First, I really need to say how amazed and grateful I am to the hundreds of well wishes and millions of prayers that have been made on my behalf. My mail box is full each day (both the one by the drive way and the one in my PC), many of you have posted beautiful blog entries with prayers and encouragement, and I have dozens of phone calls and visitors each day. I am overwhelmed by your kindness and the goodness of the Lord which He is sending to me through you all.
Second, I wanted to let you all know that I am making a steady recovery from the surgery (today marks two weeks). I am nearly off the pain medication, I am sleeping pretty well (though night sweats and nightmares don’t help), and I am nearly walking upright again after being hunched to protect my belly the past several days.
Also, I have begun having hot flashes, and I am trying to convince myself they are a result of the pain or the pain medication. Most likely, however, they are signs of early menopause which my body has been thrust into. Having an unexpected hysterectomy has been more difficult emotionally than I had imagined, and the hormonal changes I am/will experience are likely contributing to the emotion. But even for these pains in my heart, I know the Lord can bring healing and peace.
Today, I learned more about the general treatment plan to attack my cancer. Not surprisingly for those who know some of my other health history, I have a rare form of uterine cancer that acts more like ovarian cancer. The good news, according to the radiation oncologist, is that this makes chemotherapy much more effective. The bad news is that my other health problems — lupus and recurrent transverse myelitis — will definitely complicate the chemotherapy process. I am praying for great wisdom among my medical providers.
Chemotherapy will be a two-day regimen beginning November 1 and 2, and recurring every three weeks for 6-8 cycles. Radiation will be a 30-minute treatment once a week for five Tuesdays in a row beginning November 6. Getting through the first week of November will be a big test for what the next six months will be like.
Apart from these details of my recovery, I also have been struggling with how to think about my cancer. Many of you have called this process a battle, a fight, or a struggle. And I know that these metaphors are helpful to so many people in understanding their response to the disease. I hope that those of you who are thinking about my own situation in these terms will continue to do so if it is helpful for you to pray for or encourage me.
For myself, I am looking for a different metaphor. As hopeful as I am that I will be healed from cancer and live a long life, I also know that cancer sometimes ends in death. For me, thinking about this process as a fight means to die is a defeat. I don’t want to see death that way. Physical death and eternal life to follow is going to be my end whether it is in two years or twenty. Either way, I win. To help me think about my situation, I am looking for a picture that includes suffering and persevering and joy and hope, but that also allows for both living and dying.
In other words, I am looking for a metaphor for the Christian life that I can pare down and claim for my own during this very difficult period. But I haven’t found it yet and would love your ideas to help me think well about this cancer and God’s plan for me.
Thanks to you all for being with me in this.
I am praying for you. Not fighting/striving is not the same thing as giving up. There are times that we do fight and God gives us peace, courage and strength to do so. But when fighting and beating our “enemy” becomes the goal to be accomplished at any cost, I think it puts a lot more pressure onto ourselves. Everything depends on us. On making the right decisions (as if we could always know what that is). On our stamina.
There are times (and this is harder for Christians used to resources that can buy or fix almost anything), though, when God gives us the peace and courage to not fight. No one else can tell you what to do, when to fight, when to not fight (and I find in my own journey through awful things that it can change from day to day), but I think it is good (and brave) of you to wrestle with a paradigm that makes space for trusting God either way.
I am praying for you, hoping for healing. I am thankful for your trust and how that encourages me in my struggles today. But, I am also grieving even now that God is being glorified and those who are watching you are being strengthened in their faith and challenged in their walk with God through your experience. I grieve that, even while I am amazed, because I wish you did not have to suffer. I wish there were an easier way for you through this.
Beautiful comments and thoughts, all. I love being able to observe and learn vicariously through others’ experiences (painful though they may be) and input.
I love the metaphors: a journey, a race, school, & particularly the art restoration.
I am so deeply humbled: when faced with a particular trial, my knee-jerk reaction is to try and run away instead of asking what God could do with this.
I don’t know you Charity, but you are so brave, so open to what God would have for you as a result of this. I look forward to seeing how God brings beauty out of it.
Oh, all your comments have been so helpful to me in thinking about this disease and how the Lord Jesus will use it in my life. Journey, school, race, encounter with the holy, seasons, exploration — all of these have helped me wrap my mind around the redemption that can happen in the midst of this trial.
