One of the things I love about writing is it allows you to look into things that you may not understand – you may not feel like you have control over them. It feels vulnerable: I’m gonna write about this but I don’t really know what this means or how this works but I’m just gonna go into it anyway and try to stay present and responsive and try to tell the truth. And trust that somehow if I just start walking in this direction that this is gonna go somewhere. And I don’t know where it’s gonna go but I’m gonna trust that in some sense that I’m moving toward a face – that this does go somewhere and there is someone inviting me forward. And if that’s the case, then I’m going to be met in this at some point – and I am maybe already surrounded even though I don’t know it. I am maybe already held. – Matthew Clark, songwriter and musician

Hello. Here I am again. I am writing on this blog for the first time in almost a year. And the question that keeps dogging me is ‘why’? Why do I feel the need to produce words and send them out into the universe? What degree of arrogance makes me think my words are going to be helpful, necessary, or beautiful in the world? Is it the understandable but pitiably desperate ploy of the cancer patient attempting to wrench some meaning out of apparently meaningless suffering? Is it the control freak within grasping for agency over the narrative? Or perhaps a semi-narcissistic need to feel like a Shakespeare – to exploit my circumstances to finally get one or two readers for my inner ramblings. 

All of these are probably partially true. And these are the reasons why I haven’t written for almost a year. I didn’t want them to be driving.

And yet, there is something deeper still under the surface. Something innate to me – to my way of breathing. I wrestle myself into meaning within the written word. The Word, after all, spoke all of us into existence. And I think He still does, in the continuous act that is creation. I haven’t been able to stop writing, during my break from this blog. I haven’t been able to separate my self from the scratchings that devour my page – or rather – a collation of random pages in random notebooks that I keep on hand circulating between my handbag, my backpack, my bedroom, my study, my car. I write in order to pray. I write in order to think. I write to lament, to pour out my pain, to worship, to delight. I write in order to bleed out the messiness of my soul on a page so that I can see it and weep. And perhaps repent. And maybe even pause long enough to listen. 

And I realise that, perhaps, I have not been writing here because I wanted to wait until I was perfect – or at least inspirational. Until I’d figured something out. Until I had something that felt worth saying. But I am starting to think that perhaps I will never get to the place of arriving. And maybe that’s OK. So, here I go again. I’m back. And I’m going to try and share, with what truthfulness I can bear, the messiness of the journey. 

xo

(largely plagiarised from a combination of prayers found online, plus some songs I love, plus some of my own additions)

Lord,

We give you this past year

With all the delight and sorrow,

all the pain and love and longing it has held for us,

and we ask you to hold it for us- gently, safely.

Lord, you make all things new

You bring hope alive in our hearts

And cause our spirits – and this whole world- to be born again.

Thank you for this new year.

Thank you that you are already in it

– resurrecting and renewing-

and bringing deep restoration.

Walk beside us, O Holy One,

As we question and welcome

As we challenge and invite

As we learn and share our learnings

As we bleed and as we heal

As we doubt and as we trust

As we grieve and as we hope

As we see, touch, taste, smell, and listen.

Let us be hidden

In the safety of your love.

We trust your heart and your intentions.

Where we trust you, we don’t need to understand.

We choose to dive into your ocean of love,

to the place where it is safe

– even freeing-

to surrender control of the narrative.

And, where we struggle with doubts and with fears

We ask that you hold us, even more closely.

This is your world

And we give this year to you to carry.

As we embark on 2023, with all that it holds for each of us,

We place our hands

In your big ones, Papa.

Amen

This morning the sun was shining. The Melbourne summer seemed to be poking its head out from under the covers, just for a moment, and – perplexed – the weather was throwing some sort of excited hormonal gale. I was sitting at a cafe in Pakenham – the only hipster cafe that Pakenham boasts, drinking my espresso with a heaped tablespoon of double cream, chatting to my friend and trying to figure out how to approach the reality of my existence.

