Category Archives: Life’s disappointments

Mary’s One Year Anniversary

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M and MMany of you have been faithfully praying for my sister Mary and are wondering if there’s any new information about her health. Today marks one year after she and Bervin first heard the words “pancreatic cancer.” So it’s a special day on which to hear directly from Mary:

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In February of 2014, I contracted a fever for no apparent reason, and it spiked to 105 degrees. So after a couple of days when it wouldn’t quit, Bervin and I headed for an emergency room where tests revealed the reason: a blocked bile duct just outside the pancreas. Further tests indicated that a cancerous tumor was growing in my pancreas, and when we learned this, we were devastated.

One month later, on St. Patrick’s Day, I underwent the Whipple surgical procedure at Mayo Clinic, since scans had indicated no visible cancer anywhere but in the pancreas. They removed the tumor, as well as everything around it, after which I underwent 6 months of chemo. Scans at the half-way point came back clear.

We all rejoiced that the chemo seemed to be winning over the cancer! But three months later in November, after completing chemo, scans revealed cancer growing in three new places.

When Bervin and I met with my oncologist in December to discuss my options, she said every case was different, and she couldn’t tell me how mine would go. She just told me to report back when symptoms developed. As a result, my January scan appointment was moved to February. And since I’m still asymptomatic, scans have been put off indefinitely.

I know I still have cancer. And I haven’t yet decided if I even want to know how extensively. Without focusing on scans and stages and clinic appointments, there are actually days when I completely forget I have cancer. I even feel healthy. For this gift I thank God daily.

Several friends have told me they’re praying for a miracle of healing, but I’ve never felt led to pray for that. Others dwell on the fast-growing, doomsday nature of pancreatic cancer. I’ve thought a great deal about both extremes and have decided to land somewhere in the middle. The only perfect prayer is, “Your will be done, Lord.” And his will is what I want, live or die.

Sometimes I think about my having one of the most aggressive cancers that exists and am mystified that I feel this good. I’m leading a normal life, doing all the things I did before my diagnosis and meeting all my former commitments. And I’m feeling just fine.

I don’t know how long this will last, but I view these days as precious gifts from God, every one of them. I say it like that because one of the things he’s taught me is how to live one day at a time. It may sound clichéd, but this cliché is a valuable one.

That’s not to say there aren’t moments when knowledge of my cancer catches up with me (usually during the night), and I’ve wondered how much pain is ahead. I remember Margaret’s husband Nate struggling with the pain of his pancreatic cancer and can find myself getting shaky.

But at those moments I know what to do. I deliberately meditate on Scriptures that will calm my heart – like the 23rd Psalm: “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil” (which includes the evil of pain) “for God is with me.”

This promise and many others work to pull me away from worrying about my weakness, to focusing on the Lord’s strength. Anyone who’s had cancer knows that the overwhelming feeling is one of intense need. Cancer may make us shaky, but I am personally grounded on the Rock that cannot be shaken.

[ Tomorrow we’ll hear more from Mary. ]

“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” (Psalm 23:6)

Please stay.

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Muffin tinWhile Emerald happily played with my button collection and a couple of muffin tins, I studied something else in the mix: my husband’s shirt stays.

Nate liked his business shirts starched till they were almost stiff. When we were first married and he was still a law school student, washing and ironing the all-cotton shirts of that era wasn’t high on his agenda. So he wore a professionally laundered/starched shirt every day. When I hugged him, he crinkled.

Gradually I convinced him to let me do his laundry, and a bit of spray starch with an iron seemed to work just as well. Most of his shirts were button-down at the collar. Those tiny little buttons, almost too small for man-sized fingers, kept collars perfectly straight. But eventually cotton button-downs morphed into button-free collars on shirts made of soft perma-press fabric. That’s when the stays came in.

Buttons and staysEach collar corner had a tiny narrow pocket sewn into it, just big enough for a plastic stay. Those collar points would then stay perfectly flat and stiff…. without any starch.

Over the years I found scores of these stays in the bottom of my wash machine after Nate or I would forget to remove them before washing his shirts. That, apparently, was why they were made of indestructible plastic.

As I fingered those stays today I thought about how nice it would be if we had something like body-stays to help us stand up straight and defy gravity’s tug over years of time. Even better than that, though, would be spiritual stays.

If we had those, there’d be no such thing as backsliding in our faith or losing our first-love enthusiasm for the Lord. We’d never feel blue over a discouraging situation, because nothing could “wrinkle” our bright hope in Christ. In other words, our spiritual stays would work to keep our faith from “wilting,” no matter what was going on around us.

Of course if we consulted God about this, asking for the equivalent of spiritual stays, he’d probably say, “You already have the one spiritual stay you need, the one I gave you years ago. It’s actually a collection of stays that far surpasses even the biggest collection of buttons.

Stay here“They come in the form of my words, and they’re kept not in a baggie with buttons but in the safety of the Bible. If you tuck several of them into each of your days, responding to life according to what they say, your faith will never wrinkle or wilt. And if you’re willing to ‘stay’ with Me in that way, I’ll always ‘stay’ with you.”

 “If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all.” (Isaiah 7:9)

Stopped Short

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It’s the middle of February, and here in Michigan we are in the firm grip of winter. Tonight’s forecast is for 9 degrees, and the road in front of my house is coated with clear, crunchy ice. Though our 16” of snow has compacted itself in recent days, outside the windows it’s still a winter wonderland.

Fudge ripple beachThe beach is especially striking in winter, looking every bit like a movie set with its frozen hills and icy creek. Wild winds have blended sand and snow till the landscape resembles chocolate ripple cake batter.

Amidst all this frosty splendor I was recently amazed by a winter-time sight along a Wisconsin expressway.

Frozen mid-streamThe highway was framed by rocky cliffs that had had water gently flowing in mini-waterfall fashion. Because of low temps, the water froze mid-drop, creating striking sculptures of ice. I could hardly stay on the road for wanting to stare at these remarkable formations.

They reminded me of the way God sometimes stops us in our tracks. Maybe we’re heading in a wrong direction or making an unwise decision that will lead to no place good. In trying to spare us heartbreak or failure, he thwarts our plans in-the-now. We get frustrated and feel exactly like those icy waterfalls look: completely stuck.

Though we thought we’d been on our way to something good, changing circumstances rearrange our plans, and we get stopped short of our goals. Then, when we can’t see beyond our jammed-up present to a free-flowing future, we feel trapped. And when that happens, it’s easy to blame God:

We say, “You could have made a way for me, but you chose to stop me instead, and that makes me mad.”

The reality is that somewhere down the road, when we’re in the middle of unique circumstances we couldn’t possibly have foreseen, we’ll look back at our anger over being stopped “prematurely” and be grateful we were.

Winter timeThough we may not arrive to God’s good plan quickly, he does promise he has plans that will “prosper us and give us a hopeful future.” So, since he said it, we believe it…. even when everything around us is still frozen solid.

“Be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and per- fect.” (Romans 12:2)