Another friend was talking to me today about art restorers who painstakingly remove the dirt and grime of centuries to reveal the original glory of the painting. As God’s image bearers, our created purpose has been distorted by sin. Trials, like the art restorers, help remove the grime as we are sanctified toward glory. I found a lot of depth and beauty in this picture as well.
Thanks, my friends, for your kindness.
Journey. Voyage. Expedition. Excursion. Exploration. Just some words that came to my heart. Love to you today Chairity. Anytime you need a friendly Lenger visit – please let me know – I am 4 short hours away and would love to come serve and love you. I don’t love the little mermaid as much as Shelly – but I can try.
Julie
My first visit to your blog, and I’m overwhelmed by the door I’ve stepped through and seeing that you and your “comment-ers” are verbally sitting in a circle holding hands and confirming each other in your faith. Thank you for leaving the door unlocked.
Why does God let His people suffer? To deepen our love and understanding of Him. And to give us a unique opportunity to use the trial we’re in as a tool to be a witness to others about how a “Christian” handles adversity differently than others.
May God continue to bless you with many opportunities to use this illness to be an awesome witness for Him.
Charity,
I’m sorry I havent’ seen this until now.
I love previous comments. To see it as a journey, etc.
I like your thoughts about how you want to approach this.
I’ve been reminded recently of Hebrews 12:1-2 and now meditate on that and verse 3 daily. Life is a run and a special one for us in Jesus. And in that run we have to keep our eyes on the Pioneer and Perfecter of faith. I want to run into his arms, at least someday, and hear that somehow he has been pleased with me.
You are a precious sister in Jesus. I look forward to the time when we’ll all be out of this mess, but in the meantime we need to hold each other up, and particularly I want to hold you up with others, in prayer, and am praying.
mmmm i’ve had lupus since 1992, and i reacted for a long time with teh fighting attitude. i think partly deial, partly hope, partly to keep from getting depressed, and partly to make others around me comfortable, i kept this sort of attitude of “i’ll beat this”
i like thinking of it more as healing, and learning. and as illness as a great teacher. i don’t particularly enjoy being ill, but it does give us the circumstance to pause and reflect abot what’s really important in our liives, and to learn to love.
maybe that is why we are each given time on this earth. to learn how to be more like God.
my thoughts for now anyway.
well wishes for peace love adn wholeness
carla
http://www.thesigningpatient.com
hey there, i will be in indy in november, well,close to indy! my husband is doing a wine tasting in zionsville and his parents live close by there. and his sister lives a little north of there. he grew up in south bend though.
we were out this summer and the corn really needed some rain!
wouldn’t it be really ackward to meet up?
I, too, want to hear the story behind the pickle. Though I confess I thought it was a cucumber. 🙂
Oh, Charity, I felt so many things as I read this post. (And I confess — second confession in two paragraphs, whoa! — that I, too, wait not always patiently for a word from your hands, just like L.L.) The part about being thrust into menopause because of the emergency hysterectomy was something that hadn’t even occurred to me in your previous post, and reading about it here made me sad.
I can’t tell you how much I am amazed by you. Your courage is palpable. And I am so glad to hear you have many, many people supporting you in person and online. I had a feeling the online world was there — look at the way so many have risen up in the visible blogosphere — but I didn’t know the extent of your real-world support system. I’m glad to hear that they, too, are there to offer you their hands and hearts and ears.
I say you’re on your journey to the high places, and God is helping you get your hind’s feet. 🙂 I know, I’m stuck on that book. It’s just fun to see the little first grader’s eyes light up when I pull that book out and start reading a chapter. She’s completely enthralled.
I tried to think of another metaphor. The only thing that came to mind, is school. A friend and mentor used to talk about life’s difficulties as opportunities to learn something. He used to ask what I thought God was trying to teach me through my trials. When we prayed about the challenges he was facing, he prayed that he would be a good student. Eventually, death will come for all of us, but if our tears indicate life’s lessons, then when the Lord finally summons his own, we can say, “they graduated.”
Why is there a pickle in the picture?
Oh, Charity, I have just been praying this very thing for you. That you would be able to grasp the beauty nestled within the decay… because what the decay of our flesh serves to highlight is the complete wholeness of our Savior. The decay of our world, the chill in the air and the lacy patterns of the fallen leaves of autumn, the ice, snow and barrenness of winter, there is a beauty in even those things, although they represent decay.
Without autumn and winter, would we fully appreciate spring?
