Tag Archives: faith and cancer

Whispers Between the Mic Moments (or, the impact of someone like Rod King)

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I want to tell you a story about my friend, colleague, and former boss Rod King. It’s actually a couple of stories, and it goes way back before I ever worked for him for a year, and this story is going to involve a lot more than one year of my teaching job. I am who I am, and I write how I write—this I’m at peace with. Read ahead for more on my developing understanding of women in ministry, grace, and the impact a few well-timed words and actions can have.

I grew up in the Bible Belt, attending pretty standard conservative churches, schools, and camps where women were welcomed but not typically found in leadership roles. I didn’t really think anything of it because it felt normal, like the usual situation.

My parents have three daughters, and as such, my dad has always empowered us (1) to do what God is calling us to do and (2) to do whatever we set our minds to (though as I’ve gotten older my dad has leveled with me more realistically and said, “Look, at this point, you’re not going to be a doctor.” Fair, but I appreciate that as a child he told me I could be anything.)

When I got to college at Wheaton, people would talk about whether they were “complementarian” or “egalitarian,” and I said, “huh?” Everyone had an opinion about the matter but me, it seemed. I probably would have told you that I wasn’t opposed to women in leadership in ministry, but it just wasn’t my preference. I think if you had pressed me to defend my stance it would’ve come down to: “Men are pastors because they just are and that’s all I’ve known, and there are those passages about women in ministry leadership so let’s just keep men in ministry leadership roles.”

When it came down to it, it was more about what I’d grown up around and experienced and not about any theological convictions. I certainly had no ambition to ever be a “woman pastor” or “woman in ministry leadership;” I was preparing to teach, after all. (If you’re a hardline complementarian, resist the urge to roll your eyes and call this heresy; keep reading.)

At my first teaching job, I saw a need at the Christian school where I taught for better spiritual formation—of students, but also of the faculty and staff at Christian schools. After a few years of teaching (interspersed with writing my book), I headed back to Wheaton for grad school. It was there that I started doing research on spiritual formation, and anytime we talked about “pastoral care,” I saw the need for and gap of a type of “pastoral care” found in Christian education.

Many educators at private, Christian schools pursue that route because they love teaching and education, but they also see their vocation as “ministering” to students and helping them see God’s truth in whatever subject they’re exploring. They aren’t “pastors,” but they are doing ministry daily. One of the things my research uncovered is that just because someone has attended church and small groups all of their life does not inherently mean that person knows how to lead a small group or disciple or do ministry; experiencing something does not necessarily mean being able to teach or translate it. Furthermore, just because someone has experienced the integration of faith and learning does not mean that person knows how to integrate faith and learning. 

It was in grad school that my heart for spiritual formation and a type of “pastoral care” for Christian educators grew, and it’s what I centered my Master’s thesis equivalent around. I created a curriculum and was so excited to think about being able to facilitate conversations amongst people like my former colleagues at the Christian school which I so loved in Hawaii. I loved my time in grad school—I took incredible ownership of my learning, and I soaked it all in. I felt empowered and ready to go change the world and use my degree in Christian Formation and Ministry: Bible, Theology, and Ministry “for Christ and His Kingdom.”

After graduating from grad school, returning to Hawaii looked like a sure thing, and then suddenly it wasn’t but instead was a very securely closed door. Scrambling in the summer when few teaching jobs are “left,” I found a job in California—a place I never thought I’d ever voluntarily live, but a place that I truly figured was on the way to Hawaii so would make my return to the islands way easier logistically. (I was traumatized by shipping my stuff back and forth from Texas to Hawaii many times, and sometimes God uses dumb reasons like “California is on the way logistically” to get you where you never thought you’d ever choose to go.)

So I ended up accepting a teaching job at a small Christian school in North County San Diego. And it was absolutely where I was supposed to be, and there were incredible moments of deep conversation and “textured” discussions around literature and faith and life with my students—about how life is complex and needs to be lived in the tension and yet God is good.

