Category Archives: Jesus

It's Simple But it's Good

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Six years of education centered around theology, eight years of college level education overall, working in Portugal as a missionary for two years, working for six years starting a new faith community, and beginning a new and different movement here in downtown Vancouver…and my greatest insight, the thing that has struck me the most, what I’ve learned most through my crisis with cancer is that the “good news” is…well…good. When it’s lived out (particularly when it is lived out radically) it is tangibly good to those who experience or observe it. For someone who considers themselves a follower of Jesus this should be common sense, “duh”, obviously, of course-type of information. And yet, and yet…AND YET it is not so commonly experienced! I see far too many people who are followers of Jesus and yet seem to not experience the goodness of it themselves! They equate following Jesus with going to church, they equate it with a system of rules, with a system of morality, etc. While I believe church is a part of the goodness of following Jesus, and while I believe that Jesus invites us to say “no” to certain things…the reality is that when those things are the core to your belief I think you’ve missed the boat! You’ve missed what’s so good about the “good news”.  Going to church isn’t good news–being a part of a community of people who love you no matter what, who will be honest with you, who care for you, and who invite you to learn to reciprocate–that’s good news! Understanding yourself by what you say no to is not good news to anyone (unless you’re a seeker of control)–but learning to say no to things that are destructive to self and others–that’s good news!

Simply put, good news is good. Its tangibly good. It’s noticeably good. It’s nearly irresistibly good. It’s attractively good. And it took me getting cancer to really believe, see, and experience this.

Jesus invites us into a life that the Bible refers to as gospel (good news) and I hope it doesn’t take you getting cancer to truly and honestly believe it in all its beautiful simplicity.

Reflections from Camp

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Yesterday turned out to be quite the day full of surprises. The family got up early and readied ourselves to drive up to Camp Yamhill and crash the camp that happens every labor day weekend called Faith Quest. It’s a gathering of 500 teens and chaperons up in the beautiful forest centered around the simple message of Jesus. It’s not one of those freaky camps they make documentaries about but a genuine and valuable expression of community gathered around a common hope. But to be honest our family was headed up there for the day ’cause there were about thirty or forty people I wanted to hug and we knew we could pawn off my kids on grandma and grandpa who were up there already.

Driving up to the camp was surreal because it was one year ago at this exact moment that I was a keynote speaker engaging in dialog with these kids about Jesus–but what was surreal was to realize how much has changed between now and then–to realize how little was known at this exact moment one year prior. It was a strange feeling.

Within moments of arrival we were overwhelmed with hugs, with love from a community that we only seem to see on Facebook, and it was overwhelmingly glorious. Thank you!

Within the first forty-five minutes I was asked if I would share with the camp some of my story from the last four months. It caught me off guard a bit, but at the same time I realized that it would be the first time in this whole process (at least post surgery) that I’d actually spoken publicly in any format. It felt right and there was no doubt in my mind that I needed to share.

Sitting on stage with my wife three hours later it was cathartic to be able to tell the teens that life sucks sometimes (or rather to claim with the teens the reality that life is effed up. Teenagers know this already don’t they? What person in their right mind wants to go back to being in high school or jr. high?) Like I’ve blogged about I went ahead and asked the question “where’s the hope?” Is there only hope in healing? Can there be hope in death? And we talked candidly for twenty minutes about my God’s promise to transform ashes into beauty, sorrow into joy, crap into something beautiful. The hope is in the story that God is able to tell if we let him in the midst of the good, the bad, and the ugly of life.

I don’t know if any kids heard me or if there was anything to hear, but it was good for me…and I think that’s enough.

Then those stupid kids passed around stupid buckets collected up a couple of thousand of dollars in about ten minutes time to help cover our medical costs. Seriously? What kind of teens have that cash? And why do people keep giving so generously to us? And why do I still hate it? (this is me trying to say thank you…I’m still learning)

Our kids had so much fun and played so well that eventually we just put ’em to be and Jess and I stuck around ’till midnight (long 1.5 hour drive home though!). While the kiddos slept we sang lyrics that made me cry like a baby ’cause I was still thinking a lot about death.

