All I Have is Cancer (and Jesus)
Recently, I heard a singer's voice that catapulted me back in time, to a former life, a life where my hopes and dreams were still alive and my future seemed bright and secure. But I didn't recognize the song and wondered if my memory was serving me correctly, so I used Shazam to verify the artist and identify the song. My memory was right about the singer - one of my favorites from years ago. But the song was unfamiliar to me and the title Shazam noted seemed significant to my current life, so apropos - Don't Miss Your Life.
It turns out the song is actually about a man who is busy climbing the corporate ladder but missing out on all the everyday moments in his family:
Things I had longed for would be taken from me - first motherhood, then marriage* - and, while I grieved their loss, I would eventually rally and dream new dreams. I became good at shifting my focus when one thing seemed not to be God's will for my life after all. There were hopes of forever love, children, career, adoption, missions work. And one by one, each of these has slipped through my fingers over the years. And lately, a few more things have slipped from my grasp.
I'm watching friends move to Uganda, where my heart has been since 2009, and it feels like they are living the life meant for me. Our son, whose entry into my life gave me an unconventional but beautiful kind of motherhood, is contemplating marriage and it feels like my one little dream come true is being given to another. And all I have is cancer.
If I'm honest with myself and with you, I'm angry over this. My heart of hearts wants more, believes I deserve more. Yet the heart is wicked and deceitful above all things (Jer. 17:9). Wrestling with my pain over these losses, I realize they have been idols in my life, things that I've pinned my worth and my happiness to.
I am currently reading Katie Davis Majors' new book, Daring to Hope. In the chapter I just finished, she shares about her friend Katherine, who dies despite Katie's pleas to God to let her live. This hits pretty close to home, reading in print about "Katherine's death." But Katie's ultimate recognition is mine, as well: "When we cannot find joy in our circumstances, we can find joy in God...We can rejoice not in what is going on around us or within us but because He is our strength and will continue to be" (p. 82).
He gives us more of Himself as we cling to Him through suffering. I've known this and experienced this and yet I keep shifting my hopes and dreams from one earthly thing to another. This morning, I read these words from Habakkuk 3:17-18 and personalize them:
Though the fig tree does not bud Though I have no children
and there are no grapes on the vines, and never know motherhood,
though the olive crop fails though all I hold dear is taken from me
and the fields produce no food, and life seems void,
though there are no sheep in the pen though my health fails
and no cattle in the stalls, and pain fills my days,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord, yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will be joyful in God my Savior. I will be joyful in God my Savior.
I don't know how to move forward in letting these idols move to their rightful places in my heart, leaving the foremost place for Christ, but I recognize it needs to happen. Maybe the first step is just loosening my grip on them and letting Christ gently remove them. I have God and He is one thing that will never change or slip through my grasp. Ultimate joy is mine because eternal life is mine. I just have to pass through this life to reach it. "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known" (1 Cor. 13:12).
*marriage to my first husband
It turns out the song is actually about a man who is busy climbing the corporate ladder but missing out on all the everyday moments in his family:
I missed the first steps my daughter tookBut to me, in the life I now live, these words seem mocking, especially sung in the voice of a singer I loved back in the day when I still had dreams of children and an ordinary, beautiful life. It felt like a list of all the things I've missed out on - babies and birthday parties, T-ball games and kindergarten tears, lost teeth and broken bones. I had been all prepared not to miss that life, but it missed me.
The time my son played Captain Hook in 'Peter Pan'
I was in New York, said 'Sorry son, Dad has to work'
I missed the father daughter dance
The first home run, no second chance
To be there when he crossed the plate
The moment's gone now it's too late...
Don't miss your life
Things I had longed for would be taken from me - first motherhood, then marriage* - and, while I grieved their loss, I would eventually rally and dream new dreams. I became good at shifting my focus when one thing seemed not to be God's will for my life after all. There were hopes of forever love, children, career, adoption, missions work. And one by one, each of these has slipped through my fingers over the years. And lately, a few more things have slipped from my grasp.
I'm watching friends move to Uganda, where my heart has been since 2009, and it feels like they are living the life meant for me. Our son, whose entry into my life gave me an unconventional but beautiful kind of motherhood, is contemplating marriage and it feels like my one little dream come true is being given to another. And all I have is cancer.
If I'm honest with myself and with you, I'm angry over this. My heart of hearts wants more, believes I deserve more. Yet the heart is wicked and deceitful above all things (Jer. 17:9). Wrestling with my pain over these losses, I realize they have been idols in my life, things that I've pinned my worth and my happiness to.
I am currently reading Katie Davis Majors' new book, Daring to Hope. In the chapter I just finished, she shares about her friend Katherine, who dies despite Katie's pleas to God to let her live. This hits pretty close to home, reading in print about "Katherine's death." But Katie's ultimate recognition is mine, as well: "When we cannot find joy in our circumstances, we can find joy in God...We can rejoice not in what is going on around us or within us but because He is our strength and will continue to be" (p. 82).
He gives us more of Himself as we cling to Him through suffering. I've known this and experienced this and yet I keep shifting my hopes and dreams from one earthly thing to another. This morning, I read these words from Habakkuk 3:17-18 and personalize them:
Though the fig tree does not bud Though I have no children
and there are no grapes on the vines, and never know motherhood,
though the olive crop fails though all I hold dear is taken from me
and the fields produce no food, and life seems void,
though there are no sheep in the pen though my health fails
and no cattle in the stalls, and pain fills my days,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord, yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will be joyful in God my Savior. I will be joyful in God my Savior.
I don't know how to move forward in letting these idols move to their rightful places in my heart, leaving the foremost place for Christ, but I recognize it needs to happen. Maybe the first step is just loosening my grip on them and letting Christ gently remove them. I have God and He is one thing that will never change or slip through my grasp. Ultimate joy is mine because eternal life is mine. I just have to pass through this life to reach it. "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known" (1 Cor. 13:12).
*marriage to my first husband
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