I started down one train of thought. I’m finding that I feel very ‘high-stakes’ about everything that happens this Christmastime. My sister and her husband threw a Christmas party last night and hubby and I were an hour and a half late because we had puppy school. I was a complete mess in the car on the way there; my mind was going at a hundred miles a minute: this might be the last time I ever get to do Christmas with my family, perhaps this is the last time I get to be a big sister at Christmas, the last opportunity to prepare for festivities with my sister – to enjoy the way she loves to create fun and hospitality. Perhaps this is the last time I will get to affirm her for who she is in this space – to celebrate and delight in and with her. Tragically, this is not an irrational thought; medical experts have told me that it is fairly likely to be so. When I think like this, everything is agonisingly painful, from the luscious ponytail on a model in my travel magazine to the frantic shoppers at Fountain Gate whose main focus is on how to find a carpark. When I am in this narrative, everything is a reminder of what I have been told I will lose – I am an orphan, crying on the edge of the party – abandoned and seemingly forgotten by my Creator.

And yet, with some paradigm hyper-space jumps, I can hop on a different pair of tracks. What is Jesus singing over me? He is telling me that I’m not abandoned. That I am beloved.

Arise, my dearest. Hurry, my darling. 

Come away with me! 

I have come as you have asked

to draw you to my heart and lead you out.

For now is the time, my beautiful one.

The season has changed,

the bondage of your barren winter has ended,

and the season of hiding is over and gone.

The rains have soaked the earth 

and left it bright with blossoming flowers. 

The season for singing and pruning the vines has arrived. 

I hear the cooing of doves in our land, 

filling the air with songs to awaken you

and guide you forth.

Can you not discern this new day of destiny

breaking forth around you?

The early signs of my purposes and plans

are bursting forth. 

The budding vines of new life

are now blooming everywhere.

The fragrance of their flowers whispers,

“There is change in the air.”

Arise, my love, my beautiful companion,

and run with me to the higher place.

For now is the time to arise and come away with me.

For you are my dove, hidden in the split-open rock. 

It was I who took you and hid you up high

in the secret stairway of the sky.

Let me see your radiant face and hear your sweet voice. 

How beautiful your eyes of worship

and lovely your voice in prayer

Song of Songs 2: 10-14

‘And how do I make sense of these two paradigms?’, I ask my friend.

‘Well, I guess’, she says, ‘you have to hold onto hope while at the same time being realistic’.

She says this, and my heart immediately sinks. I know what she means. I know that she means that it is not good to be delusional – and I don’t want to be delusional. But, in situations like mine, where is the line between delusion and hope? Hope is air. When you have been told that there is no hope of recovery, how do you live in the truth without letting the hope of recovery become beaten out of you?

I do not feel that it is right for me to fully accept the prognosis of the oncologists as my future. I am convinced that the train has not yet left the station. I am convinced that Jesus is driving the train and it won’t budge a single inch until he lets it. I’m not saying that I think they are factually wrong or statistically misinformed. I am just saying that there is a lot they really don’t KNOW and one of those things is what will happen to me. I grin wryly as I tell my friend that I don’t really believe that I’m a ‘dead cert’ here! I’m not sure she finds it very funny.

And as I drive home with my heart beating far too fast, I ponder what it means to be ‘realistic’. The word, I think, carries a lot of baggage for me (as all words really do in their own way). When someone tells you to ‘be realistic’, it is generally in the context of an admonition – a warning or a frustrated plea to let go of rampant idealism and ‘live in the real world’. No one tells you to ‘be realistic’ because you are not dreaming hard enough or hoping for enough good in the world – it is usually about reining in a dream, plan, or expectation of goodness with the understanding that the world itself is broken.

So, in the context of my life expectancy, I suppose the phrase ‘be realistic’ could mean ‘don’t hope too hard or expect too much that you will live’. This presents a bit of a conundrum for me. Because:

1.) I don’t want to be running, afraid of death, deluding myself that everything is fine and failing to make the most of the moments I have left on Earth. I can’t deny that medical experts have concurred on a pretty grim prognosis.

2.) I truly believe I might get better – and I know that, physiologically, the belief that I will get better will help me to get better. I am reading stories of people who have recovered from the same prognosis as mine and I truly believe that I could also.

3.) I don’t feel sick. I keep saying this over and over as if it’s a complaint – I mean – I’m glad I don’t feel sick – I’m really scared of starting to feel sick – but it just messes with my mind that I don’t feel sick and yet everyone seems to be telling me that I really am!

4.) I really do believe in supernatural healing. God might heal me. He maybe already has. Or maybe already has started and it will be a process.

