Second Verse

"You are so brave."
"I'm not brave, I feel scared all the time!"
"Well...it wouldn't be brave if you weren't scared."

- Bounce (the movie)

We are exactly five days away from surgery today...and I am scared. People keep telling me I am so brave for going through this or writing this blog. But, as the surgery date has been drawing closer, my feelings of scared has moved from sporadic to be all the time. But, I am forced to embrace "brave" whatever that is supposed to feel like. I can't help but keep thinking, "I just want this to be over already." But, that is just the immature part of me crying out to quit. My immaturity masked by fear and undesire to see this thing through. I just want my husband back, to how things were, so I don't have to pretend to be strong anymore. I just want to crawl in bed and pull the covers over my head and wait until this is finished. But, the problem with that is that I am mildly claustrophobic, so I can't even stand to feel my breath around my face for long until I freak out and have to throw the blankets off and inhale wildly again. But, I do feel that way right now, that things are edging closer around me. I can feel the walls of compressed time slowing surrounding me. I can feel the warm stench of my breath hovering in front of my face, making me so anxious I cannot breathe normally. It is like when you have to use a public restroom, and you prepare yourself by breathing through your mouth before you even hit the entrance door. You breath that way to protect yourself from inhaling any foul remnants left from strangers before you. I feel this way. Like I need to keep breathing this way, to not take in any of the pungent smells and mess of cancer on the walls around me. After my first semester at college, I was diagnosed with a reading disability. I had been told I had tunnel vision, which is the exact opposite of dyslexia. My eyes were so tightly focused, that I could literally only see one word on an entire page at a time. So, I could read fine word-by-word, but I couldn't extract what I was reading because I couldn't connect the words together to give them meaning. I remember when I was evaluated, the doctor said when I began to read aloud, I pulled book closer to my face, tensed up my shoulders and held my breath. He could see my head actually moving side to side with each line that I read out loud down the page. I think I still read my life like that sometimes...and especially now. I feel like I am walking around with my shoulders tensed up to my earlobes, shifting from side to side with all the huge decisions I have to make, and holding my breath just panting after each sentence for this to done...and, one of my biggest fears is that I am not properly extracting the meaning of this all in my life. People go through such huge trials in their lives, and find such deep meaning and purposes for their futures from it. I still don't feel like we have a clue why we are going through this and where is will take us...and I am scared we might miss it completely.

Last night, my girlfriends told me, when I shared this fear of missing our purpose for this journey, not to worry now because all that usually comes through retrospection. But I said, "But when is that? When do we hit a finishing point to be able to look back? Because we feel like we are going to be battling cancer in some form for the rest of our lives, so when can we say this is really over?" After meeting with the surgeon, J and I felt today that we are only approaching the starting line in the race now. We feel like all the pain and suffering these past months were just the pre-torture before the "real" race begins. We both feel a bit daunted looking at the miles of winding road laid out for us, knowing we have a long ways to go from here with no end in sight. In five days, our lives will be changed forever...and not like it hasn't been already, but we will have the scars to prove this has really happened to us.

We met with the surgeon today for the last time before Monday. It was a hard meeting. The surgeon was pleased that the tumor has shrank, but still has concerns. The tumor has not come away from the tailbone, and where it is attached, it still may be deemed inoperable to remove all of it. It is still about size and location that makes J's surgery a difficult one. Depending on what they find, we are looking at at least six months more of chemotherapy after surgery.

I just have no comfort right now, and I cannot create it for myself anywhere. I just feel like GOD is far away, and my feeble attempts to pray, which come out in one word sentences of "Help." and "Stop.", make me feel even weaker. I have never been in this place before. I am a feeler and I cannot "feel" GOD anywhere near my vicinity right now. I just feel like He is in a distant place, and His goodness hasn't changed, I just cannot feel His surrounding Presence near me. And, I don't feel like darkness is encroaching in on me, because I feel like GOD is watching all this from afar. I feel like there is nothing around me at all. Like the barreness of my surroundings is part of the pain because I am left with the denseness of the suffering inside of me to work out in this place of nothingness. I am not sure if I am where I am suppose to be or if I should be throwing myself into the ways I used to know how to find Him when my world was full and right. But, nothing is bringing any comfort at all. For the first time in my life I can truly say I feel, desperate. I used think I was "desperate" for GOD. That I was pursuing Him with a passionate love, in my desperation, to want nothing else in my life but Him. Now, I realize it was a self- created desperation, glorified by my wanting to experience how it felt to be blessed by His Presence. But, now I can truly say I am desperate...white knuckle, nail scratching, waiting for GOD to draw near desperation for this to be taken all away. We sing this song in church, "Blessed Be Your Name"

Blessed be Your name
When the sun's shining down on me
When the world's 'all as it should be'
Blessed be Your name

Blessed be Your name
On the road marked with suffering
Though there's pain in the offering
Blessed be Your name

Every blessing You pour out
I'll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name

You give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord, blessed be Your name

(Blessed Be Your Name by Matt Redman)

I remember at the beginning of summer, our Pastor was teaching on joy. He said it was like a muscle that needed to be worked out....that we need to CHOOSE joy to experience joy. The message instantly resonated in my spirit, and I put it into practice. I stopped all complaining and began choosing joy in my daily life. I remember one service, during worship, we sang this song and I just beamed singing the first verse about the sun shining down on me and the world is all that it should be, and I thought, "I have nothing to complain about right now. My life is so good." At the end of summer, when our cancer journey began, we sang this song again. I remember I couldn't even sing. I just found myself weeping and thinking, "How did I get in the second verse? We are now on a road marked with suffering and painful offerings. How am I now in the second verse?" As we sang the bridge, I remember accepting that GOD does give and take things away. And, even though He could take it all away in a moment, I was ready to be given this great task put in our hands. I still cannot sing through the song right now, and during the bridge all I can think is, "Just take it away, GOD. Just take it all away."