Dry Shampoo and Coffee

It’s Saturday morning and as I sit with coffee in hand, my mind is still on a reel from the past several weeks. The only thing that keeps coming to my mind is “How did I do that?” This month comes in, in at least the top three most stressful eras I have faced. I teach at what is considered a satellite campus for the district. The first week of school was a MONSTER. Did I mention the internet being down and parents impatiently making requests for registration that I could not grant and administrators frantically demanding paper work?  As a PreK teacher the first day is very chaotic and stressful as there are tears and often blood curdling screams from students and sometimes parents, who are emotional leaving their babies for the first time. This year was no different. Thankfully by day two internet had been restored and we were able to continue with enrollment (notice I said enrollment and not teaching…somehow I was expected to do both. I’m good but not that good). The building had flooded two weeks prior, so we had gotten in with JUST enough time to set up. Documents were damaged in the flood and paper work was missing that had to be redone for registration. I have many English language learners and really cannot explain to you how extremely stressful it is to walk refugee parents with limited language, through online registration. Yet, all of the above, oddly enough, are reasons I love my job. I love the population I serve in a Title 1 program. My heart is there. It thrives there. In the midst of the crazy and the stress, I was beginning to feel like me again. Not the cancer patient. Not that one teacher who had cancer and was out last spring. But me. The old me.'

In the middle of first week chaos, I had an oncology follow-up and results from the biopsies taken the week prior. Unfortunately, the news was not good. Cancer remains. Right now the treatment will be surgery and depending on how surgery goes maybe another round of chemotherapy. My heart is so thankful for an oncologist who will sit and talk to me. Who will shoot straight with me, who I feel has my best interest at heart. I am beyond thankful for a plan forward. I trust her with my very life.

Yet…I am so sick of being sick. Wasn’t I JUST starting to gain some energy? Wasn’t I JUST feeling like me again? And now major surgery?? I am tired of this. I long for normalcy, but I don’t even know what that is. I was looking through photos last night and can’t even pinpoint when things changed. I can kind of get it within a few months, but not really. Part of me wants things to go back to how it was before cancer, but I know I never can. And would I really choose that anyway?  I am not the same person. I don’t even feel like I look like the same woman and on a realistic note, it has aged the hell out of me. Inside, I am changed beyond what I can fully explain. Perspective shift is an understatement. I see absolutely nothing the way I did before. Nothing. Even the, “Oh wait, you still have cancer” thing looks and feels completely different on this side.  Before, cancer was unknown. I didn’t even want to say the word. I was completely fearful, and unsure. I am still those things to an extent, but it feels more familiar. I have been around it a lot, which is the part that makes me feel comfortable yet afraid because I have watched with my eyes what it can do. The fact that mine is still hanging around is unnerving and yes, I am afraid. Yet there IS a plan forward and reasons to be thankful.

Which leads me to lay out the constant conversation I have been having with myself the past few weeks….Can you be afraid and unsettled YET still thankful there is a plan? Can you admit fear and still have faith in the One who holds your very life? Can you admit your weakness, weariness, and frustration and STILL be thankful there is a plan forward in treatment? 

Every single one of those feels like they are in opposition to one another but I feel every single one of those-at any given moment. At any point during my recent days I have been on the verge of either tears of fatigue, tears of fear, tears of frustration, tears of thankfulness and humility, OR cursing out of frustration because people want to either act like I’m their hero (which can feel very uncomfortable) OR like NOTHING has happened, or cursing out of frustration that I have been feeling more like me and now I am getting my legs kicked in again. Now, you tell me….does THAT sound like someone who trusts in God’s plan for her life? Does that look like someone who has it together and is holding fast to her faith?

How beautiful and amazing, that the answer to those questions is a big fat NO…..yet a big fat YES at the same time? See, God is showing me that admitting my weakness is actually strength. Y’all, I’m talking about the kind of weakness where you cry out in tears, throw up your hands, and yell out some F bombs because you got nothing. I’m talking about admitting that you are terrified that cancer will not ever fully go away and you’re bound to a life of treatment. I’m talking about admitting that you don’t understand why God chose you to carry this burden, even if just for a season. I’m talking about weakness, where you say “I’m confused by God’s choice for ME to not have biological kids, but I see first-hand, every day, selfish adults who appear to be baby factories.” I’m talking about asking God why He asked me to do this for a little bit longer.

