Even In This

    Sometimes I wonder what the point is to this life?  What is the point to this suffering?  Yes, yes, I know that suffering produces good fruit in our life but in the end we still die and eventually the memory of us fades so, why?  Why can't we just get saved and go be with Jesus?  Why can't we bypass all this pain?  I don't know the answer.  I do know though that pain is a great bridge builder to lost and hurting people.  It is a golden gateway to their heart.

     I have a friend who has led a pretty charmed life.  Great parents, great marriage, lot's of money and ease.  I am sincerely happy for her and often wish I could just live a year of that life, but.. she is not who I would go to with my pain.  It is like speaking a foreign language to her.  She doesn't know what to do with it.  She squirms and looks for opportunities to get back to the shallow, less painful.  I don't want to be that girl.

    It is an incredibly satisfying feeling to be able to tell those chemo patients, "I have been where you are".  When I share some of my pain from past hurts and struggles, deep depressions and panic attacks, people open their hearts and feel free to share their own pain.  In a way that makes my own suffering worth it.  Perhaps that is part of the plan.  Perhaps that is why we don't get our ticket straight to a life where pain does not exist.  Perhaps people need us and our life experiences, painful as they may be.

     I know this much is true - I appreciate this life so much more.  I see a wonderful world most days.  I cherish my friendships and family like never before.  I don't care if the toilet paper gets put on the right direction or if my son doesn't do the dishes the first time I ask.  My material stuff is just stuff to me now.  Yes, I have pain and it shows up at the most inopportune times, in the most unlikely circumstances, and often without warning or announcement.  Yes, it is painful and unfair and inconvenient.  Yes, I wish it were not so.  But, it is what it is and I am who I am because of it.  I am a deep well that has been dug out with a pick and a shovel but there is living water in here.  I wish it had been easier.  I wish happiness did not come at such a price.  But I want to be a deep well.  I want to be the person who "gets it".  I want to be able to lend hope and sooth anxiety and love the broken.  Somehow I don't think it is possible to do that well without a good dose of pain and suffering in our own lives.  It gives us legitimacy.  Embrace it.  Suck the lifeblood out of it.  Soak it in knowing that it is producing something wonderful in you.  If you don't embrace it, it will consume you.

You are so loved, even in this!

I have hope to lend!

     About a month ago I began volunteering in the chemo infusion room at Providence hospital.  This is a place that became near and dear to my heart while Tom was sick.  It is a place that you might think was full of gloom and doom.  Certainly heartache is a constant undercurrent here.  But, it is really a wonderful place.  The nurses are incredible and very caring.  There is a camaraderie here like no other.
     
     We were in the trenches together.  We ARE in the trenches together.  It is work I find extremely satisfying even if all I am doing is handing out warm blankets.
Here is a place where people are desperate for hope. "Pleeeease tell me I will be ok!"  Oh how well I know that look.  How familiar the despondency.  Yes, you will be ok.  You may not win this battle but you will be ok.  Death need not be scary.  There is so much more to this life than this life.  I know you don't have hope today but I will let you borrow mine for now.

     Yesterday I saw 2 different men with the tell tale scar of Glioblastoma brain cancer.  A scar from brain surgery, no hair and the drug Avastin.  How familiar.  I am often faced with the dilemma of whether to share my story when asked or not.  I usually choose to share because people are desperate to hear.  However, I am well aware that I am their worst nightmare.  We did not win.  We did not beat the odds.   Somewhere deep in the recesses of their heart they know that they will not beat the odds either.  Right now it is an un-winable fight.  So, where is the hope?
 
     There is hope because someday, somewhere, someone will beat these odds and it might as well be you.  Someday something will work and it might as well be you.  There is hope because for every month we keep you alive there is a chance for a new study or new clinical trial.  There is hope because a cancer diagnosis, especially a terminal cancer diagnosis, strips away all the un-important crap of our lives.  It no longer matters whether he brushes his teeth in a way that drives you nuts or that she continues to nag about the right way to fold a towel.  It just no longer matters.  This is a gift.  The gift of living in today.  The gift of now.   Sure, it is scary.  I have never been so scared in my life.  I was facing my worst nightmare.   However, I am still here.  I was not consumed.  I lived and even though Tom did not, he is doing great right now.
   
     So, to the 6th floor chemo patients, please look past the fact that we did not win.  Please look past the fact that this may be your fate too.  Let me love on you.  Let me encourage you that even though you can't see the forest for the trees, there is a forest and for today you can borrow my faith that there will come a day when you look back on all this yuck and you will see beauty.

It is the quiet crucible of your personal, private sufferings that your noblest dreams are born and God's greatest gifts are given.
Wintley Phipps

God continue to give me dreams even as my old ones died.  He showed me that my life did not end when Tom's did and that He has a plan for my future.  I have hope to lend.  When it feels like you can't go on try to remember that there are many of us who have suffered much greater losses and lived to be happy.  To thrive.  To have hope.  I have hope to lend!

Sometimes this is just really hard

Last weekend I entered my first quilt to be judged.  I had worked long and hard on this quilt, (you can see pictures on my facebook page).  I started this quilt as Tom was entering the final leg of his trip home.  I was spending 24 hours a day in our room with him so I set up my sewing machine and sewed as he slept.  It kept me from complete despair.  I sewed and ripped seams and re-sewed for 10 months.  Long after Tom had gone home.  It felt good to do something happy and productive.  At times it got my mind off the total heartache.  I call it my grief quilt.  I made the quilt FOR show and for judging.  Last weekend was my first competition and my hope was to win one first place ribbon.  The show was 3 days and my mom and Steve and I had planned on going on Saturday after the ribbons had been hung to see how I did.  One of my clients called me from the show and said he was standing in front of the quilt and I had won 4 first place ribbons.  Four!  No one else had won more than 2.  I was thrilled. 

When we went to the show I tried to stand around anonymously and just listen to what people were saying.  There were fairly large crowds around my quilt.  Crowds I did not see at any other quilt.  It was a huge high for me.  I have not had many highs in the past 3 years so I was relishing the moment.
My facebook account was inundated with congratulations that day.

The next day, Sunday,  I completely fell apart.  The missing had crept in.  Tom was always SO proud of my work.  So proud of me.  It made me so sad not to be able to share this accomplishment with him.  It makes me sad to not be able to share with him about Steve and how happy I feel right now.

It is just such a mixed bag some days.  Great happiness mixed with deep sadness.  I am trying to just ride the waves and not get too caught in any one place.

Tom was great at enjoying my successes.  Going to quilt shows and shops was something he enjoyed with me.  Probably because he was so proud of me.  This was something I loved about him and something that made many other quilters envious.  I was afraid this was something that I would never find again.

If you recall, when we had been told that Tom would not live, I heard God say as plain as day that my future was going to be greater than I could imagine.  Well, Steve is just as proud of my accomplishments.  He was fascinated with Fabric Depot and I had to drag HIM out of the store.  Hmmm, isn't God good.  Steve cheers me on and tells everyone how great I am.  Isn't God good.

These days I am feeling a bit like I am in the midst of a God storm.  A good God storm.  So many good things are happening that I would have never dreamed of.

Truly He is a God of redemption.  The God of second chances.  In our deepest grief, when all seems lost and the dreams have died God promises that Sunday is coming and He will rise again.  So much of it has to do with our focus.  I choose to focus on the fact that He redeems.  He rises again.

Happy Easter all!