Category: Good Times

When the News is Good – But Not Profound

Originally written in April 2019, about 5 months after the end of cancer treatment.

It’s been 5 months since my cancer treatments (radiation) ended.  You’ve walked with me in this journey and it’s right for you to be updated.  But to be honest, I keep waiting for something profound to share. And it’s not there.

There are facts.  I was exhausted at the end of radiation in mid-November but 5 months out my energy level has returned.  (For example, at 4 months out I did a 16-day work related trip that involved three 25+ hour travel days, multiple days of 5-6 hour bus rides and more.)  My first post-cancer mammogram – done 5 months after the lumpectomy and 2 months after the end of radiation – was clear. My visits with the oncologist (every 3 months) are routine and uneventful.  

In just about every way, this journey with cancer is over – and with minimal disruption to my life compared to the cancer journey of so many others.  Caught early. Didn’t need chemo. Successful radiation. And so on. I felt like working throughout it and doing the work I love brought life and good “distraction”.  It maintained continuity and minimized the disruption.

It feels almost unfair to claim I’m a cancer survivor because my life was never really in question.  I didn’t come face to face with my mortality in scary ways. There were a few weeks here and there – waiting for the surgery, waiting for test results, waiting for a treatment plan – where I waited in the unknown and my previous posts talk about how I processed that.  But it’s been less than a year since it was discovered and it’s basically completely over. That feels fast to me.

A few things pop up here and there.  There’s a daily pill to take. Those medical forms that you have to fill out for doctor visits – I have to add “cancer” and “radiation” to the list of medical situations I put a check mark by.  The night before my first mammogram, for the first time, the thought of “what if it’s back” popped into my mind – but wasn’t able to gain a foothold based in fear. I noticed some puffy tissue under my arm and had to decide whether or not this is something I call the oncologist about (I did call, she checked it, and it was nothing to worry about).  

But overall this has been an easier journey than some of the other journeys in my life.  I don’t yet see profound lessons from this. And maybe that is because so many of the potential lessons – overcoming fear, absolute trust in the Lord, and so on – are already built into the foundations of my life.  I’m not sure.

So I rest in a season of gratitude.

In the midst of scary news I’ve experienced deep gratitude.  Gratitude for the results of my particular medical situation. For relatives and friends who came to be with me in the midst of the unknown and who were there for all of my doctor visits.  For meals provided when radiation created extreme fatigue. For the notes and texts and cards and gifts that let me know people cared.  For the prayers that were prayed on my behalf.

I don’t take it for granted that this journey has played out the way it has. I look at it with great gratitude.

“Scratch and Dent” Jesus

Again, written in December 2017, but moved to new platform in a different season.

At Christmas, my sister-in-law loves to decorate their yard with an assortment of the older style, illuminated, hard plastic, blow mold figures.  Mr. and Mrs. Claus, reindeer, snowmen, and a Nativity scene. 

Those of us who know her get caught up in her sense of fun and joy.  Her delight spills over to us.  

Unfortunately, a few years ago, someone stole baby Jesus.  (And apparently this is not an uncommon thing to happen in displays like this.)  So I’ve kept my eyes open at flea markets and antique stores but never stumbled across a replacement.  Until …

My sister discovered a website that sold not only new nativity displays, but also replacement figures.  And not just brand new replacement figures.  They had a “Scratch and Dent” Jesus.  The description reads:  Note:  This product will have one or more of any of the following defects: flattened nose, indented nose, paint chips, paint smudge, missing paint or paint splatter.  

I may not “love” the blow plastic molds for my yard.  But I do love a “scratch and dent” Jesus.  This Jesus fits my world better than a pristine, untouchable Jesus.  And it fits me in a season when I have felt a bit bruised myself.  I want a Jesus who knows what it is like to encounter the things that flatten us, or splatter us, or chip us. Who steps right into those things with us. 

The Jesus who was born in a manger, probably more like a cave than the wooden structures we often see.  Among all the smell and mess and dirt of a place that is designed to house animals, not people.  Where swaddling cloths matter because the bed is uncovered straw.

Jan Karon, in At Home in Mitford, shows us a distraught visitor who enters the empty church, sits down, eventually looks upward and in deep agony pleads “God … are … you … up … there?!”  Father Tim slips in beside him and gently says, “You may be asking the wrong question…. I believe the question you may want to ask is not ‘Are you up there?’ but ‘Are you down here?'”