The beauty of it is that when our hearts get to that point and we are stripped naked with nothing left to hold on to-and we admit out weakness, we have a choice. We can either continue to wallow in those questions and live in limbo and anger OR we can choose to lay them at the feet of the One who made us. Think about it. He made me. He knows I am pissed. He knows I am scared and afraid. He knows I am wondering how in the world He will redeem this? The absolute beauty of the gospel is that I can be honest with Him, He can hold me in my weakness and that I am may NEVER understand any of this….but He will hold me. AND in my weakness, I may crawl out of His lap several times a day, thinking “I got this” “I can do this now”….. and when I finally start seeing how very much “I don’t have it” and how “I can’t do it, “ He scoops me right back up and I bury my head in His lap and weep.

The truth is, I am no one’s hero. I am weak. I do not have it together in any way. I just admitted to you that I am basically on the verge of either tears or cursing, at any given moment. I am not “doing great” and I feel like I hobble home every day and hobble around my house and then fall into bed. I really am mostly dry shampoo and coffee.

The only thing I know for sure, is that my heart desires to stay in His lap. I fail miserably at this daily, sometime multiple times. Maybe you do too? Is that okay? Does that make your faith weak? Does asking questions make you weak? I have personally never felt so close to God than I do now. It’s funny how that is. I have not been able to attend church regularly since February, I have said more F bombs in the last 8 months than I ever have in my life, I am admitting that there is a lot I do not understand and a lot that I want to go away, I am admitting that I am weak and want this cup to pass, and yet….He is with me. Daily I feel Him more than ever. As I hobble around my life, every moment I am aware of His presence and that only by His provision and goodness, am I here. He is here.

A flower I found on a walk this week.

Luna keeping me company after biopsy surgery.

Unexpected Freedom

I just came from lunch with a close friend. We have known one another for a few years now, and there is much comfort in knowing that someone knows your junk and chooses to stick around. As usual our lunch turned into 2 and half hours of us sharing life and all the craziness it brings.

One of the ideas we camped around today, was sometimes our heart truly desires things that are good, yet we may or may not ever get said thing. I’m not even talking about actual things. Without throwing my friend under the bus, I’ll just use myself as an example. I am 37. The last person that I actually dated(until recently), I got engaged to. He was incredible. We started planning our wedding, going to pre-marital counseling, discussing how our lives would merge as a married couple, making plans to start a family etc. He made me feel like I was the only woman on the planet. He knew what he wanted, and he wanted me…until suddenly he didn’t. And he dumped me. I won’t say “clear out of the blue” because there was some discord there for about a week, prior, but who doesn’t argue? Arguing doesn’t mean you quit. To me if felt out of the blue, because it was nothing that couldn’t be addressed and dealt with-if you love someone. But alas, he broke our engagement and contact with me, without a lot of answers and I have had to learn to deal with not understanding what happened. To let go of trying to fill in the giant gaps and to accept the apology that I never got and probably never will. Fast forward about 9 months and I get a cancer diagnosis. I am single and having to make decisions about my reproductive health, alone.

So, I say all of that to say-my heart desires to be married. That is a not a bad thing. I don’t even desire it above all. Trust me-after the last go around (and some full on jokers in between who wanted to jerk me around), I really would be more than okay. I can do my Netflix and hang out with Luna-and run lots of miles. I can serve others and find so much joy in my job. I realize that happiness is not found in finding a spouse and that I can live a fulfilling life that is God honoring, without a husband. Totally get that. BUT I sure would like one. My heart desires it. On super practical levels, it’s hard getting the groceries in when I buy dog food. I want a man to help me. Sometimes I forget that I need gas and its 9pm on Sunday-I have to choose to either go out again, or get up earlier. I want a man to help me. I also hate taking the dog out in the rain and giant bugs. I could totes use a man, y’all. Haha! AND I realize what all of this actually communicates is that it’s hard being alone. I CAN be alone. I am more than capable, but I don’t necessarily WANT to be alone. My heart desires marriage (and for more than help with the dog food). J For whatever reason, this has not happened for me yet and may not happen for me. I remember going to a wedding a couple of years ago, on my birthday. These friends were amazing and made for one another. I really was so very happy for them. What I didn’t tell them, or anyone else I was there with, was that I had been dumped a year to the day (on my birthday), by a guy I dated for over a decade, who decided that “he just wasn’t sure about me being the one anymore, and he really wanted to date other people.” I remember feeling like my heart was literally broken and sick. There I sat, a year later at the wedding of two, fantastic people. I was happy for them, but it was hard to be there. Inside my heart still hurt and questioned why it had not happened for me yet.

