tiny tats.

When they radiate you, they do it in a big, loud machine called a "linear accelerator." You hop up on the tray, and lay down, and they line up their laser guides with the marks they've tattooed onto your skin in black ink. Then they get the heck out of there (because this stuff isn't good for your body, just like it isn't good for your cancer), and the accelerator starts to whir, and thwack, and thump. The red light above the door flickers on, "In Progress." You don't feel anything, except for extreme tiredness after a few sessions.

I felt the tattoos, though. They happened so fast. One moment I'm in the doctor's office, then, "Why don't you just go down now and get set up for the treatments?" Suddenly, at closing time, and still a little dazed from the diagnosis, there's some guy with an ink gun measuring my rear-end, murmuring, "This will only take a second. You're going to feel a pinch." He tattooed three little dots onto me, one on the side of each hip, and one on my lower back. I remember thinking about those terrible numbers they branded on at death camps. When I walked back out to a darkened, empty lobby, I threw a feeble joke to my Dad--when this is all over, I can turn them into mermaids, and dragons, and a picture of my mother. I think he smiled.

I tried to find those dots yesterday. I shouldn't have. I found one, and it made me so sick I knew I'd probably never look for them again. I hope that's not true. Some day, I hope to make peace with my tattoos.

I was reading in the Psalms the other day, and I came across these famous lines: "When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."

 Reading scripture PC (post-cancer) is a very different affair than reading it BC. Words that once were nice, or sweet, or mildly reassuring take on entirely different levels of intensity and meaning. These words have become something of an anthem for me, in dealing with the physical aspects of my cancer and surgery. "Your eyes saw my unformed body" becomes, "I saw your cancer, I saw those cells, I knew them." My days being ordained and written in advance tells me that God knew each doctor's appointment, each phone call, and biopsy, and test. There's nowhere this cancer can go that God hasn't been, and no twist this story can take that will surprise Him.

"Where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?"

Thankfully, nowhere.

My dots, they can't flee either. God knew them before the creation of the world, the day I got them-ordained, set out for me. Somehow, there's comfort in that.

He sees, and knows, and ordains even the tiniest things in my life.

had it and have it.

I had cancer.  I beat it.  I have it.  Because I don't know how to live without it.  Not yet, anyway.

That's the thing about being a new cancer survivor.  Like being a new cancer patient, it's new.  I didn't know then how to deal with the people around me asking questions, and trying to help.  I don't know now how to deal with them either, how happy they are, how ready to forget it all, because they don't have as much to remember.

It's not just about the people.  In fact, very little of this survivor stuff is about how to deal with loved ones.  It's more about myself.

I want to forget, because the stuff is horrific to me.  I think about it, and I cry.  Sometimes, I can't stop crying.  It's too much.  And it's not that I don't have hope, or that I don't have God, because I have both in tremendous measure.  But when you live on several months of stress hormones and vomiting, you're going to have a little post-trauamtic stress going.

I also want to remember.  Because I am fully and joyfully convinced that there are people in my future who need me to remember.  There are girls who need me to know that when they come to me, when God sends them, my heart should be strong and broken, and above words like, "You're gonna be fine!  Just trust in the Lord."  Those words are good and true, but so hollow to the ears of a new diagnosis.  It's possible that those girls will need my tears.  I don't want to leave those back here, when I need them ahead.

So there's a balance.  A strength to be found.  Gradually, I guess, my stress will come back to baseline.  Already, as I dig into scripture, He gives me truth--words that help me to bind my cancer experience to my life now in a way that makes sense, and builds my hope for the future.

My biggest hope is that some day I can say simply: I had cancer.  I beat it.

lace and sangria.

Lace, and anything peach-flavored, and sangria in a mason jar. Driving a little too fast. Music that's way too loud. Fireflies. That moment when you look around at your family or your friends or both, and they're laughing, and they're smiling, and they're just so damn alive, and you know that you might be the luckiest girl in the world.

I'm so grateful that I knew how much I treasured life before. People assume that cancer somehow makes you more grateful. That it opens your eyes, like the ghost of Christmas Past, and when you're suddenly pronounced cancer-free, that's when you start living.

But I lived before. And I'm so grateful, I could get down on my knees at every moment.

Someone told me that I'll always live a little scared now. That I'll get a headache, or a pain, and become gripped by the fear that the cancer is back--will I die this time? With all due respect to that person, whom I love and hold in great esteem, I won't live that way. Maybe you think I'm naive to believe that I can escape it.

But I won't blaspheme my God. I won't so lightly toss aside His promises, and His hope, and the incredible power He has to change my life, again. What's a little fear in the face of my salvation?

