The Easter Trilogy - Part III

Part III - New Again

I close my eyes and I'm back in time to 1992, wading in a swamp of sadness, anger, abandonment and loss. The future loomed unkind and unclear as I took the steps to annul a marriage.  I didn’t trust my own judgment, I couldn’t envision a family of my own, and I felt, as I put it at the time, that I’d lost my FDA seal of approval.   When the man who promises to love you leaves you, it follows that you’re unlovable.   Trudging through grief and introspection, I searched for solid ground.  I returned to Church and even went so far (it seemed extreme at the time) as to attend a healing mass to be prayed over and that's where this sweet memory was born.  An 80-year-old prayer warrior with his hand on my shoulder –

Honey, I don’t know your heartache but I know the Lord has a few words for you.  ‘Behold, I make all things new again’.

Fast forward, God built me my own little church - it's me, my soul mate for the past 22 years, our gentle-heart daughter, and two chihuahuas, sharing an abundant life.  My own journey is evidence of redemption, grace and rebirth.

I heard a priest once proclaim Good Friday is essential, do not wish away what foreshadows Easter. Call it a universal truth; the dark precedes the dawn. We will experience Good Friday and Easter repeatedly in our lives.  Each cross, no matter how small, demands that I die to self.   When life pushes me toward Calvary, God pours out His grace and changes me forever; I am new again. 

Yet experience and evidence doesn’t make the way of the cross less daunting…for anyone. Even our Lord struggled on the Way.  Simon lightened the load. Veronica's compassion moved her to gently tend to Him.  I witness anew this week that we also encounter Simon and Veronica on our way, from a friend's encouragement to a technician's reassurance. 

My discomfort was mercifully short lived but long enough to soften my heart in solidarity with those who don’t get the “all clear” and I am reminded that all suffering brings me closer to others and to the One who understands, who has lived it like no other.  

The gift from this four day Lenten journey?  Clarity - that we all get a chance - to help bear the weight, to suffer with, to serve, and yes at times, to be the one to carry the cross. But take heart - every Good Friday foretells the promise of Easter.   

I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! 
I have overcome the world.  ~ John 16:33. 

The Easter Trilogy - Part II

Part II -  The Cup
So this cup has passed.   Just a lymph node.   No biopsy, no cancer.  Giddy with relief, I joke with my girlfriends that the cute radiologist was the youngest man to touch my chest in years.   My interior world has lined up and righted itself and of course, I’m grateful. 

Perhaps this being Holy Week is a coincidence but this four day Lenten journey felt like 40 days in the desert – barren, lonely and dry, complete with you-know-who whispering lies in my ear.  It may seem counter-intuitive as a Christian not to have asked the Lord to work a miracle and heal what may be lurking in my breast.  Truth is I knew He may not and I didn’t want to be angry with Him.   I allowed a short visit to that murky place posing the question of the centuries – why a loving God permits suffering.    And it is all around - my cousin who lost his teen to a drunk driver, my neighbor who lost her child to a brain tumor, and my dear friend recently treated for breast cancer – the harsh truth that sometimes the cup doesn’t pass.   

Not even for God.   Alone in a dark garden, in fear so intense He sweats blood.   

I knew whatever the outcome He would use this opportunity to imprint something new upon my heart.  He is a God who wastes nothing.

It sinks in - the solitude of the garden, the heaviness of His heart, the intensity of His pain, the depth of His obedience, the breadth of His love, the enormity of His sacrifice.   What He gave for us.  What He gave for me.   For a short few days, the way of the cross stretched before me and I am humbled to feel my humanity in its entirety... 

Uh Lord, yeah, I love you.  I trust in you but really who am I kidding, I don’t want to follow you there.   

And somewhere a rooster crows...

The Easter Trilogy - Part I

Part I - Gethsemane

I begin this at the gates of my own Gethsemane.   Four days ago I got the dreaded call after a mammogram screening.

The doctor saw something.  We need you to come back for more pictures and possibly an ultrasound. 

Adrenaline and blood flood to my feet and I am quickly in panic mode.   Consulting Dr. Google, I find blogs, forums and articles aplenty on the dreaded “call-back mammogram.”  Evidently this is very common; statistics show a 60% chance of a call-back over a course of 10 screenings.  This is my lucky 13^th, so I guess the odds predicted this day would come.  According to the American Cancer Association, 90% of call-backs will result in “go home, everything is fine”.  The other 10% will go on for a definitive biopsy and 80% of those biopsies will be benign.  The stats rattle easily off the keyboard at this moment because after four days they are ingrained in my neuro pathways.  The odds are very good that this is just a quick blip on my way to old age.    And still my brain keeps returning to…

What if I am among the unlucky 2%...

which leads to...

Next Google search - types of cancers, stages of cancer and treatments.   And I wonder how treatment will affect my life.  I look for a silver lining.

Heck, I’ll just tell them to lop off both, get that C cup build-up I’ve always wanted and have United Healthcare pay for it.  Lemons from lemonade.  

But that also passes with the hours and I alternate from repeating the stats silently to whispering to my God just how frightened I am.

I could crawl up in my bed and pull the covers over me until the morning comes if I thought that will help but it won’t.  So I go through the motions, try to remember to eat something, act normal in front of my daughter and immerse myself in being a mother.  We spent yesterday shopping for a dress for her honor society induction.   It was holy.  The funny thing about these moments (and it’s not my first) is how quickly everything falls into perspective.  How the little annoyances mean nothing and a smile from my husband or a kiss from my dog mean the world.

Some moments I have this peace that I can handle whatever comes and other moments are just sheer terror of what I stand to lose emotionally and physically…my peace of mind, my hope, my boobs, my life…  

OK Lord, what have you planned here?  Will I be able to walk through what you call me to do?  Will I be this faith-filled Christian when I see a possible cross looming ahead?   Or will I pretend I don’t know you and feel abandoned?  And if I am healthy, what am I to learn from this?  

I try to leave it at His feet, put this keyboard aside and wait for the morning.