It's early morning.
The house is dark and the floor cold against my bare feet. Deep tones of pink slip quietly through the narrow opening between the wood trim and closed shade. Shimmering cords of color pour in, unlike I have ever seen. On a regular day, I turn on the coffee machine before pulling the blinds, but on this day, I push past distractions and peer out the dirt-splotched glass on the backdoor to see the sky suspended with low clouds edged in pink and gold light in full splendor, as the sun prepared to rise, in a pre-dawn show.
For a few moments I stood surrounded by ribbons of pink light that I want to hold and capture.
It's ironic, since pink was never my thing.
I was never a fan of lace or anything overtly feminine, especially pink. It was too girly, too frilly.
And now pink has changed the way I view life.
Wrapped in a shawl that my friend Renae hand crafted for me over four years ago, when I first learned I had breast cancer, I thought about the profound moments of illuminated pink glory and how for a short time I had been cloaked in those filaments of light.
I know my faith is intertwined with shades of pink.
I count having had breast cancer as a milestone in my faith.
In and through it there was a deep soul work done that has changed me.
In life there are happy things and hard things and everyday things that all weave together to form the threads of our life, but I personally seem to learn the most in the hard things.
There is so much that is wayward in my heart. There is so much in me that just wants what I want.
I also have a lot of passion that is misdirected when it’s not surrendered to the will of God.
Being diagnosed with breast cancer kind of kicked down the walls of all that and my complacency too. It took a wrecking ball to my safe life.
There is something about sitting next to people who are suffering that helps you enter into their world. For some reason it’s hard to feel for the poor in spirit if you aren’t poor in spirit. It’s difficult to mourn with those who mourn, if you have never grieved yourself.
There is something about cancer that removes status quo.
There is something about unyielding pain that leads to a yielded heart.
Sitting in a cancer center, reading about how to beat cancer, when all around you are people who look like they are losing the battle -- well it shifts things in your heart.
Cancer opened the eyes of my heart. Hearing the diagnosis, has made my moments matter. It has opened, really opened my eyes … to the fact that life is short and no one is getting out alive or taking anything with them that they worked so hard to own or to attain or to be.
That is why I chase clouds with my camera, go around the block to see the flowers in someone’s yard or pull over in the middle of traffic to watch a sunset. This moment in all of eternity needs embraced.
Cancer pushed me to be more bold. I would like people to like me, but really I mostly love people, so how they see me is up to them. But I believe God for more than church on Sunday and tidy trappings of living a good life and just going through the motions. I find myself asking complete strangers if I can pray for them. I have long unsolicited conversations in the grocery store. And I look people in the eye often and tell them that the answer to everything, is Jesus.
Having had cancer has made me feel more alive. It has made me get off the treadmill of life, even the religious life. It makes me say yes to tea parties and Tonka trucks, to late nights when needed and early mornings when possible. It helped me put words to emotions and action to convictions. It makes me pray for the people I see and the needs all around me and for the days when I am no longer here to pray for those I love.
Cancer has made me a more thankful person. Thankful for a team of amazing doctors, thankful for second opinions and second chances. Thankful for nights when the skies are clear and the stars shine bright and knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is a God in Heaven that has named every star and knows how many hairs are on my head today.
Pink has waved like a banner over my heart helping me to discover more of who I am in Christ and to let go of my identity in anything else.
The thing about the cancer is that it came like an unwelcome guide and took me to places I never would have gone, to meet people I would never have met, and shifted my urgency to live, really live in a different way, because life is a gift that has an expiration date.
Cancer changed my story. It shifted me from one season of life to a better season. The person I was before pales in comparison to the person I am becoming. And all the suffering that I have seen around me in others or in myself --well it pales in comparison to the coming glory. It helped me quit looking inward and moved my focus to upward. A vertical focus will always change our horizontal actions. And even though my feet still walk the earth, my heart is more planted in heaven. It has made me want to be more like Mary instead of Martha, because Mary understood that Jesus was near and now is the time to sit at His feet and live for Him.
To live in the present, let go of what lies behind, to pay attention to the beauty and the world around me, to slow down, to choose love, to surrender and to live thankful. Those are some of the threads that weave in the shades of pink through my life.
There is nothing glamorous about breast cancer, except the pink marketing. People who find themselves confronted with a cancer come face to face with a personal battle that holds choices and a journey that only they can navigate. In the walking through it, I found myself being mostly carried. Carried by those who loved me, those who prayed for me. I never want to forget what I have learned.
What I learned is that Jesus shows up in our everyday life and that I want to live full-out for Him.
What I learned is that Jesus shows up in our everyday life and that I want to live full-out for Him.
How about you friends?
And you are my friends.
This is such a great
time and place to be honest and seek to move forward, no matter where you are in life.
Thank you for being here. You are loved.
Can I encourage you to stop over to this sweet community?
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