And Just Like That...

So I came here tonight to make a post asking for prayers for my upcoming cancer scans tomorrow at (220pm EST). And truth be told, I almost didn't.  I just feel weary tonight. Never the less, I hunted down this blog's password and let myself in... to see this post waiting on me already written for such a time as this. I feel seen.

Ok, so yeah I know it really was waiting on me because I am a habitual procrastinator and I meant to post this ahead of my January 2025 scans lol...but I am an optimist and like to think I left it as a draft just cos God knew I needed to find it waiting on me today. 

At any rate, it speaks. I read it and tears that I didn't realize I was holding in trailed down my cheek. So today, since my cup is running low, please take it, in its lowly entirety as my plea to please lift me up tomorrow as I once again rise to take Gods hand and step out of the boat in faith and onto the cold slab bed of the CT scan to check my cancer status.  

I am sharing my "draft" post in its original form. God still speaks in it and it still brings me comfort tonight, months later. Maybe it will for you too.

********Original Older Post Not Published***********

And just like that we have ripped off the December page of the 2024 calendar that was packed full of the usual merriment and chaos and now stare at a brand-new month in a brand-new year, 2025. Whew!

As a child, I always enjoyed the excitement of getting a new year calendar (which of course came with a new set of pens cos...umm you can't have a new calendar without new pens!)  I am a list maker and the idea of having 365 more little boxes of time to fill up and plan out was just so exciting. 

Funny thing about that, as a kid each new calendar and new year brought with it the wonder and anticipation of the next thing. The next season, the next snow, the next no school day, the next summer vacation, the next milestone (new bike, new curfew, new grade, new car). I miss that season. Looking back, while I protested so very much along the way because I felt held back and stifled when I wanted to run forward, there was an innocent carefree aspect of being insulated from the daily, darker, annual rhythms of age and adulthood. 

These days the new year brings with it adult realities like the resetting of your health insurance benefits, property taxes, making sure your kids are on track for the second half of the school year, and recouping from the energy suck of the December festivities. For those who have experienced loss, it is also another reminder that time marches on and we are stepping into another place in time where that loved one won't be. 

This year for me, it is also time yet again to lean a bit on all of you and meet God in the waiting room of the oncology radiology department while I wait for my turn in the PET machine.  (CT this time)

I've had the luxury of a break from active treatment since my October scans which has been a blessing. Yet, the thought of this day coming up tomorrow for my 3-month scans hasn't been too far from my mind. 

Cancer is a weird beast. Most of the effects of the cancer journey take place in our minds and hearts, despite how the physical changes of our body might make you think otherwise. It's like living in a daily groundhog movie style perpetual New Year's cycle where you reset scan to scan, treatment to treatment, or side effect to side effect. 

And... you do this all while being hyper focused on the reality there is a finite number of resets and there is a set number of calendar boxes left to fill in. 

AND... if I am being vulnerably honest with you, those boxes most of the time don't even feel crisp, new, or bare. They have things already penciled in like nausea, appointments, nap, nap again, worry, take medicine, more napping. 

It all becomes so muddled that it threatens to squeeze out the things that you want to write big and bold with your new sparkily, purple, glitter pen: Birthday celebration, lunch with husband, church event, craft with daughter, outing with son, call with friend, quiet time reading, or coffee with sister.

AND...that doesn't even include the whole spiritual side of the journey where you need and crave connection to the source of all things. 

Where you seek to just stay plugged in from sunrise to sunrise to get charged and recharged and charged yet again. 

Where you wrestle with the whys and bargain for the how much. 

Where you seek to understand.

Where you commit to course correct.  

Where we finally just offer up our hands and heart in humbled surrendered gratitude simply for what is...no matter what it is not. 

It is in that last sentence that I pick out my comfort. And by pick out I don't mean in the same way one would choose a shirt from a clothing rack. I mean the slow and arduous task of picking away the layers to finally reach a hidden gem. 

So tonight, Thank you God... for seeing me in my most raw and un put together versions and loving me enough to invite me into Your peace. Thank you, Lord, for the assembly of Your servants who hold up my hands when I am tired. 

I am grateful. I am surrendered. I am yours.