“Blessed be your name when the road is marked with suffering, when there’s pain in the offering blessed be your name.”

“There’s a stirring deep within me, could it be my time has come? When I’ll see my gracious savior face to face when all is done.”

“Wake up O sleeper, rise up from the dead and the light of Christ will shine.”

What an unexpected day filled with surprises. Thank you.

 

Everyone Deserves to be Loved

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I post this about every two years…and it’s time again. Fred Rogers beautifully captures what it means to follow Jesus, to live a life of love, and to honor the image of God in every single person. He may not use Jesus-y language but he lives it out and it’s inspiring to say the least.

Enjoy.

Top 15 Things I've Learned About Fighting Cancer

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(I could have typed a list of twenty…but here are fifteen in no specific order)

  1. Having a good medical clinic with not only doctors that you trust but a supporting staff that serves as your advocate is huge (thank you Northwest Cancer Specialists!)
  2. Physically and emotionally things can swing from amazingly wonderful to hell and back in a matter of hours. Finding that tension between living in the moment and realizing that it truly is just a moment is both important and difficult.
  3. Learning to be honest with yourself and with others about how you feel (both good and bad…though for me being honest with self and others about the bad was much more difficult) is hugely important not only for support but also for your health.
  4. Prayer works. I don’t mean to say that it works like some amulet or charm, that it’s a hocus pocus trick that if you get enough people praying you’re going to make it. But God does speak, he does act, and he does value our voices. In all of my healing (both emotional and physical) prayer has been central…and it makes a difference.
  5. I’d rather be sick than be the caretaker. This is harder for my wife than it is for me and she deserves all the grace, pampering, and vacations I can muster to show her how grateful I am.
  6. A loving and capable wife/caretaker covers a multitude of sins. If it weren’t for Jess I would not be doing as well as I’m doing now. I wouldn’t have always remembered or had the strength to take my meds and do the things I need to do to bring healing. From shots in the belly to chicken noodle soup, from acupuncture in my feet to being my private chauffeur she has covered every base and done it without complaining or faltering even once. Simply amazing.
  7. Being positive is generally easy when you’re constantly showered with support from a loving community.
  8. Being prayed over by your doctors is kind of surreal. Both my oncologist and my naturopath have held my hands and prayed over me in their office. It was a trip and it was pretty damn cool. Not only have both of these two docs prayed over me but they are actively working in partnership together (a very rare thing). What a blessing!
  9. Setbacks are a part of the mix but they don’t define it. Blood clots, pulmonary embolisms, side affects, headaches, vomiting, constipation, weight loss and weight gain, swelling, rashes, etc. came and went (though some seem to linger at times) but they are not the focus. It gets easy to be caught up in these ‘little’ things and forget the real task at hand: killing cancer.
  10. I’d rather be in pain (to an extent) than be constantly overwhelmed with exhaustion. When you’re so tired that you cannot physically function in any way and your brain is in a constant cloud its quite debilitating. At the same time, however, it doesn’t ‘feel’ like anythings wrong. I like that when I’m in physical pain I feel like I’ve got something to fight against, an enemy to beat. The exhaustion stuff was hard on the emotions and soul.
  11. Waiting is what you do. It’s just a part of it whether you like it or not. You wait for results, you wait for recovery, you wait in doctors offices, you wait…wait…wait. Get used to waiting.
  12. There are three ways that we have been blessed by people’s help: Routine, random, and offered. The routine help has been a lifesaver (no joke, i don’t say that lightly); knowing that someone will help us pick up our house on a few specific days a week allows us to focus on things like expending the little energy we have with our children instead of the dishes. Routine help has been wonderful. The spontaneous/random stuff has been great too: when people showed up with cups of coffee early in the morning or pints of ice cream in the evening, when people randomly watered our failing garden outside because they noticed it needed to be done…this kind of stuff brought tears to my eyes often. Finally (and I don’t say this in a jaded way) anytime people offered to help (even if they were unable to follow through) it was a blessing to be genuinely cared about. Even when it did not come to fruition the offers mean something to me and I am grateful.
  13. Supportive parents (on both sides) is such a gift. We couldn’t have gotten this far without our family (siblings included!!). Enough said.
  14. You don’t know what works…and you probably never will. If (when) the cancer is gone I won’t know if it’s because of your prayer, the natural supplements I take, the hydro-therapy I do, the positive energy in our life, the radiation, the chemo, the things I’m doing to make my body more alkaline, the food I eat, the acupuncture treatments, or something else! Most likely the answer is “all of the above” but all I can do is to keep doing the next most right thing.
  15. A story is always being told. In death, in life, in sickness, and in health our lives are telling a story. I hope my story is defined by its inclusion in one larger than itself (larger than myself!) that includes love winning, death being overrun, and peace reinging free. And I hope that regardless of my life situation the story I live is consistent with its inclusion in the larger narrative.