5.) When I sense God’s voice and presence, I am bathed in hope and my spirit comes alive and rejoices. I really do believe that God has good and beautiful plans for me here. They involve me being a victor and not a victim. They involve me dancing over fear of death. They involve me deeply knowing that I am beloved – not abandoned.

And so, when I meditate on the meaning of the word ‘realistic’, I realise that no one has ever said it from a place of complete objectivity. ‘Real’ is a very subjective concept, despite what we tend to think. What is more real? The physical world I see around me or the spiritual forces that I am told move beneath the surface? The fact that I am going to die one day or Jesus’ declaration that I will never die? What is more real – the fact that I have cancer or the fact that I am an eternal being who is experiencing cancer in a very temporary way? What does ‘being realistic’ look like in an eternal sense? For some people in The Bible, it looked like asking Jesus to raise their family members from the dead, like five loaves of bread feeding five thousand men, like a virgin falling pregnant with the Son of God.

And as I think about how to ‘be realistic’ with my expectation of living this life, I am no closer to an answer than where I started. All I can say is, it seems realistic, to me, to continue to have hope – hope of living, both in this world and the next – hope of laughing, and surfing, and having fun, hope of continuing to write and dance and teach, hope of being with the people who I love. And in order to step into this hope, each day, I have to stop and become undone and open myself up to the one who can truly show me what is ‘real’, and allow him to redefine my reality, and give me the gift of walking forward in both in hope, and being truly ‘realistic’.

“Once the Shepherd stooped and touched the flowers gently with his fingers, then said to Much-Afraid with a smile, ‘Humble yourself, and you will find that Love is spreading a carpet of flowers beneath your feet’.” (Hinds Feet on High Places, Hannah Hurnard)

It is easier, I think, to live outside of ‘the blessing’ (as Henri Nouwen calls it) – easier to live in a place where we feel abandoned. That is the narrative that is screaming out at us from the world in which we move. It is easy for me, right now, to feel that this narrative is even louder – even more convincing – than for anyone else. Everywhere I turn in my life, people are experiencing blessing; they are planning their families, they are reading books about advancing their careers, they are dreaming of adventures, expecting to live long enough to embark upon them.

I, on the other hand, am in this liminal, in-between, space. I feel full of life and bursting with possibility, and yet I have been told I will be dying soon. I was at a Christmas brunch for our church small group this morning. There were four couples, two of which had just had a new baby, and one of which was pregnant. Naturally, the conversation turned to children and babies and parenting. None of the people there were insensitive to me and nothing was said that was hurtful or inappropriate, and yet, even while I was laughing and joking, I felt that I was almost separate from everyone, watching myself from afar. Physically, I was a 32 yr old woman, sitting in a hot pink dress and sparkling with delight at the new babies. But somewhere inside I was running around confused, like a horse that is trapped and has nowhere to run, nowhere to expel her excess energy and rage at being confined unexpectedly – at being unable to do what it was born to.

And my question is – how do I reconcile this rage, this terror, this pain with the idea that I am ‘not abandoned’? I feel somehow, in my spirit, that Jesus is telling me ‘you are front and centre of my gaze’. Somehow, I know this with a deep knowing, somewhere inside of me. I know that I need to focus upon this truth, to grow it, to allow it to consume me – to become bigger than what I can see around me.

I also know that the question ‘why’ will never help. It is not really a question – it’s a cry of pain. I got stuck in ‘why’ for at least a decade – and it was a dead-end – He doesn’t seem to answer it.

I have very few answers today and a lot of questions. I’ve been sitting here, waiting for the pain and the doubt and the grief to diminish but it seems to be lingering – like a fog with no wind.

But I do feel life in these words that I am reading. I don’t know why I am sitting in this space, and I don’t know why He is not clearing it, but at least some part of me believes I really am ‘front and centre’ of His gaze – and I know that here is life.

I felt it just now in the friend who just mowed our front lawn. When I felt the rush of guilt and my insides screwed up in shame, I decided to humble myself, to accept the help, and to be grateful for being loved. I felt it in the neighbours from across the street who just brought over a Christmas present and kept repeating that we should ask for ‘anything – anything at all’ that we needed from them. I see it in the way that an older couple from church are giving up their time, making a priority of coming over to share a meal with us and to be here emotionally in our journey.

And so I will get up from this computer now, still uneasy, emotions unresolved, circumstances still very much unexplained, and start to look for the wildflowers scattered at my feet.