpected way, the events on Friday jolted me into a part of the story I’ve never spent much time in before.  “When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.”  (Matthew 2:16)

We don’t talk much about this.  I don’t know how many died.  But I do know there were tears and grieving, that there were mothers and fathers who would understand the anguish of the Newtown parents.  That there was a town in shock.

Madeleine L’Engle, in An Irrational Season, wonders whether Jesus’ tenderness toward children was partially a response to knowing that Herod’s actions in the massacre were connected to the news of Jesus’ birth.  That in one sense, He was responsible for their deaths.

Who can fathom losing all the boys in a town under 2 years old?  Or losing 20 young children in a school in Connecticut? 

Into this world – the one 2000 years ago and the one today – comes Jesus, the hope of the world, the light that overcomes darkness, the one who cares for the brokenhearted.

We know the end of the story.  Light wins.  Darkness loses.  But in the meantime – in this in between time – there are so many occasions for tears, for grieving.  So many tragedies.  So much that is “not okay”.  School shootings.  Abused and exploited women and children.  Poverty.  So many issues and policies that need wisdom in the midst of thoughtful and intelligent discussions.  What do we do about guns, mental illness, school security?  These are important discussions. 

But right now it’s also okay to grieve.  To admit that we can’t understand “why”.  There are tears that are appropriate to shed.  It’s okay to wonder “How do you cling to a glimmer of hope and light in the face of such darkness?”

For me, it’s also become important to say “God is still God”.  I don’t want to get caught up in wondering why God allows – or doesn’t prevent – evil.  Or to discuss free will and the fall. But I also don’t want to deny that those are important conversations.

I just need to affirm that God is still God.  The baby born 2000 years ago is still the hope of the world, the light shining in the darkness, the one who can be clung to and who binds up wounds and cares for the brokenhearted.

God is still God.  God is still God.  God is still God.