New Realities

It's one thing to singularly approach this disease in a clinical and intellectual way, set in an office, a lab, a medical examining room. I can walk out of there and life can appear normal. I can blend in. No one knows the disease at work inside my face, inside my head. I don't feel sorry for myself right now. But oh, the pain of knowing that my loving God has chosen to afflict me in this staggering way. I hold ever before me the knowledge that He sets all the boundaries of my suffering and yet, I really haven't accepted this.

We attend a lecture given by the physician we have chosen for consideration. The room is full of cancer patients undergoing treatment. As I listen to the discussion, engaging with the others, all I can do is respond according to my nature, and as a holistic health practitioner.  I have a hard time seeing myself as a fellow patient. Shouldn't I be there to help them? I wrestle both with pride and compassion.

We share lunch with some of these courageous people. Hearing their stories, and being asked to share mine, sharpen my focus and confirm the reality of my condition. I'm inspired and saddened by the journeys of these folks. I admire their perseverance, their persistence, their resolve. They feel the same about me. But I haven't been down this road so far as they, their suffering incomparable.

My heart is both distressed and heartened. There is both the spirit of faith and the swirling airs of death. Some of these folks are fighting valiantly, some to the tragic end. Others bitterly endure for their loved ones. I want to know other stories, like the ones I'd heard just weeks before about brighter, happier lives. Cancer free. This hospital is an incubator of hope, with intense healing work for the suffering. Everyone looking for what comes after.

I want to be a part of this kind and healing place. But not as a cancer patient. Nor as a cancer survivor. I will not call myself that when I heal. Do I say I'm a flu survivor? A malaria survivor? I'm treating this disease with all the deadly respect it deserves, and treating my body with the loving respect it deserves. I will give my body every advantage and opportunity to strengthen and fight it out. Entrusting my soul to its Creator, I take my next bold steps up from the treacherous valley floor. I look around and see everything around me that would throw me down jagged, bone-breaking rock faces and sheer cliffs. Every story, every statistic, every fear magnified by the Accuser, every twist and truth. And oh, the doubts and uncertainty.

Yet I know His gaze upon me and the offering of His hand, that in this moment just as Jesus has said to me many times before, as He did to Peter: "What is that to you? Follow me." And so I do.

To be continued...