Don't you just love friendships where you just pick right up where you left off no matter how much time has gone by? Though we haven't lived near one another in three years, its been no hindrance to stay connected to my soul sister, Ericka. We caught-up by phone amidst our respective piles of dirty duds yesterday morning. It had been awhile since we chatted, so we were swapping kid stories, "pray for..." tidbits, and family gossip, if you will.
She shared that she had recently taken her hubby to a concert for his birthday--Rush! Backstage passes, a round of introductions to the band, and a photo with the group--a top shelf b-day for her man. We laughed...a blast from the past, right out of our 80's adolescence. Now I have no idea if Rush has just remained together through the years or if they have re-grouped on tour for their fans. Either way, you gotta love the visual of fortyish plus diehards, now listening with earplugs to preserve their ebbing auditory function, contentedly retrieving pubescent memories, song after song.
The good Doctor and I had a reunion tour of our own this weekend. (God bless my mother who graciously kept the children of the Lord for two whole nights.) We escaped to beautiful Beaver Creek, the aspen leaves in their golden glory, thrilled to have some time alone.
One year ago, almost to the day, we had been on a similar trip in Beaver Creek. My man had just finished a horrifying summer of chemotherapy and radiation for Hodgkins Lymphoma. His hair was about a half inch high and his eyelashes were just starting to grow in again. He was elated to be done with treatment and anxious to get outdoors. It was odd--it was if we had gone from the fading brown of spring with his May diagnosis, to autumn colors. We felt oblivious that there had even been a summer of sunshine, swimming, and picnics. In fact, my sister Amy had come in mid-September to help us through the final weeks of treatment. She and I went on a drive up to Estes Park. As we drove, I was surprised to see in the rocky canyon that some aspen trees were making their regal change to gold. I said with astonishment, "Look! The leaves are changing, sister." Amy just smiled and said, "They always do this time of year." Of course, she was right. We had grown up together in these Colorado mountains, but this year the flow of the seasons was not even on the radar. It had been cancer season for me and mine, sickness time.
We weren't at our hotel long before the good Doctor located a great hike from our hotel over to Beaver Creek village, we just needed to make it up a steep ski slope to hit the trail.
As we hit that same trail this past weekend the reunion tour began.
My mister remembered that "the poisons," as he likes to refer to them, had really effected his cardiac output. The climb up that hill had been tough. I had no recollection of this, likely because I was puffing my own way up the mountain, wondering what the shame was in running a chairlift for a fresh faced cancer survivor and his bride. Oh yeah, I would have played the cancer card in a heartbeat...or rather the good Doctor's cancer card. (I wonder if I technically had some card carrying priveleges...who knows?) Anyhow, we both recalled the significance of the hike because it was really the first time we had lifted up our heads to see beyond what was right in front of us. Treatment was done! No more chemo Mondays or sci-fi radiation masks. No more Taco Bell bean burrito runs or neon orange mac and cheese packets (two of the few things he would eat post-treatment.) No more "Daddy just isn't up to it" or "We need to keep things quiet today." Glad good-bye to life lived in two week increments, living for Sundays when he would perk up again, just in time to return to work for a week, only to start the cycle all over again on Monday.
As we set off on that hike one year ago, the Doctor wanted to just soak up his survival! I, however, felt an ugly cry coming on. I had just been trying to keep my family stable and moving forward, relying on God's love and care for us. And He DID love and care for us, friends. But, it is also true that we had been on something akin to the horrific boat ride from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory--everyone unnerved by the scary sights around each bend, but there is no getting off, and then suddenly, the nightmarish ride just stops. The good Doctor was downright cheery on our hike... just like Willy... all smiles, enjoying the wonders. I was more like Mrs. TV as she exited the boat, disheveled, slightly cross-eyed with anxiety, and barely speaking in complete sentences anymore!
I have thereafter referred to the original hike as the "Trail of Tears." At some point along the way, in the lovely shade of golden aspens, I totally lost it...the chest sobbing, snorting, drooling on the good Doctor's shirt kind of cry. I don't think I cried like that since the weekend of waiting on test results for what kind of cancer he had. I remember my good husband just smiling at me, kissing my forehead, and reminding me that it was all going to be alright. "All right"...as profoundly grateful as I felt that weekend one year ago, I knew we had really just summitted the mountatin of treatment. There was still a long climb down from this terrifying perch, and we were spent in every sense of the word. Getting down was going to be a whole new set of realities.
When my boys were small they would often find a climbing tree or a pile of boulders and I vividly remember them calling for us to help them get down after they had just climbed up. I would walk over close to where they stood in triumph and now unease and call out, "You can do it! If you climb up, you can climb down."
I am so glad God is nothing like me--I really didn't want to hear that line this last year--and I didn't.
Instead, the God of the Universe has been wooing me to rest... take my sweet old time winding down the mountain. There has been no sense of urgency from Him at all...just a quiet waiting for me to pause and ponder the trip we made, the scenery along the way...the revelation of True, profound goodness and mercy overcoming a scheme of the enemy to kill, steal, and destroy my crew. I decided to follow my heart, or rather His heart...I am stepping out of my many do-good activities to simply be wooed by the story He has been telling in my life. It is interesting how we can choose to set up camp on these perches and just try and resume life, isn't it? We want some semblance of "normal" again...whatever that is in our mind's eye. And God willingly allows that for awhile. We learn how to live at a place of extremes instead of venturing into the heart work He has for us. Make no mistake, we love and serve the ultimate drama King, but the focal point of the show is WHO...who is He revealing Himself to be, not the scenery and sets and cast of minor characters that shift and change and so easily distract us from The Story. How easily we become wrapped up in the show to the point we have forgotten who the Star really is!
I have no doubt of this... God LOVES reunion tours...revisiting places of great fear, trepidation, angst, sin, or evil schemes wrought against us. He longs to comfort us in our deepest fears, renounce the power of sin in His name, trample the minions who harass us, and show up the enemy for how utterly powerless he is by comparison. I love how Paul said it in Colossians, "...having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross" (3:15.) LOVE THAT...love Him for that! And, my goodness, that is what healing is...a reunion tour with God in our personal stories, sometimes locked away in our oh so mysterious hearts.
So...one year out from cancer, this is what I know: in His infinite love and kindness, God is wooing me down from that mountain perch to tour the trail I just came up. This time, instead of wearing dark sunglasses and just staring at the ground for each foothold as I did coming up, I will be meandering along with my eyes wide open, revisiting all the scary precipices, Jesus at my side.
Job captures the climb up the mount of difficulty so well, "But if I go to the east, he is not there; if I go to the west, I do not find him. When he is at work in the north, I do not see him; when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him. But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold." Job 23:8-10
Thank God it has nothing to do with my keen observation skills or orienteering.
So...I should tell you the good Doctor's take on one year out. As we stood on a picturesque log bridge overlooking a multi-hued marsh, my mister, who would happily live outdoors if such a thing were feasible, said he somehow loves this beauty even more now. If it is possible, he has enjoyed any stolen moment out at a stream, hiking up a bluff, winding down a trail, a stroll through our neighborhood at dusk all the more since cancer. He said, "What's new is I just want to love what is behind all this beauty." Hmmmm...the Who.
That really is the only take away, friends. That is the one that I will undoubtedly find this year. Sounds familiar...
"...We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." John 1:14b
Here's to reunion tours...the definitive upside of aging.
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