That’s the good news of this season.  That Jesus came. He is “down here”. Immanuel, “God with us”.  And he’s a “scratch and dent” Jesus – not in terms of sharing our sin.  But in terms of sharing our pain and our struggles and the things that hurt us.  Who doesn’t run or retreat when things get messy.  Who takes some of the blows intended for us.  Who binds up our wounds.  Who dwells among and heals the brokenhearted.  

And this Christmas Eve, in the front yard of someone who does love the blow plastic molds, “scratch and dent” Jesus, with his slightly flattened nose, will join the display.  A reminder that the true scratch and dent Jesus has come to bring hope.  And encouraging us to let our joy in Him spill over and draw others into the same delight.

Friends and Community

Originally published in June 2012. Most of these people are still in my life and our friendships have grown deeper over the last 10 years.

Starting with an update. While I still work in Parent Ministry for Adventures in Missions, I now do it remotely from Florida. And once again, I am building community in a new location. My shyness and introversion still impact that – but not to the same degree they did 10 years ago. There’s a comfort level when I’m in new situations or new groups of people that is the result of 10 years of growth. I’m much less hesitant to initiate connection. And bit by bit, my new home feels like community.

But here’s where I was 11 years ago …

In June 2012 I returned to Georgia after a visit to Connecticut.  It was my first visit back after moving to Georgia eleven months before.  So here are some thoughts on friends and community – and what I’m being challenged to do.

It was wonderful to be back – to see friends and supporters and acquaintances.  To visit familiar places.  To eat Tulmeadow ice cream for dinner (and lunch).  To worship with my church family.  To have the long conversations over breakfast and lunch that are harder to do while I’m working full time in another state. 

Friends are treasured gifts.  And I have the best ones I could ever imagine.  I lived in Connecticut for 17 years and deep, deep friendships grew there.  We shared life together for a long time – part of it during a season where I needed more than my fair share of shoulders to cry on.  I have friends I can confide anything to, that know how to have fun, that laugh, that talk about things that matter.  Friends that I would trust with my life.  There are friends that grew out of our kids’ connection, or a shared ministry at church, or co-workers at school. Some of them have driven hundreds of miles to see me since I’ve moved.  Or made curtains for my new house.  Or sent notes of encouragement at just the right time.

Good and deep and lasting friends are rare and I am grateful for them.

But I had something else in Connecticut.  I had community – and I think that’s rarer.  It’s harder to describe.  I had it in a church community that loved me and cared for me and welcomed my gifts.  Where I was able to serve and grow.  Where 35 people showed up to do over 120 combined hours of work on a Saturday when I needed help getting the house ready to go on the market in the midst of an excruciatingly painful divorce.  I had it in that same church community who held out the promise of healing.  Yes, it was individuals who did the practical steps of walking me into that healing but I knew they were part of something bigger – a community that made that possible. 

I had community in a small group.  All of the individuals in the group were friends in their own right.  But the small group was more than just a random collection of friends.  There was a corporate aspect to it – a commitment to speak truth to each other, to support each other, to hold each other accountable, to challenge each other to grow.  To do life together in practical ways.  To paint each other’s houses, to watch movies together, to pray for each other.  The effect was greater than the sum of its parts.  It’s a group that made an annual trip to Disney, that worked together in ministry opportunities like Day Camp or tag sales, that can get together and pick up where we left off – despite the fact that I’m now in Georgia and another couple is in Indiana. 

World Racers talk a lot about community when they return from the Race.  They have experienced it – and they don’t want to lose it.   I understand that. 

I think friendships come easier than community does.  But I no longer want to settle just for friendships.  I think we need to be part of a community that brings life to us, that calls out the best in us, that challenges us, that does life with us on a day in and day out basis.

So – do I regret leaving all that behind to move to Georgia?  It was the hardest part about moving but I discovered something on my trip back to Connecticut.  As wonderful as it was to be there and to reconnect with friends, there was no second guessing my decision to move.  I know I’m where I am supposed to be. 

I sometimes wonder whether the community I had in Connecticut was a fluke, something that I will never have again.  But I’m hopeful that as I continue to live life with friends and co-workers in Georgia, that it will happen.  It’s worth the effort it takes to find it.

And so I’m challenged to step up my efforts to help create it.  To overcome my shyness and my fear that people are too busy to want to spend an evening together eating dinner or playing games or taking walks.  To confront my introversion and be better about inviting people (or maybe to team up with an extrovert who can do the inviting). 

My insecurities cause me to want to be invited into community rather than being the initiator of it.  There’s less fear of rejection that way.  But I want to change that, to be proactive.  I want to be someone who creates community, not just friendships.