I saw a friend the other day that I haven’t seen in years. After the initial surface questions and conversation she broke down in tears. She shared about the many difficulties her daughter has had from a lifelong illness and also shared recent difficulties in her marriage. She expressed her exhaustion, her sadness and her hopelessness; she is at the end of her rope. As she was asking me how I was dealing with having cancer again my heart was breaking for her because she looked so defeated. What was more heartbreaking was after sharing her pain she said one of the last places she wanted to go was church; she’s angry with God, she didn’t want to be judged, and she didn’t want to hear any ‘Christian-ese’ talk. Knowing some of my past struggles and now cancer again she looked me straight in the eyes and asked, ‘How can you still have faith in God? How can you not be angry?’ Tough stuff. When did church become ‘unsafe’ for the heartbroken, hopeless, and weary? Why do we sometimes feel like we have to put on our ‘best face’ to go to church? These are just a few of the questions I’ve been asking myself for awhile.
I have a confession. When I first found out my cancer was back a year ago July, I also didn’t feel like going to church for awhile. Sometimes even now, over a year later, I still feel the same way. ‘With so much effort being poured into church growth, so much press being given to the benefits of faith, and so much flexing of religious muscle in the public square, the poor in spirit have no one but Jesus to call them blessed anymore.’~ Barbara Brown Taylor, Leaving Church. I go to an awesome Christian church with great leaders and great people. I’ve been attending for over 20 years, have volunteered here, was on the worship team, and have gone on mission trips. I love it yet I wanted not to go after I got the news of cancer’s 4th return. Why? I can only speak for myself when I say that I didn’t want to put my happy, ‘God’s got this’ face on at a time when I felt raw, sad, and disappointed. I didn’t want to hear ‘Everything happens for a reason,’ or ‘God only gives you what you can handle.’ Phrases I’ve probably used before. Do we really think about things before we say them? I listened to a great interview with Dr. Caroline Leaf, a cognitive neuroscientist who spoke about this exact thing, watch it here. She says that Christians are so used to these words and phrases that we have stopped thinking…have we? These phrases, words, and easy responses sometimes take away from us listening, thinking and loving the people who are hurting. Words have power and when you’re hurting you hear every single word so when you are on the receiving end of these patent phrases that we use all.the.time. you can’t help but want to roll your eyes and think, ‘You have no idea.’ I’m sure it’s all well meaning.
So what was my response to my friend? I hugged her and stayed silent awhile. Then I told her I was so sorry she was in such pain and that I truly had no words. I told her to be gentle with herself, and that it’s ok not to smile. I look back at some of my pictures from the first few months post diagnosis and I’m smiling but my eyes are not. I told her I’m not mad at God and even though I don’t want to go to church sometimes I know that I still have God and more importantly He has me. I told her churches are filled with hurting people regardless of the shine of the facade but vulnerability and authenticity can only happen if we’re willing. I shared my pain and told her that illness and in her case, serious adversity can be lonely because most people can’t know exactly how you’re feeling. I told her that for me, that is the reason I can’t let go of my faith in God. At the end of the day if I don’t have faith that God is real, if I don’t have God to talk to and if I didn’t believe He loved me, I would have nothing to hope for and there would be no possibility of joy in crappy circumstances. How do you convince a broken person that God loves her? You start showing God’s love by listening and loving. ‘Tell the story of the mountain you climbed. 
Your words could become a page in someone else’s survival guide.’ I LOVE that quote from Morgan Harper Nichols. In my low moments I don’t remember many conversations but I do remember the encouraging notes, those who sit and pray with me, and the many hugs with no words…LOVE. Can we think on our own and not defer to a Christian-ese phrase as a response to someone’s pain? ‘No one leads people to Jesus; He leads people to Himself. All the pressure’s off; just go love everybody without agenda.’~Bob Goff
good bye again and leave for college. Raising kids is basically a life long series of good-byes, oh my heart but a blog for another day. Back to the quote at the top. I don’t think there is any other event in life that opens your eyes to the realization of life passing then facing your mortality. I have been fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to have been diagnosed with the ‘c’ word 4 times over the past 10 years so it has been a constant reminder that life is passing by and to live intentionally. I love the last line of the quote which says, ‘life is long if you know how to use it.’ My interpretation of that is instead of saying ‘life is short, do what you want,’ he means if you spend more time doing things you love with people you love, serving others, living with intention, your state of content and well-being will add richness to your life~making whatever time you have on earth worthwhile or in short, a long life well lived.
Thought 2. I have heard many many times that I don’t look sick. It’s true. My cancer’s stable so in the meantime I work, go out with friends, go to the kids’ sporting activities and events, ‘normal’ life, and I look no different with Stage 4 cancer now than I did July 6, 2017 (the day before I found out my cancer was back). I don’t ever take offense to the comment, I’m truly grateful because who wants to look sick? Part of my thought process though is that none of us look sick but most of us are. The Facebook and Instagram pictures are great but don’t show sadness, depression, arguments, adversity, bullying, cruelty, or any of the things normal people struggle with every single day. REAL. LIFE. All of us are living, breathing novels with incredible stories and beautiful covers but we don’t see each others’ ripped and tear-stained pages, highlights, the worn out corners, etc…none of us really look sick.
while loving someone deeply gives you courage. ~Lao Tzu Courage and strength, all of us need both. I read this quote from an unknown author and I really loved it, ‘Sometimes when you’re in a dark place, you think you’ve been buried; but actually you’ve been planted.’ HOW AWESOME IS THAT? Planted for rebirth, planted for new, planted for breakthrough. I love it.
she had amazing goals but there was currently no room for space or curve. I told her it was great to have a vision of what her life was supposed to look like in the future but she should absolutely leave room for the unplanned things. The things that make life move and bend, that force you to make decisions, to make hard turns and to maybe change the course you had originally planned but make you who you are truly created to be.
asthma I would lie awake in his room on the floor listening to him struggle to breathe and set my alarm every 4 hours for his breathing treatment. He will probably never know that when he would get hit as a quarterback in 7th and 8th grade I would physically feel sick to my stomach, or the time he cried because he couldn’t understand math and wanted to give up that I cried too. He won’t know that when he didn’t make the varsity basketball team and he sat in his room and cried that I was sitting in my room crying harder because when your child’s dream dies a part of you dies with it. He may never know that when my cancer diagnosis was bad I would lie awake in my hospital bed crying thinking about him and his siblings and willing myself to fight just for them.
have today’ attitude. Life, I mean real life, happens in the ‘in between’. In between jobs, kid stuff, activities, vacations, etc. we spend a whole lot of time in anticipation of the next game, the next season, the next vacation, and we work and focus on those things but what about all the routine we chalk up to ‘a normal day’? That’s the real grit of life. All of the mundane, the annoying things, the actions and reactions, the relationships…all of the stuff that transpires in the monotonous in between spaces of daily living, that is life. If you rush through to just get to the ‘next’, you’ll miss it. Don’t miss living.
Anna's Lipstick Journey 