Without the decay of our flesh, our relationships, our bank accounts and homes, would we truly understand what a gift the Lord has given us in the promise of heaven? Would we be as grateful for the gifts we’re given if we did not experience and acknowledge how much we lack?
I am not in your shoes, but I’ve recently experienced some of the decay of this world. I know it runs counter-culture to say that it has been good to feel grief, but it really has. My husband and I have been given the opportunity to lean into our mourning and experience a side of God that we otherwise would not have seen. The Lord has something very special for widows and orphans (the sick and poor, and those of us who will admit we are all those things). Seeing the sufficiency of Jehovah juxtaposed against my insufficiencies and my “bereftness” has driven me to worship, even in this time of loss.
I’m praying the same things for you.
I want to hear more about that pickle card I see in the photo. 😉
I also have a blog post for you that has yet to make it out to my keyboard. I’ll be sure to let you know when it surfaces.
Thinking of a good metaphor for both of us. I’m with you… we need something that captures the hope in the midst of the yuck.
Charity,
I echo LL’s sentiments. Read Wangerin’s current comments on his web site – they open new views of life and health, sickness, death: http://walterwangerinjr.org
Glad to hear from you and I wait with interest to hear the metaphor that you find for yourself.
Praying still,
AMM
Charity,
We are all sojourners here on this earth. We/you are on a journey. We all have experiences, sunshine and cloudy days, beautiful lush gardens and deserts, snow capped mountain peaks and flatlands. It all has its beauty. Sometimes we don’t see the beauty until we look back and remember. Remember God’s promises to you Charity. Remember the answered prayers of the past. Most of all persevere through this journey and look for the hand of God, He is on this journey with you.
I look forward to seeing the “snapshots” of your journey.
Remember God’s promises, they are for you.
Praying,
Dianne
A few years ago some friends of mine were going through a very difficult time of personal pain and suffering. A very wise mutual friend spoke of what they were going through as a holy thing, a very intimate encounter with God in the depths and darkness of suffering. I don’t think he used these words, but the picture I get is of the potter putting his hands gently but firmly on the clay and molding, shaping something new and beautiful out of it. Somehow that image comes to mind as I read of your situation and the road ahead for you. Maybe you’ll find it helpful.
“The difference in wrestling with God is that we are no where near the same weight class.” Oh Charity – that is the best comment ever! I don’t know if you meant it to be funny or not, but the difference in “weight classes” to a mom with sons and a husband who were wrestlers yields such a vivid mental images of proportionality. It greatly emphasizes the enormity of the differences! And yet, He allows us this wrestling relationship for a reason; somehow it is a kindness with tenderness to treat us in such a manner.
I wish that I had an analogy to give you to use but I cannot say anthing more that what LL has already offered. My health issues are different than yours, they still very real. THere have been many times when I have “cheated death” to quote the doctors. So, I guess that I’ve always considered life to be what I’m doing while I’m waiting to die. I don’t mean to sound morbid, it just keeps me focused, at least I try to be, that the reality is what is at the end, heaven. That is the goal and I want to finish with my personal best.
I am very sorry for the hot flashes and yes, the hormone fluctuations may make you think you are crazy – but you’re not, you’re just in good company with the rest of us. Just make sure to tell the doctor all your symptoms so they can develop a comprehensive treatment plan – now is not a time to be “brave”. Now is a time to not withhold any information from them. And you need to sleep – so many of us who have or are moving through this stage will tell you that the disrupted sleep is what wears you down the fastest.
Grace and peace to you – cheering for you from the stands as you take this journey, as you run your own race – cheering for your personal best as you cross the finish line – whenever that may be.
Susan
So good to hear from you, even the difficult parts. I realize that I sit and wait, not always patiently, for a word from your hands. That is just the truth.
As for a metaphor, I like Walter Wangerin’s thoughts about cancer as a journey. I do believe he thinks as you do… that if one dies in the “battle”, one has seen defeat. But if one dies on the journey, well, isn’t that a different matter?
To me, a journey implies long paths, some dark, some light… warm days and cool, coatless treks and evenings at hospitable hearths along the way. Times of silence, times of melody, times of cacophony. Moments of solitude and moments of walking hand in hand.
For the moments when you can take a hand, I want to be one who walks alongside. And for the moments when you want to be alone beneath the stars, I hope I can be more patient… see, your journey is already teaching me.
Love, LL