“Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope.” –Princess Leih
My favorite tales always begin with a crisis moment where the protagonist is forced to turn in a new direction.
Going back is no longer an option.
Remember Luke Skywalker in Star Wars?—the mystery of a lovely Princess and a spunky R2 unit whisper of adventure and a different life. Luke wants to pursue, but he is held back by fear and obligation, that is until his aunt and uncle’s farm blows up.
A good story is like that.
We want to live a grand adventure, free and spontaneous, but the safety net of reality stems us in—until one day our security (our job or a relationship or our health) explodes and our only option is to travel to new and dark places.
Places we don’t want to go.
Scary Places. Places that reveal our brokenness. Places of testing and places of redemption.
The road behind us is gone. And despite our cries out to God of unbearable grief and terror, there is only the road before us.
I am at that crossroads.
And like Luke, I’m unsure of this journey ahead. I want to live a grand story and run towards what God has for me—but this cup of suffering isn’t what I had in mind.
On Thursday, I met with my dad’s neurologist and received the news no one wants to hear. “Prepare for the end. We don’t know how long. His brain is shrinking and atrophying rapidly all the way around.”
Insert a bad word. Insert gut-wrenching sadness.
My dad tried to accept the words. His disease–Picks–now makes it hard for him to get out his thoughts coherently, but I knew what he was saying.
“It’s ok. God knows. I hope I lived a good life.”
We went to Chili’s. I held my daddy’s hand. We had a margarita. We laughed the jittery laughs of shock and wiped up the tears silently creeping out of our nose.
This weekend was hard. Greif is like that. One minute you are fine and the next—blubbering over a song or a stupid USC flag. For my dad’s sake, I hope my Bruins lose this year. Just this once. Just to make my daddy gloat and smile.
But Monday was the final explosion. It was the no going back moment.
I got the call.
They found a large mass on my mom’s pancreas. They said the two words you never want to hear—Pancreas and Cancer.
And now we wait for biopsies and treatment plans and a new journey into a place of unknown.
And so I am crying out like the desperate princess watching her planet blow up, “Help me Jesus, You’re my only hope.”
My parents are not old.
They are brilliant and strong and beautiful. I am not ready to lose them. I am greedy for their care, their protection, their covering. My mom and dad are supposed to help pick out my Faith’s formal dress, and be at graduations and Kyle’s Varsity football games and recitals where little Kolby wears a halo and sings about Baby Jesus.
There is so much life I want to share.
I feel robbed.
As a Christian—as a speaker and writer, as someone who is supposed to encourage and motivate people to draw closer to Christ—I want to be better at this. But I’m not.
I feel like a fraud. I don’t have any pat answers.
I’m supposed to put on the happy face and smile and say it’s ok. Praise Jesus. Hallelujah.
But I don’t feel that way. I’m DEVESTATED. I want my mommy and my daddy. Here. Now. I want my blankie, and my teddy and to suck my thumb with a vengeance until everything is put back together right.
I don’t believe life is fair. Suffering sucks. Death was never meant to be.
But what I cling to is that God sees. He hears. He comforts. He is close. I don’t have to fear this journey. I have an eternal home where death is a merely a blip until I see my loved ones again. They might beat me there, but God provides a way though the pain and to this Jesus I lay down my life.
I also have an enemy who is out to steal and kill and destroy—who delights in crushing hope and joy. I’ve got two middle fingers pointed in his direction. (Sorry church people, I’m a little raw right now)
But I refuse to let him distract me from sharing the one thing that can never be taken away from me–and that’s Jesus.
And so I can choose to pick up my feet and march forward or I can linger in this wooing darkness—suffering, stalled, and bitter. I can ask “why” all day long and get pissed and hold on to a pain I was never meant to carry.
Or, I start a new story. I trust. I praise. I hope for miracles. I choose a double fisted faith despite the outcome. I get out of bed tomorrow and believe somehow, some way, some good will come out of this trial.
And I learn to use a light saber while blind folded—apparently I will need this skill where I am going.
If you know my mom, I’ve started a Caring Bridge site for her. Click here to visit.
