Nine months later, I’m still here, keeping my head above water as I enter the final quarter of this school year. I won’t get too deeply into the specifics of my move to San Diego or the minutiae of my journey back to teaching high school English, but per my last post—on not knowing where I’m going—it’s been amazing to look back and see how God led me here. That’s another post for another time since this post has been on my heart for the past 6 months. However, I’m out in San Diego, I’m teaching English again, and I’m exhausted but confident that God brought me here for some reason.

Aside from my move, my adjustment out of grad school and back into the classroom, and some other events in our family, the past 6-8 months have been marked by some significant challenges. I honestly believe I’ve cried more tears in the past 8 months than in the past 8 years combined.

Over Halloween weekend, I traveled to Wheaton to see some of my undergraduate friends, catch up with my professors, and hang out with my sister Madelyn and brother-in-law Patrick. I had a long conversation with Dan Haase, a professor, mentor, and friend who has played a huge role in my life in the past couple of years as I’ve learned to embrace and live in the tension that so often characterizes life. While we talked, Dan opined that we have to see lament as worship, and he showed me a poem by one of my other former professors, Dr. Foster, who had stage IV colon cancer. 

The next week, I was back in San Diego, sharing my cancer story with the high school teachers at my school during Friday devotionals. I tried to think of what word I could leave them with so that it wasn’t just a “getting to know me” story but could bring some truth or encouragement. So I encouraged them to trust that God is still seated on His throne even when our worlds seem to be falling apart and to remember that He prepares us to walk through challenges with Him. 

A few hours later, I received the news that my Aunt Debi had been diagnosed with stage IV kidney cancer, and as I wept, I was struck by my own word given that morning, challenged to believe that, once again, God was still on His throne.

me with Aunt Debi in 2010, a year post-treatment for me when she modeled one of my wigs for fun

A week later, I was on a plane to Dallas and then on the four hour drive to MD Anderson in Houston to see my aunt. Two days before, I’d found out that Dr. Foster, my professor with colon cancer, had passed away. On that drive to Houston, I found out that Dr. Roger Lundin, my favorite English professor during Wheaton undergrad—the professor who inspired me to want to teach English—had unexpectedly passed away. This is all on top of my Uncle Tim’s stroke and brain tumor journey that had started in August and is still ongoing today.

Life is complex. I know that and have for a while, but if I could describe the last eight months with any phrase, it would be that truth: life is complex.

When we found out the news about Aunt Debi, I went to my trusty American Cancer Society annual report that I have stored as a PDF on my phone (morbid? possibly, though I like to think it’s to stay up to date about this topic that’s so deeply on my heart). For those who don’t know, stage IV kidney cancer is one of the more bleak varieties, with only an 8% 5-year survival rate. 

In a conversation with some loved ones, I was pointing out that, despite the bleak statistics, we couldn’t forget two facts: 1. An 8% survival rate means that of people with that same stage of cancer, some people do live, so why not Aunt Debi? 2. Our God is the great Healer, so if he wanted to heal her, we couldn’t be throwing in the towel already. We had to surrender her but still pray boldly for her healing, knowing that nothing is a “lost cause” with God. One of the responses to my comments was, “Or, we could look at it as there’s a 92% chance she’ll be with Jesus in the next 5 years!” 

I get that comment; I agree with that comment; and I don’t want to mock or minimize what that loved one said. It’s true on one level—we could look at it as an honor for her to go before us, since it is an honor on the eternal level. And yet…

Life is complex, and as such, I believe that life calls for a complex response, one with more texture and depth than simple answers provide. 

I don’t think this idea is original to me; think of Jesus weeping over Lazarus. He may have wept for a number of reasons—over the pain of this world, over Mary and Martha’s lack of understanding of His power or where Lazarus would be going, or over His friend’s loss. Whatever the reason, He wept. He didn’t just pat Mary and Martha on the back and say, “Life’s tough; heaven is eternal and better anyway.”

Here’s a picture of my sweet friend Lauren Wilhite and me at the Garden of Gethsemane during Wheaton in the Holy Lands.

Or take His time in Gethsemane. Walking through the Garden of Gethsemane in the summer of 2014—or at least what is remembered to be the Garden, with some compelling reasons behind it—I was struck by the peace of that place, an odd impression compared with the agony experienced there on the night Jesus was betrayed. Jesus modeled a complex response to this complex life when He prayed for the Father to take the cup away if possible. Fully man and fully God, I believe He knew what waited for Him—on earth, but also in heaven. 

Lauren created this art based on Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane. I love this because the words are so meaningful and because Lauren and I got to experience Gethsemane together! Check out more of Lauren’s incredible art on her website.

A one-dimensional response would have said, “Let’s do this so I can return to the Father in heaven,” a kind of “bring it on” response. And yet, that’s not what He prayed. He prayed three times for God to take away that cup, though His ultimate phrase of surrender was key: “Not my will, but Yours be done.”

During Wheaton in the Holy Lands, we discussed the “will” in that verse and talked about how it doesn’t show two contrasting wills between the Father and the Son, but rather it shows us the attitude of humble surrender that believers ought to have. I’ve always loved this passage, and it came alive to me during my time with cancer when it encouraged me that I was okay to wish the cancer away, to want a different “cup” from God. I wrote about that in my book and still believe that today. But at the same time, I knew that turning point line, “not my will, but Yours be done,” had to be my ultimate attitude—that despite my desire to go in pretty much any other direction, ultimately I trusted Him and would follow where He led, cancer and all.

I’m so thankful for this complex response from Jesus. Though He knew pain awaited Him in the city (beatings, abandonment, crucifixion), He also knew that He would soon be with the Father in heaven and everything would be as it should. And yet, that hope and assurance didn’t necessarily minimize the struggle on earth, the pain of the betrayal, or the challenge ahead. 

I understand that “92%” response, the reminder that maybe we’re looking at it all wrong. I think there’s some merit to it as we’re probably too tightly clinging to this fleeting life and missing the bigger picture. At the same time, knowing that my Aunt Debi (or my professors, grandparents, or other friends who have passed) would soon be entering heaven didn’t necessarily minimize the struggle on earth, the pain of the trial, or the challenges ahead. 

I believe that life’s complexities call for a complex response, one that balances the pain and reality of the struggle with the hope and trust in our God and His sovereignty.

I’ve shared this with my students over the course of this school year, and my hope is that, if nothing else, they walk away knowing that this deeply complex life calls for a complex response to all it has for us (though I also hope they walk away knowing how to write in complete sentences…). I’ve tried to be honest with them, sharing my joys as well as my trials, hoping that they will develop a robust faith that trusts in His sovereignty though they walk through the valley—as we all certainly do or will at some point.

My Aunt Debi passed away in January—nine weeks after the diagnosis—and I had the daunting task and yet honor of sharing a word at her funeral. Her life exemplified complexity—her struggle with feeling far from God at times and yet her confidence that she had surrendered to Him and her ultimate response to my mom that she was thinking about Him and about heaven “all the time.” Complex emotions surround her death, as my family and I are so thankful she’s no longer in pain, no longer wasting away, and no longer suffering here on earth, though there’s an acute ache that accompanies her loss. Though life has moved on and my mom and other family members have many tasks on their plates, there’s not a return to “normal;” there’s a new “normal.” There are no easy answers or simple encouragements to ease the loss. 

Still, Dan Haase’s voice echoes in my head in the moments of sadness amidst new joys that life brings, reminding me to “live in the tension”—or as I’ve been learning, to bring that complex response of balancing lament and tears with hope and praise in order to meet the complexities that this life so often brings.