The First Decade: Reflections on the last 10 years I only lived because of God’s grace + modern medicine, Part 2

Well, 10 years ago today, I was standing inside Delias at NorthPark Center, a mall in Dallas, when a doctor called to tell me I had cancer.

It was surreal enough to hear the words, “You have cancer,” but the setting made it even more bizarre.

deliasnorthpark

There’s a song by Jordin Sparks from around that time titled, “No Parade,” and the chorus says, “There was no parade, no lights flashing, no song to sing along the way.” She’s talking about the end of a relationship, but I’ve thought of those lyrics many times in the last decade when I think about hearing the news of cancer and of the day I started treatment.

I’m not saying I wanted a parade; the point is I think we imagine that kind of news having some sort of ceremony attached, something monumental where sirens sound or time stands still. There was nothing like that–people walked past me Christmas shopping, talking on the phone, making plans for Thanksgiving the next day, and more.

Looking back, it feels even more surreal–like, “Did that actually happen?” And though it feels so long ago and far away, my life in the past decade has been marked enough by cancer in terms of my passions, my personal and spiritual growth, and my ministry that I can’t deny the experience and its ongoing impact.

I wrote in my last post that I’d found my prayer journal from 2008-2009, and wow, was it interesting to read through. In rereading my book and my journal from that time, I’ve had some time to reflect, and though I don’t have anything profound to say, I have a couple thoughts I’d love to share.

 


The night before I got my official diagnosis at the mall, I knew things didn’t look good. No one schedules a biospy if they’re unconcerned, and they for sure don’t say it looks “suspicious of lymphoma” nonchalantly. So there was a sense of impending doom as I waited for the official word and prayed for a miracle (or in my case, a medical mistake).

When I found my journal last month, I started flipping through it, wondering what I would find. I hadn’t read through it in years; in fact, it had been in boxes in Texas since I moved to California in 2015 until my parents drove some stuff out here in January, and before that, it was in my orange bedroom in Dallas (R.I.P.) while I lived in Hawaii and went to grad school. As I flipped through it, I found an entry dated 11/25/2008, that night before I was officially branded with cancer.

Here’s what I found: I was really afraid. I prayed that, actually; the entry started, “Lord, I am scared.” I remember feeling vaguely scared, but we tend to gloss over memories as time goes by, so I didn’t remember actually verbalizing that fear. As I kept reading the entry, I was brought to tears as I read, “I don’t think I’ve used my time up to this point well—and I don’t want to ‘bargain’ with You [God], but it scares me to think of all the time wasted…if this is the end.”

Is it weird for me to shed tears for the terrified 21-year-old who wrote that, when it was literally me writing that, and things have turned out okay? I don’t want to overdramatize things, but I was trying hard to hold things together, and I read that now and take a big sigh, letting out the anxiety rooted deep in that girl’s soul, tearful today over the utter unknown she stood face to face with then.

Later, I wrote, “I’m scared more for the fact that my life to this point has not amounted to much other than my self-interest…” I’d like to think I could say something different today, and I hope in some ways I can. I’m still selfish and full of self-interest, but cancer launched me out into living a life with more risk and less safety, so in some ways, I can look back at the past 10 years and trace a life of greater impact than my timid 21-year-old self knew.

10 years on, it’s easy to feel a bit removed from the experience—though it has shaped my life and will always feel present in some ways. But I think about the girl who wrote this, the “younger me” of 21 years of age, and my heart goes out to her. On this side of things, I know what’s in store for her, and I believe one of God’s many mercies is that most of the time, He doesn’t tell us what’s in store.

“If this is the end….” Wow. Well, it wasn’t, but that was no guarantee. And though every day is a gift and no one ever knows when he or she will meet the end, having to stare down the question of, “Is this it?” was terrifying then and heartrending to read today.

Often it can feel like I’m pouring myself out—into the things I think God has called me to, into relationships, and into whatever is set before me—and not getting the same return or just ending up exhausted. Well, the “you can’t have your cake and eat it, too” lesson of this story for present-day-me is that I can’t get bitter over my exhaustion from pouring myself out or into the people and passions in my life. The alternative is 21-year-old-me coming face to face with the possibility that this might truly be the end and feeling like my life had made no impact, that I had only pursued self-interest.

The alternative to pouring myself out is filling myself up and knowing, when faced with my mortality, that I’ve squandered my life. It’s a good reality check for me: Would I rather feel like that younger me, terrified of having wasted the gift of life that God had given me, or like I do from time to time, exhausted from trying to walk faithfully and follow God’s calling, whatever that entails?