I have to tell you that I didn't feel this way so recently. I was so scared. I hated that I'd always have the terror of knowing what it's like to have everything shatter in an instant. One phone call at 8:46am on December 12. That's all it takes. And I thought, for a while, that this cancer would take my heart, at least, if it hadn't taken my body.

But, the sunshine. The love of so many strangers. The joy of so many so loved. The hope of what might come.

I loved these things before. I knew them before. I cherished them. And in returning to them, I return to my own heart, and there alone is God. Christ is alive in me, in us. Because He died, and then He rose, I don't have to live in fear of my own dying.

So...Bluegrass, and old hymns, and southern poets. Pretty shoes. Mystery novels, casseroles, the sky over Lake Michigan at sunset, an exceptionally great preacher...

a new testament.

I didn't want to ask her about my magnesium levels, or how much more chemo I'd have. After she told me the cancer had not spread, and I felt reasonably confident that the death sentence had been lifted, I didn't care right then to know about my anemia, or about what will happen in the next two weeks, or three or four. I just wanted to ask my oncologist whether life would ever be right again. Whether it would always be just a little bit darker.

I know now that it will be right again. Life will not always be as dark as it has felt in these months with cancer.

The thing about the cancer is that it gives you memories of images you can't not see, and of sensations you can't not feel. Being told that you have Stage 3 cancer, and that there's a 40-50% chance that you won't live past 31 or 32. Waking up in the hospital at 2am, throwing up on yourself, in too much pain for the nurse to help you out of your own vomit, sobbing, and telling her that you can't do it anymore, you can't make it through much more. Crying on the bathroom floor where you fell because you almost passed out in the shower. Realizing that you're too weak to do the things you've always done. These are the things that have haunted me. (Obviously they're haunting--that's written, unintentionally, in second person.) And for awhile, I worried that they'd always haunt me. That they'd make everything wrong, and dark, and irredeemable.

But then, standing in worship, the truth. He makes beautiful things. He has made beautiful things in my own life. I've seen it. I've talked about it. I've cherished it, and praised Him for it, and lived the joy that comes from such beauty. And guess what?

 He will make beautiful things again. In the same way that He brought beauty from the ugliness of some of what I've lived, He will bring beauty from this. The hope in that is overwhelming. The excitement of seeing that beauty come to be is...mind-blowing. It's breathtaking. It's redemption worked out in front of me. It is exceptionally awesome.

So, I no longer want to ask my doctor about the darkness. There's no need. With regards to the images and the sensations--I may not understand why God allowed all of it, but I am positive that He has a plan for it. And now, for the next while, this blog might just be a testament to what happens when God's hope is found, when He redeems the wrong, and the dark.

some other testament.

Tomorrow, I move from Springfield back home to Chicago. And the blog that began as a "testament" to my task of moving from Chicago to Springfield will continue on as some other thing, some other testament. My whole heart is broken. That's not bad. A few weeks back, square in the middle of my battle with this cancer treatment, I found myself in church, belting out one of my favorite hymns, It is Well with my Soul. And I found myself smiling. And crying. I sang the whole song in sobs and smiles. I'm so grateful. For all of this. I'm going home, to be with my family, and to get better treatment than I can get here. Such an incredible blessing. But I'm saying that through tears, because my life here is an incredible blessing. Kids, I'm saved. I'm saved, and I have known some of the best people anyone will ever know, and I have been given some of the best wisdom anybody will ever get, and as soon as I figure out how to use a flat iron to get my hair to do that fun, wavy thing, I'll have lived the perfect life, just send me to Heaven. Things have been hard. My faith has suffered. This cancer has taken me to the edge of everything I've known, and everything that I am. It's not over yet. But my gratefulness tells me that I still love God, I still live in awe of how He has changed me. As long as that is true--whether I am in Springfield, or Chicago, or Minneapolis, or St. Louis, or Timbuktu, or Pittsburgh--I will be in God's will.

fertility folly.

I can't have children. That's what the doctors say.

After 5 weeks of daily radiation blasting my cervix, and some intense implant radiation therapy, I am 100% useless as a baby-making mechanism.

When the doctor told me, I wasn't surprised. For years, I've known that I would not be able to give birth to my children. I don't know how, or why. But from the time that I was young, I knew. That's why I've always been so passionate about adoption.

I didn't know how it would happen, how I would find out. Would there be an accident? Would I find out while my husband and I were trying? I had no clue. But I knew. So, when the doctor told me, and then he waited for the reaction, it never came. I knew. I've always known. I wasn't upset. I want to adopt. I've always wanted to adopt. No bigs, doc.