Today at lunch, those are the kinds of “things” my friend and I were discussing and questions we were asking ourselves. See, I think true friends do their best to hold up mirrors to one another, in love, and have hard conversations. So today, we asked ourselves is it okay to be around others who have what we want and acknowledge the pain that may be caused by our heart’s desire not being fulfilled? Or is that comparing? Is that coveting what someone else has? Shouldn’t I NOT be comparing myself? Shouldn't I just trust God?

I’m going to tell you what I told my friend today-and just like I told her, I am open to being wrong, but here is what I think. I think it’s absolutely okay to acknowledge the pain in our heart’s due to an unfulfilled desire. The person I was a year ago, would not have said that. I would have been afraid to admit that I was even mad at Him for not giving me what everyone else seem to have, with such ease. BUT, I am learning that God created us with all of these desires and emotions and its okay to lament.  There is a whole book in the Bible on it…and it’s there on purpose. It’s okay to say to God-why not me? Why is this happening? Have you forgotten me?  How cool that in Psalm 57 David hid in a cave, yelling at God, afraid for us life, because people he loved had turned their backs on him-he wondered if God had left him, didn’t see him? And yet God called him a “man after My own heart.” Y’all that’s cool and gives me freedom and hope. Now, it doesn’t give us freedom to hate or resent other people who have what our heart desires, but it does give us permission to feel the hurt and pain, and ask our questions.

As a church goer my entire life I often missed the point. I used to be so caught up in the “is this a sin?” question that I would gloss over pain sometimes in fear that it’s wrong to feel hurt by God. Or get so legalistic in my head, that I would drive myself nuts in trying to figure out if I was wrong to have certain “feelings” like He had abandoned me. I found the safest place to yell at Him and pitch a fit, is in His arms. I found healing in throwing out f-bombs, shaking my fists in furry, while wallowing in His lap. The truth is He hasn’t abandoned any of us, but sometimes it sure feels like it. I don’t know why He allows what He does. I think of my friends who have lost spouses and children. I think of people I met at chemo who are not getting better. I think of agonizing horrible experiences people have had like rape and abuse.  I consider myself and not able to conceive because of stupid cancer. My mind cannot wrap itself around some things, like a soldier seeing entire villages burned to the ground or watching a brother die by his side. Y’all life can be hard, messy, and confusing. It can hurt badly. It can feel like He has turned His face. It’s okay to say that. It’s okay to be a Christian and say that. The absolute beauty to me, is that He knows, and continues to extend Himself to us-which makes it entirely okay to allow yourself to feel and grieve. After this year, I can say with embarrassment, that it has taken a broken engagement and cancer to pry some of these things out of my hands. So I understand that it’s not easy. Cancer put things in perspective rather quickly and has a tendency to shed light on all the bull shit, on all the levels.  It’s crazy that something so scary can make you STOP, and feel His grace and mercy. How a doctor looking in your face, saying you have three years without treatment, gives you freedom to experience that grace and mercy in your life.-sans legalism. I hate to make every conversation about cancer, but it’s kind of a big deal and has completely shifted my world view for life. Pain, abandonment, and cancer has lead me to MORE hope and freedom. Weird. 

Amy gave me this stone at Valentine's Day ,the week I found out the cancer had spread to tissue surrounding the tumor.
Surgery was no longer an option. Conceiving was no longer an option. Yet there is Hope.