That reads as if I think I’m a martyr or saint—trust me; I don’t. I’m the actual worst, and I have daily evidence of that (especially while driving in California traffic). But on days when I let the pity party start, thinking that my life isn’t comfortable or how I expected, it’s a great reality check to think of the alternative, a sobering thought to confront 10 years ago and to remember today.

If there’s “a moral to this story,” it’s mostly to reflect but also to encourage myself–and maybe you–to make the most of the time we’re given. That’s actually the most pithy saying I could offer, except if you know me and if you had stood outside of Delias hearing you had cancer on the day before Thanksgiving like I did, hopefully you would understand there’s a lot of import to that seemingly trite saying. It’s been sobering to reread my fears and concerns about “if this is the end,” and it’s a great reminder to me today, 10 years later, to give myself to the larger narrative God has rather than to my own selfish and small pursuits.


Tonight, there’s so much I’m thankful for. I started making a list over the last month or so detailing many of the things that would never have happened if that call had truly signaled the end 10 years ago. I’d love to share that list over the next few days in the spirit of Thanksgiving, but for now, I’m profoundly thankful to be sitting here, writing, and living a life that isn’t what I expected but is genuinely a gift.

The First Decade*: Reflections on the last 10 years I only lived because of God’s grace + modern medicine, Part 1.

(*Michael W. Smith reference intentional)

I’m coming up on the 10 year anniversary of my cancer diagnosis this week. That reality has been present in the back of my mind for months, and I’ve been trying to think of how to honor this anniversary, or as we say in the cancer world, this “cancerversary.”

I’ve also been trying to figure out when to honor that since I got the call on the day before Thanksgiving, but that actual calendar date is the Monday after Thanksgiving this year. Plus, my mom wonders why I would even celebrate the anniversary of the day I got the news since that’s not exactly something worth celebrating. Should I celebrate on February 4th, the day I found out I was in remission? In some ways, that date seems fitting because it’s also World Cancer Day, and yet, I still had 4 more months of treatment, so though remission was an incredible victory, I was still in the trenches and feeling terrible. Should I celebrate May 14th, the day of my last chemo treatment when I knew I would finally start to feel better?

One of the reasons I’ve marked the day before Thanksgiving each year is because it’s such a meaningful time—yes, it was the day my world felt like it came to a halt as I looked “terminal illness” in the face, but it’s also a time to be grateful for all I have and all God has done in my life. In the years since November 2008, Thanksgiving has been that much more poignant for me as a time to celebrate the gift this life truly is. I might have flippantly said that in my previous 21 years—“Oh, life’s a gift!”—but I know that to be true in a profoundly real way now.

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Lazarus [Still] Died

If you read the title of this post and thought, “Well, obviously, Hannah…” and that’s a no-brainer for you, then keep reading. And if you didn’t think that, then definitely keep reading.

Here’s the thing: I know the story of Lazarus. I can’t overemphasize how many times I’ve heard it and learned about it. It’s amazing. But you know what? Not until I read a book this summer did I think about the fact that Lazarus still died.

I don’t mean that he died and Jesus famously wept and then even more famously raised him to life. I mean after all of that—the death, weeping, and resurrecting—Lazarus still died. For some reason, that thought had never once occurred to me.

“Okay, great…” you may be thinking, wondering what the point is. Well, the fact that Lazarus still died has been a transformative idea in my life and way of thinking over the past few months, and it’s had a significant impact on the way I view ministry and what I’m trying to do with Still Waters, the faith-based cancer retreat I’m starting.

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Called as Though We Are

I’ve been studying the book of Romans again lately, in part because I just finished a long study of Paul’s letters to Corinth and it’s believed Paul wrote Romans from Corinth, but also because I went back to Rome in April, an amazing trip provided courtesy of years of airline miles and the lowest AAdvantage award tickets I’ve seen to an international destination. Rome is also where Paul died, so I thought it would be great timing to study Paul’s letter to the church at Rome, given all I learned during Wheaton in the Holy Lands in 2014 in both Corinth and Rome plus all that I saw back in Rome this year.

The site remembered as the tomb of Paul at the Basilica Papale di San Paolo fuori le Mura (St. Paul’s outside the Walls) in Rome.

I’m not super far—I like to take it slowly and use what I’ve learned (and taught) about literature over the years as I study, thinking through author, setting, purpose, tone, audience, and other narrative elements. Context matters—not just because “Context” is one of my top “strengthsquest” strengths, but because it adds so much to the message.

I’ve been learning much about grace over the past year and in reading Romans, but that’s for a future post. Today, I’m reflecting on what I think is one of the most hopeful partial verses from Scripture I’ve read in a long time: “…the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were” (Romans 4:17b).

