Orientating to Promises
For children, Christmas morning is full of anticipation and hope, because they're expecting something good. Something delicious. Something precious. Wonder. Peace. Joy...
This will be my second Christmas living with cancer. Last Christmas, I was disorientated but determined to savor each moment, not knowing how many more celebrations I might have.
This Christmas, despite the relentlessly rising cancer count in my blood, and my reducing hemoglobin/iron levels (which make walking up one flight of stairs quite a feat!), I am discovering how to orientate myself towards hope, peace and joy.
As the end of the year nears, I’ve been reflecting on what it is to have no clear path for 2024 and more questions than answers…
treatment or not this month, this summer, next year?
what kind of treatment - chemo, pills or a cancer trial? Funded or fundraising?
how sick could I get or how long will I remain well?
You get the point. There is the permanent unknowing, a surrounding darkness to this journey that is hard to articulate or define.
Yet, somehow, I can still wake up most mornings feeling hopeful about the future. There is a promise of good things to be unwrapped, explored and enjoyed.
Kind of like Christmas morning.
Christmas holds a tension for us as adults doesn’t it? On one hand there is a compulsion that drives excessive consumerism, busyness and over-consumption. A toxic load that leaves us feeling exhausted before we even begin.
But, on the other hand, if we allow time and space to feel it, there is that sweet anticipation that builds as the days countdown. Because there is something beautiful and inviting in feasting, fun and fellowship. There is an invitation to behold the light of love.
And, really, it comes down to what we choose to focus on. Orientate towards the promises and the Light or towards the consuming chaos.
Where we fix our eyes determines our direction.
With cancer, it’s easy to get consumed by the chaos of results and treatment and sickness and fatigue and failing health.
But being acutely aware of living on the edge of eternity also provides an opportunity to seek out the tinsel glimmering light of hope and life and laughter and companionship and savoring sweetness. Extracting the goodness from every moment available to us.
And like a child at Christmas, believing there is something good under the tree, we can look for the gifts in our lives that fill us with joy and wonder. It might simply, yet profoundly, be our next breath or it might be our blessings, too numerous to count.
Intangible Gifts
Moving from disorientation to orientation this year has been about learning to fix my eyes on the promise ahead. When I start to feel uncertain or worried, I need something solid and steadfast to attach my attention to. In my, crumpled on the floor, desperate times this year, I have unwrapped God-given gifts of hope, which I now treasure. Intangibly tangible, they have guided me through the rough and perilious paths that have existed between this Christmas and the last…
“On the day when the enemies of Gods beloved had hoped to overpower them, just the opposite happened.” Esther 9:1
“Peace be with you, do not fear, you shall not die.” Judges 6:23
“I will give them an everlasting name that will not be cut off” Isaiah 56:5
These personal promises have been like stars in the dark of my night sky. Stars used for navigation. Stars used to lead in a homeward direction. Stars to follow. Stars to guide.
Star of wonder. Star of light. 🎶 🎶
I’m sure that you have gazed starward on an clear, cool night and marveled at the majestic stretches of the heavens above. Wonder. Peace. Joy. Each of them a gift. The essence of a gift is that it is given freely. The extraordinary beauty of gifts is that we don’t have to do anything to deserve or receive them. Only reach out and accept them.
This is my hope, writing today. That, despite whatever you might have going on in your life right now, you find a quiet moment to notice a shining beacon of hope in your night sky. It might only be one star; it might be a whole Milky Way’s worth. Either way, receive that as a gift, and allow it to orientate you towards wonder, peace and joy.
PS: this Christmas Day, you’ll receive a very short email from me - just a little gift, a poem; a summing up, if you will, of this sense of seeking out promises.