The Wandering Daughter: a short story (part one?)

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I wrote the following short story a few years ago for a worship gathering with my old faith community. (And I’ve shamelessly borrowed bits and pieces from different stories I’ve interacted with in the past) I’ve posted this on my blog before but the reason I am reposting it today is because I’ve had some new insights to the story. My goal was to write a follow up piece to post on the blog tomorrow in order to better flesh out and better tell the rest of the story…but I’m not sure I’m able to accomplish this feat…we’ll see…tomorrow.

I grew up in a good home, and I’m not just saying that, it really was a loving environment where both my parents cared for me and told me that they loved me often. As a little girl I was especially close to my dad. We would go on dates together, just he and I; he’d take me shopping at the mall even though he hated shopping. He said it made his wallet and his ankles hurt. Sometimes we’d just go out for ice cream and he’d dare me to get the biggest ice cream sundae they had, you know the one with 10 scoops that comes in a trough. We’d talk a lot over ice cream, and he’d always end the date by looking me straight in the eyes and saying that he loved me. My dad was amazing and I loved him very much.

But something changed my senior year. I shouldn’t say “something”, but I should say I changed. My dad was still loving toward me and my family was still near perfect, but I started exploring some new choices in life. I got a boyfriend who was quite a bit older than me. He was 25 and I was only 17. My friends at school said it was a pretty cool thing to date a guy so mature, but my parents told me it was a bad idea. I really liked Alex, that was my boy friend, and it infuriated me that my parents didn’t want us to be together. We loved each other…I thought. The moment that Alex and I started dating a chasm began to separate my parents and I. The relationship that was so close between my dad and I earlier on in my life became a distant memory. My dad still told me that he loved me but I would just scream back at him “if you really loved me then you’d let me and Alex be together!” I was so full of anger and frustration that I felt like a volcano building with pressure ready to explode at any seismic shift. Alex introduced me to a lot of new things that I had never tried before. I lost my virginity to him. We’d go to parties and get wasted on alcohol I’d never even heard of (which honestly doesn’t say much!). Alex always laughed at how innocent I was. At those parties I smoked marijuana for the first time, they all told me it wasn’t a big deal, but I knew that if my dad found out he’d be disappointed.

Right around the time I turned eighteen my family all went up to the cabin like we did every year. I said I didn’t want to go, that I was too old for that and had better things to do. Right before they left I lifted my dad’s credit and debit cards from his wallet and while they were gone I moved into Alex’ apartment. By the time my family got back I had withdrawn a bunch of money and maxed out a few of his credit cards. I don’t remember what I bought with it—probably lots of random shit.

Things with Alex went well at first, but after a few months I got pregnant. I was kind of freaked out and excited all at once with the idea of bringing new life into the world, but he was furious. How could I even think of keeping the baby he asked me? He called me a lot of names and hit me for the first time. I’ll never forget terminating that pregnancy, I felt dirty. And relieved. And the fact that I felt relieved made me feel dirty again. Honestly I didn’t know what to feel but with each subsequent abortion I had less and less feeling. Eventually I got numb and as the numbness increased so did the substance.