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A Rogue Reminder

I want to start this post by circling back to my most recent post: “Introducing: Still Waters Cancer Retreat.” In it, I shared about the reminder Jesus gives us that the Kingdom of God is like a treasure in a field, and I explained how I’ve been having to remind myself of that before closing, encouraging readers to do the same.

Below, I’ll share about another lesson I’m reminding myself of—or rather, another image, really—but I want to make clear first that, when I share these things and offer up an encouragement or exhortation at the end, my words are not a sermon coming from someone who has it all figured out. On the contrary, most of the time, I read and re-read my posts to remind myself of the truths I’ve been learning and which God has been teaching me, so I’m preaching to myself as much as to anyone else.

I think it’s so important to keep reminding ourselves of what we know is true—and for me in the past year, that’s often even meant actual verbal reminders, especially through worship songs that help me affirm out loud the truths I know about God and need to say aloud as a way of “talking myself into believing” and claiming those truths.

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Introducing: Still Waters Cancer Retreat

Last month, I wrote about “My Summer of Cliff Jumping” and promised to share more about Still Waters Cancer Retreat, the nonprofit I’m starting. Today is World Lymphoma Awareness Day, “a day dedicated to raising awareness of lymphoma, an increasingly common form of cancer” {which sounds just like what you’d think it is}. This retreat isn’t just those for lymphoma, but because lymphoma is part of my story, I figured today’s a pretty good day to follow through on my promise. So here goes!

The American Cancer Society publishes its Cancer Facts and Figures report each year {which I keep in my iBooks app on my phone and which is totally normal, right?}, and basically, the rates of cancer have been pretty steady for a while. They estimate that 41/100 men and 38/100 women will get cancer in their lifetimes, not including basal or squamous cell carcinomas, since those aren’t required to be reported. Check out the link here, if you, too, are also semi-morbid and want to read through them: ACS Facts and Figures.

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My Summer of Cliff Jumping

I figure it’s time to give an update on life and let you know what I’ve been working on that I’ve hinted about and which I’m so excited about. Here we go!

For those wondering where I’m living right now and what I’m doing, I quit my teaching job in California at the end of the school year, which means that since June, I have been unemployed, though in a planned way. As everyone started heading back to school over the last week or so, I realized this year is only the fourth in my 30 years where I have not had a first day of school. The other three go to the year when I wrote my book between stints teaching in Hawaii and my first two years of life (yeah, I went to 2-year-old preschool…apparently someone needed a break).

There were many reasons I quit my teaching job, but one of the biggest was because I’m in the process of starting a non-profit, and I knew that with my seven different roles at school, it was never going to happen. It’s sort of how I felt when I knew I needed to write my book but also knew there was no way that was going to happen while teaching high school English (a.k.a. grading papers and reading literature in my “time off”). For the past two years, God’s been reminding me of my heart for those with cancer, and for more than a year, I’ve been working on a vision of starting a faith-based cancer retreat (more on that later!).

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The Case of the Reappearing Posts

If you’re reading this on the heels of my last post and thinking, “What witchery is this that Hannah’s posting twice within a week?!?” I assure you: everything is okay. Plus also, summer break.

To really answer that question well, however, I direct you to the title of this post one more time. And now, I’ll be sharing more context than you wanted to know about what I started my last post with: on the loss to Internet oblivion of my old posts from 2013-2016. And for the handful of you who might subscribe to my posts, my MOST PROFUSE apologies for the onslaught of notifications you may have received over the weekend at the recovery of those posts! If the #sorrynotsorry sentiment ever applies, I feel like it’s in this case because, out of said Internet oblivion, MY MISSING POSTS REAPPEARED. It’s actually kind of a miracle. And I’m a realist, so in “Hannah speak,” I think that means it’s a legitimate miracle.

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On [The Grace of] Turning 30

Well, it’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything here—and that’s for a couple of reasons.

1) I switched websites, and it’s still a little bit in shambles. The most frustrating part is that in the transfer, many of my old posts were lost. It sounds dramatic, but that’s been a bit painful because when I write, my words come from the heart. I pretty much fail all marketing guidelines which say to write short posts and publish them frequently so as to keep up a steady readership. I’ve always struggled with that, though, because I refuse to just write fluff in order to have published a post. So when I do post, it’s generally something that’s been on my heart for a while, something that comes from deep conviction and truth I’ve been learning. Losing those posts has gotten me a little disheartened and kept me away.

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A Complex Response for this Complex Life

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.

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