A little more recently, yet so far away, I went to a funeral of an older man from our local church. They were singing for joy and talking about how he was with Jesus now and his suffering was all over. It was a celebration! We sang and worshiped just like it was a church service. I enjoyed that funeral more, but still left a little empty. I mean, there was very little outward mourning, just celebration. Did they really care for him being gone? Our maybe they were happy he was gone because he was with Jesus? That sounds nice and sad at the same time.
I started this post on the third day of our first visit to the Emergency Department (ER for the old folks). Katherine had already gone back a few times for surgeries and scans, the doctors poking and prodding her to find out where we are in our cancer journey. The last few weeks have already been a roller coaster of ups and downs. As each peak eclipses I felt less and less confident about the future. It is like traveling through a valley of fog that is so thick that I cannot even see the next peak, or if there would even be one.
It was over ten years ago since our stage 4 diagnosis. This was the start of a long battle filled with good and hard times. Each scan, each blood test. Will this be good news or bad news? Both? Year 4 came, and went and they had said she only had 3 years. We beat the odds! And on the first treatment! Time for a party! Then year 5 came and we were on to the next drug. One year the cancer is smaller and we are skipping with excitement, the next month God is carrying us with tears in our eyes. In each moment we see God provide a little more time for us to be together and we are grateful for each one. These were, and are, times of hope and reliance on God.
Here we are almost 12 treatments later, and still on this journey.
December has been the month of hard news. At the beginning Katherine began to have balance issues, trouble seeing, and even struggling to remembering things. Her stomach also was feeling painful and bloated. Between the 9th and 17th she had MRIs in her brain, abdomen, and spine while she was in the ED. The results showed us why she was feeling this way. Over 30 spots just in her Cerebellum, where balance and coordination is processed, and her liver was full of cancer. The cancer in the liver was blocking the blood vessels for the gallbladder, which caused the bloating and almost constant pain in her stomach. So much cancer in such a little time.
Things were different now.
The list of available drugs were getting small, but a team of doctors suggested a next step. So, on the 18th we then started a new drug. We already knew it would be a Hail Mary. This drug was one that she has taken before and responded well, but she also had to be taken off because it was affecting her liver. After 5 days her liver numbers were so high she had to be taken off this drug. After talking with the doctors there are just a few options left that will maybe give her just a little more time, maybe a few more months, but with many side effects. Would it be worth it? After years of mountains and valleys we are beginning to see the true end.
It is now two days after Christmas and I am sitting here in the ER again. We were just in the ER on Christmas because of the pain in her abdomen and throat. The pain in her throat was preventing her from eating, drinking, and causing a cough, which hurts the abdomen. We are trying to get her fluids and figure out where all these issues are coming from. We missed our Christmas, now she will have to miss the weekend she had planned with her family. It is hard to sit here and not have the power to ease that pain, but in that i can only reach for the One who can.
It feels like a hobbits journey. We have travelled all the way from the Shire to Mordor. We have been through battles, hunger, darkness, and sleepless nights carrying a burden we cannot bear on our own. Here we are at the bottom of mount Doom, holding our rings knowing this will be a hard path up the mountain. The path is full of jagged rocks and lurking evil, but we must make it up the mountain (She still calls me her Sam Wise).
Mountains have always had deep significance in scripture. God showed Himself at the top of a mountain many moons ago, to bring the law to the people who were yearning to have fellowship with Him once again. The top of the mountain was holy and none but His chosen could be there in the midst of the fire. This was a time of brokenness, when His people were separated from Him and in need of a redeemer. God did show Himself as He rescued his people from Egypt, but they still did not have a home. This was not the first time they needed redemption, and this would not be the last. Every generation would reject Him in some way and God would eventually provide. They sacrificed and obeyed, or tried to, to get closer to God. This was life for His people until the long expected redeemer returned.
And He did! He obeyed and sacrificed HIMSELF for us! Not our meager offerings that fall short, but a true spotless one. He came to restore the world to Him again! That is true redemption. And as the lost and broken fall before the Savior, we are redeemed from the inside out. Made new. Born again. We are truly children on God (even when we sometimes forget and need to turn back to Him again). It is in our brokenness that are Savior redeems. Not those who have it all together, the rich ruler with all the money, or the person who obey's the law "perfectly", but the poor, meek, hurting, with no place to go. This is who Jesus runs to.
But we still live in a world broken by sin. We see this in shattered relationships, whether through families or neighbors. Through those who are lost and stuck in the mud of this world. We see this through the homeless and desperate people, yearning for food, clothes, or a place to call home. Through the the journeys of the ones fleeing war, severe persecution and poverty, yet met with anger and hostility. We especially see this brokenness in death and pain. Through losing someone that we love, and God loves even more. We know that is not how God wants things to be.
I like this quote from Timothy Keller:
To say "Oh, death is just natural," is to harden and perhaps kill a part of your heart's hope that makes you human. We know deep down that we are not like trees or grass. We were created to last. We don't want to be ephemeral, to be inconsequential. We don't want to just be a wave upon the sand. The deepest desires of our hearts are for love that lasts.Death is not the way it ought to be. It is abnormal, it is not a friend, it isn't right. This isn't truly part of the circle of life. Death is the end of it. So grieve. Cry. The Bible tells us not only to weep, but to weep with those who are weeping (Romans12:15 NASB). We have a lot of crying to do.
All of this should break our hearts. We should weep and yearn for God to intervene, to restore this world and make all things new. Because in our yearning and weeping God appears, comforting us in many different ways. He appears in the form of a song that comes on at just the right time. When a person who brings you what you need when you don't have the strength. He appears in nature as the Creator who cares for this world. He shows Himself through the word of God shined on by the Spirit. You even see God through healing and when He does not choose to heal, which is often the case. God shows up in the brokenness.
So as I sit here next to Katherine waiting to see the doctor yet again with cancer eating the life that she has, I weep and mourn for her pain. She is God's child, a faithful servant of the King. I would weep for all death, but I have joined her in her walk with God and able to see where God has shown Himself through the years, in the good and the bad. She is my wife, and we have grown together over the last 13 years of marriage into something special. But I also know she is will be invited into a place where the brokenness will finally be fully restored. So when she passes from this life, I can still mourn knowing God is still in control.
I can be sad when I wake up and she is not there by my side, but be happy know that she wakes up in the land of the King. I can be sad when I do not have a hand to hold in the hard times, but happy that she is in the hands of the living God. I can be sad when I look at that empty chair where Katherine used to sit and read the scriptures and the next book in her overly-extended read list, but happy that she can sit in the beautiful forests of the new creation.
So we should weep bitterly and deeply, but do so in full assurance and hope, for we know that God has come to restore all things for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. Death is not how it should be, but God is always good and faithful to redeem and restore His people.
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