I don’t remember a whole lot over the next five years. I remember that I hated myself. I was addicted to so many different substances that I could barely even function in society. Alex and I didn’t last too long, but because of my need for a next high I had to find someone else to support me. I couldn’t keep a job but I had to keep up with my drug use so I ended up getting together with another guy, Josh. Like I said, I don’t remember a whole lot during this time, but I do remember that Josh was pretty nasty. He got me into stripping so that I could “do my part”. He’d have a lot of girls stay over, but he always told me that I was his first choice. He told me that I needed him, that the only reason I got a job stripping was because he knew the club owner. Josh said I was ugly and that I couldn’t get a job a gas station let alone at a club if it wasn’t for him. Eventually he had me sleeping with different buddies of his. It got him some extra money to fill his tumbler with more Jack he said. I felt pretty ugly both inside and out so I did whatever I could to forget who I was and where I was.

The next solid thing I remember in my story is kind of strange. I was completely high but from somewhere deep inside I gained some remnant of my dignity. I told Josh that I wasn’t going to sleep with his friends anymore; I told him I was better than that. Saying that set Josh off and he beat me so bad that you wouldn’t have been able to recognize me. I finally looked as terrible on the outside as I felt on the inside.

Once my face healed up a little bit, I found that I didn’t have anywhere to sleep ‘cause Josh had kicked me out, I didn’t have any income ‘cause who wants to watch a scared up woman dance, and so I didn’t have any way to feed my addictions. My past was like a mirage, I could barely even see it anymore. I hadn’t seen my family in years, and I knew that they must hate me completely. But the only idea I had was to call my parents and ask for some money. There was no other option. So I called my parents…three times. And each time I got the answering machine. The third time I left a message, I remember that message like it was yesterday. “Dad, mom, it’s me. I was wondering about maybe coming home for a little bit. I need to borrow some money and I’m catching a bus your way. My bus comes in at midnight next Friday. If you’re not there, I understand, and I’ll just stay on the bus until it hits Canada.” That message still haunts me. As I left it I just kept thinking they hate me, they hate me. I know they do. I hate me, so why wouldn’t they? Everything I had done to damage their little girl began running through my head like a movie—one of those movies that you regret watching because it ends in tragedy and for some reason wins lots of Academy Awards. I’m screwed wasn’t exactly what I said, but that’s about the only word I can use here. But I had no other option, so I got on the bus and headed home.

By the time the bus ride ended I didn’t have any finger nails left I was so nervous. I spent the whole time rehearsing what I was going to say, “Look dad, I know you’re disappointed in me and I’m a complete screw up. All I need is a few hundred bucks and then I’ll never bother you again.” It was my mantra, I kept saying it over and over again and in each scenario my dad had a different response some which ended in me killing myself, others ended in my dad strangling me, others ended with lots of shame, guilt, and me running away again.

As I neared the bus depot I put on my game face. “Look dad, I know you’re disappointed in me and I’m a complete screw up. All I need is a few hundred bucks and then I’ll never bother you again.” I was ready. I was ready for a fight. As the bus stopped I mustered my courage and walked off the bus. “Look dad, I know you’re disappointed in me and I’m a complete screw up. All I need is a few hundred bucks and then I’ll never bother you again.” But as my foot hit the ground outside the bus I saw my dad. Then my mom, then my old pastor, and my cousin with my aunt. There were nearly 30 people there to greet me. They were holding signs and banners. “Welcome home” “We love you” They all had goofy party hats on and those obnoxious noise makers. They were waving and screaming and as I walked off the bus my dad ran toward me and hugged me like I hadn’t been hugged in ten years. We were both sobbing uncontrollably. Through my tears I did manage to sputter out the words “Look dad, I know you’re disappointed in me and I’m a complete screw up. All I need is…” “I love you” he whispered into my ear interrupting my well prepared request. So I started again, “Look dad, I know you’re disappointed in…” “Shh, let’s not waste too much time here; you’ll be late for the big party back at the house.”