Given all of that...there is one piece of "encouragement" that I wish would die a terrible death. It goes like this:

Me: [Just told someone all of the above and more.]

Well-intentioned conversant: "Aww, you know God can do miracles. Lots of women still have babies after these kinds of things."

Me: [The rest is in my head and goes like this]:

Um, hi. I just told you that I want to adopt. That adoption is a miracle to me. That if I should be blessed enough to meet the man with whom I can storm the world, and we should be blessed enough to give a child a life of Christ, and love, and wonder--that's what we're going to do.

Please don't be sorry. Don't give me that tone. Don't tell me about miracles. I'm a miracle. That He would choose me, and give me this life, is a miracle. I know. I'm not sorry. I don't use that tone with myself. Our child will not be in any way second best because Mommy had cancer, and she couldn't give birth. My family won't be second-class because we don't share genetics.

I know that people are well-intentioned, and caring, and encouraging. But in assuming that I need to hear about miracles, and prayers, that encouragement denigrates my passion for adoption, and it insults me and my future husband, and our child/ren. It acts as though child birth is the first and superior choice, and whatever I'll do--well, that'll be a compromise. And I don't feel that way!

This cancer came out of left field. And more things could. I could end up pregnant! But if I do, it won't be a better miracle. It'll be the same kind of miracle that drives me to adoption. And that child won't be a better one than my adopted children, but just as wonderful.

So...to anyone who has ever given that kind of encouragement, please join in the joy that I have, encourage me and build me in that. And to myself...don't ever forget what you've learned in this.

cancerous love.

Why having cancer is the best way to spend Valentine's Day...

I'm sitting on my couch eating chocolate-covered marshmallows.

But no, there's more.

Firstly, the marshmallows are on a stick. Every food on a stick is, like, 10 times better than its stick-less counterpart. Additionally, and here's the part that makes me superior, I can do it without diet shame. I lost 10 pounds last week. My doctor is ordering me to eat high-caloric foods with absolutely no nutritional fiber. And that's a sweet, chocolate-covered deal.

Also, unlike you, I don't have to lie my way out of a lame invitation to "get all dressed up and not even care that we don't have boyfriends!!" I'll be throwing up from chemo-nausea about the time that your singles sushi arrives, and that's the truth. Sorry, can't make it.

I can cry my eyes out to Boys II Men on repeat. I can pretend to be partner-waltzing around my kitchen. I can even text old dates, and drop things like, "Just wanted to let you know how much fun I had with you!" All without shame. All in the name of living life. Because when you have cancer, every moment is precious. Are you doubting me? Have you ever been told your odds? That's right.

Oh, so by the way, (A, I loved you; M, I still think about that evening in the park; J, I think it's obvious we should get married and be really funny and ministry-like for as long as we both shall live.) Yay, cancer!

Anyway, the real deal with having cancer on Valentine's Day is this: I have to assume that no Valentine's Day will ever be quite as awful as this one. Which does two things. Firstly, every lonely Valentine's before this one suddenly seems great. Man, I've lived a bunch of awesome cancer-less Valentine's Days! Secondly, next year is an endless well of heart-y hope.

And therein lies the magic. Something about the sudden wonderfulness of years past, and the promise of years to come makes this Valentine's Day just a little bit better. Maybe a lot better. Maybe that's the chocolate talking.

Happy Valentine's Day!

thank you.

My Dad missed the Lutheran confirmation class he teaches to be with me last week. When he returned, his 8th graders all asked him why he missed. What could be so important? He explained what was happening. And that night, as the kids prepared to write in entries for their "prayer tin," they gathered as a group a few feet from my Dad. Two of them stepped to the tin. When the prayers were read, my cancer was one of them.

I tell the story simply because it doesn't need to be told any other way. You just need to know what I know.

Love is humbling. So humbling.

I've learned a lot of things already in this process. I've learned that the physical intensity of the cancer fight will expose every weakness of faith. I've learned that letting people minister to you is an important ministry to people. That chicken noodle soup is heinously disgusting when vomited, and that throwing up cherry popsicle will give you the momentary terror of wondering why there's blood in the toilet.

The most enduring, though, the most overwhelming thing I've learned, is the humility of receiving love. When people you barely know are offering incredible encouragement, when a group of 8th graders are using their entries into the prayer tin to show solidarity with the sickness of their leader...

It's just so humbling.

I can't be eloquent about this. My tears are my eloquence. My heart is my eloquence. Words aren't good enough for the truth of it.

