Chemo Starts Today

Chemo starts today.

I looked at the computer screen. It showed fifteen others here for treatment as well. Two younger than us.

Cancer doesn't discriminate.

Half of my brain is screaming, pleading:

Why is this happening to us? To her? We didn't choose this. We shouldn't be here.

The other half is steady, reasoning, logical, peaceful:

We are here. Be here. Embrace the weight and reality of the situation. Don't run from it. Run towards it. Lean in. Breathe.

And so we lean in. We embrace the fight before us. We don't wish it away. We don't wish it were different. Even though we do wish it were different. Even though we do wish our broken existence was made complete and whole. Even though we long and crave a world without sickness and disappointment and hardships.

And, we also don't. We embrace the hard. Get stronger. We embrace the help. Humbly accept it. We lean into the journey. To the drugs and the medical system and the side effects and the healing.

Chemo breaks down your body. Destroys cells. All of them. Good and bad.

And so will this journey.

It will break us down. Destroy our normalcy. All of it. The good and the bad.

And on the other side?

The other side.

The other side is what keeps us from being here. Being present. Being ok with not knowing what's on the other side.

Because we don't.

And that's ok.

No one really knows what's on the other side, or tomorrow, or next week.

No one really knows what happens next.

The elusiveness of control.

We live as if we have control, can control, can build and work and save our way to safety nets and parachutes in case of emergencies.

And we can't.

And that's why we need Him.

"Be still, and know that I am God." — Psalm 46:10

Also can be written, "Be here, and know that I am God."

When we are regretting our situation, hoping for a different day or different hour or different circumstance than what we were dealt, it's impossible to achieve what our hearts so desperately need.

"Know that I am God."

You see how it works?

Be still. Be here. So we can KNOW.

You cannot know God in the past or in the future, but only in the stillness, in the present, in the now.

And what could possibly bring us more peace and joy and hope than the knowledge of God the Father? To know Him now. To really know Him.

And what could possibly be more devastating to us as we walk this apprenticeship with Jesus than to not know Him because our minds are worried about the future or stuck in the past?

If the enemy is at work, he'd want us to be "un-still", hurried, busy, in the future, in the past, the opposite of present.

Because the knowledge of God happens here. Happens now.

If we choose to be still.