march 11, 2021
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I was joking with Nathan about how I give my upbeat post-chemo reports a little too quickly... and then reality actually sets in. It was true that the treatment went smoothly and I'm grateful, but it has been a hard week.
It's a strange thing to feel so unsure of your own body - nothing quite as it should be, and amplified by a reflection that you don't really recognize anymore.
But we're making it through and I think the worst of the days for this round are behind us again now.
During the days of body awfulness, there's not really energy or focus for anything else. It's now that I start to think and feel again, which is also quite hard in lots of ways. The grief of the pain is different than the pain itself, and is another thing to wade through in its own right.
I've been thinking quite a bit about a song I heard at a concert a couple of years ago; it's called Evergreen by Amanda Lindsay Cook. It struck me as quite profound at the time and I've come back to it a few different times since then.
Here are some of the lyrics:
There's no give and take away
There's no game I need to play
There's no waiting for the spring
Your love is evergreen
There's no key I need to turn
There's no trick I need to learn
There's no mark I need to meet
Your love is evergreen
...
For there's no promise You won't keep
And there's no distance You won't reach
There's no season in between
Your love is evergreen
Sometimes our lived experience makes it seem like there is a coming and going to God's presence and love. In fact, I often use language of ebb & flow, both/and, balance etc, to explain my own feelings of living in the okay but not okay spaces that we find ourselves in. But I was finding it important to remember that there's nothing changeable or ebbing about God's heart for me.
His love and presence, his mercy and faithfulness, are not just sometimes there, and are in no way dependent on how I'm feeling or how aware of him I am.
He is sure. He is constant. He is always, always near.
It's not something to feel bad about either though, our coming and going, our feeling of all the things.
I think it's a natural human rhythm to experience the ebb & flow - it's part of where we find ourselves in time, in this in-between place, where God has poured out his love and invited us to know him, but not everything of his kingdom is fully realized.
It's good, in fact, for us to come to expect the rhythms of less & more, doubt & certainty, lament & hope - a fullness that has come and not come, the truth that we're okay and not okay.
This is the truth of our state, a picture of our ongoing need for God and also our continued purpose to share the hope, light and life that he offers to everyone.
If we can come to expect this ebb and flow as part of our lived experience, and maybe even to welcome it as a reminder of our need & abundance, we can also begin to learn the different ways our hearts and souls and bodies need to lean into the strength and provision of Jesus. Like a friend, who only needs to look at our body language to know how we're doing, Jesus knows what we need in every turn of the tide. And he doesn't love us more on the days that we are chipper and ready to go. He's not more pleased with us when we're hopeful instead of discouraged. His love is evergreen.
There's no need to pretend, or cover-up or muddle through. We have a Saviour who is acquainted with sorrow and he so longs to sit with us in the middle of it all.
Thank goodness - I'm much too broken and tired for pretending these days :)
This is the light, easy way of Jesus, I think.
To be fully as we are - to be known, to be loved. Safe to be truly ourselves, ebbing and flowing with the changing tides, and yet sure of being securely held in his heart.
So, that's a lot of words to say that I'm finding myself in the waning yet again :)
But again I say, Jesus, here I am.
And then, I'm more than okay xo