Those kids don't know, probably couldn't understand right now, how close they are to the heart of Christ. They inspire me. I'm so proud of them, and so in awe of them simultaneously. I find myself just lapsing into prayer for them--offering them the only thing I really can. Oh Father, raise up these boys as your leaders, bless them wildly, and without reason. Put favor and grace on their lives such that they are never far from the wisdom they know now--that selfless prayer and thought is the power of grace in their lives that will bring them through to the full glory of Your Kingdom.

In the meantime, I'm accepting the love, and the grace of not only these 8th grade boys, but all of the people who have been so steadfast in their encouragement. You all humble my heart. You make me a better follower of Christ, by reminding me of the love and humility that is the heart of Christ.

My words fail me.

Thank you. Thank you.

mighty in me. and in you.

I'm up early, taking meds to get a jump start on any of the expected symptoms of my chemo--today is supposed to be the bad day. I decided yesterday that it would not be.

Anyway, as I'm awake, drinking an energy supplement, and a boatload of water, and downing pills, I'm taking the time to read and respond to some of the many wonderful Facebook messages people are leaving for me.

And I'm crying.

At first, I thought I was crying from fear, or sadness. "Oh, I have cancer," would come to mind, as you read. But in my heart, I realized--I'm crying because I'm so grateful to God for what He's providing. So many wonderful people, so wonderfully willing to reach out and to offer well-wishes, and prayers, and support. It's overwhelming, and humbling, and undeserved. (Say what you want--it's entirely undeserved.)

Let me give you an example. A couple of days ago, I received an incredibly encouraging email from a friend of my Dad's. I've known the guy since I was a child, but we've never been particularly close, so as I read the words of this near-stranger, I cried openly--they were so raw, and wonderful, and powerful. "[Jesus] is mightier in you, more than you know," closed the letter, and that simple encouragement, that powerful reminder that there are those around me who know Christ better than I do, who have lived longer with Him, who can tell me with assurance that Jesus is mighty in me! That He is so much mightier than I can now know! That is some stuff! I felt blessed. Encouraged. God is so good.

As a sidebar, my Dad later told me a story of how the night that his friend heard of my illness, his prayer group was slated to be canceled, but the guy called his friends, and said no--we have something to pray about. And so somewhere in the cold, snowiness of northern Wisconsin, a group of stranger set about praying for me, a nothing in Christ 700-something miles away.

That's so humbling.

So...part of this process is thankfulness, or what you might call extreme gratefulness. God is providing what I couldn't dare provide for myself. I can't rally people towards me, but God has done so quickly. I can't give them the right words to speak, but He must whisper to their hearts.

It is humbling, but also glorious, to need. I'm glad to be learning this now. So that I might give that much more powerfully.

His and His alone.

At times over the past three weeks, I've felt so awful, I've prayed that God would take me. Then, knowing that the worst is really yet to come, I feel even more resolved. "Father," I've prayed, "I cannot take my own life, but would You protect me from the treatments, the pain, the restlessness, the sleeplessness, the fear? Would You take me now, before it really starts?"

I'm alive. Apparently--there's purpose.

Whatever anything is, it ought to be honest. So I'm giving you the real deal.

About three weeks ago, I found out that at 26, and with no risk factors, I have a cancer that gives me a 50-60% chance of life at the 5-year mark.

Immediately, I knew that I wanted to live this thing for God. Right at this moment, I know that strongly. But in between--I've lived a decade in only days.

I've been angry at God, doubled over in tears in the shower, shouting silently at Him about pain and promises. I've been ecstatic with Him, thanking Him over and again for the opportunity to praise Him in that same pain. I've fallen asleep on the bathroom floor, too nauseous to get to bed. I've cried openly as the nurse tries to find a vein, struggling to tell her that I just found out, I'm just so scared. I've learned that each person I know deals differently, and because each is so precious to me, it's worth it to figure out how to deal together.

I've been hopeless. And today, hope-filled. I've been humbled by the sheer number and force of the prayers storming heaven on my behalf. I've known, somewhere, that this is a powerful testimony if only I can keep faith. And I've felt, just as gently, that He'll keep my faith, as He keeps everything, so that in the end the final testimony is His and His alone.

It's easy to imagine that you love God when the first call comes. The oncologist says, "You have cancer," and you say, "God will give me peace." And then, you're violently throwing up a saltine cracker and a couple sips of ginger ale, thinking, "Jesus, some peace would be great right about nooowwww."

The truth is that if I praise Him, I do it because He rallies within me, and if I show strength, it's really His you're seeing, and if I seem at all courageous, Jesus is working a miracle. But I'll tell you something--if that's what this life of faith is about, if that's the secret to the incredible joy I see in the lives of life-long Christians, if that's what causes them to go out and give extravagantly, and live dangerously, and love courageously--this cancer is worth it.