But there were also moments I wanted to run down the hallway screaming, “I can’t take it anymore!” and effectively tender my resignation. One of the most noteworthy was when a mom interrupted me while I was teaching to yell at me in front of my students saying, “How dare you call my daughter out in front of everyone,” by which she meant I had told her daughter to put her phone away after she walked in late, disrupting class, Starbucks in hand. I have many friends and family members who’ve taught, but none of them have ever heard of a parent interrupting class to publicly yell at a teacher (the irony of her yelling at me in front of my students was not lost on me as she was upset that I’d called her daughter out in front of the class).

Amidst those moments, I thought, “this is a total waste of my M.A. and not at all what I was hoping to do with my degree since I’m essentially doing the same job as before grad school but with worse pay.” When it came time to fill out the “intent to return” form Christian schools dole out each year, I checked “uncertain” or something along those lines, and I filled in the reasoning box. I wrote that I wanted to use my degree in Bible, theology, and ministry to facilitate spiritual formation and not just grade papers forever.

A week or two later, one of the administrators approached me on the football field and asked to hear more about what I meant. I shared my heart for doing “soul care” and some trainings on how to integrate faith and learning amongst the teachers, and the administrator said there might be a way to do that. After many conversations, I was asked to help run high school chapel, teach my 5 English courses, and lead once a month faculty meetings with the curriculum I’d created as part of my master’s capstone. So despite my “run-down-the-hallway-screaming” vibes, I stuck around another year.

And wow. I’m so grateful I did for all that I learned, and I’m so grateful for the opportunity to use that curriculum and implement some deeper conversations around spiritual formation and faith and learning. Yet what a year that was for me as a “woman in ministry leadership” and for my education on the topic. 

Having not set out to be a “woman pastor,” I never saw myself as that. I facilitated chapel in that I helped us come up with a theme for the year, and then I got speakers to come and share each week, based on that theme in an intentional progression. I was the main chapel speaker exactly one time that year—and I wouldn’t have called myself a “pastor” but just a teacher who already taught male and female students and was just gathering them into a larger room to share with all of them plus a few more and their teachers at one time.

With the curriculum in the monthly faculty meetings, I was never aiming to be a “campus pastor” to the teachers—men or women or both—but someone who had a degree and had done extensive research on spiritual formation in schools and training in discipleship and faith and learning. My role was to facilitate this curriculum which incorporated readings from other biblically sound and well-respected believers, and I crafted it with intent, research, and the aim for spiritual growth, adding in discussion questions along the way. At no point was I standing up in front of my colleagues preaching to them each month. The only time I ever did, it was my week to share in my Friday devotional, something that no one thought twice about women teachers doing and which happened almost every Friday.  

Yet the pushback—both overt and covert—I received for leading chapel and those monthly faculty meetings was eye-opening. Again, I’m a Dallas girl who grew up in Bible churches and went to Wheaton twice—no part of me is revolutionary or what I like to call “Ambitious.” I do have ambitions, but you know those “Ambitious” people—they set out to write books and change the world and convert entire countries and turn things on their heels. If I’ve ever done any of that it’s been because I reluctantly obeyed and did the thing, not because I wanted to or had some grand Ambition to do so.

I found out at a meeting with the administrators one day after school about some of the pushback—not from the administrators of the school, but from others tied to the church there, and I was a little blindsided since it wasn’t like I was setting out to be a campus “pastor” or anything. I literally had a degree in Bible, theology, and ministry, and I was using my master’s thesis project in the way it was dreamed up, researched, and intended. No part of that was “setting out to upend tradition” or the Bible or anything else along those lines.

I could go on, but my aim is not to throw others under the bus. That year was wildly formative for me and my faith and my views on women in ministry leadership. Contrary to the hopes of those who opposed my filling that role on campus, their opposition actually forced me to confront what I felt about women in ministry, and I concluded that I just might be more egalitarian than complementarian. Gasp! Shock! Right?!?

Here’s the thing: I can get into the theology of it, but I won’t right here. And I’m not going to die on this hill because I don’t really want to die on many hills anyway, but it comes down to this: I truly felt like God had opened doors for me to serve in the ways I was serving that year. I hadn’t pushed for my position; aside from writing on a half sheet of paper known as the “intent to return” form, I hadn’t pressed for it at all. People approached me, saying, “hmm, you have this interest, we have a need, and you also have the background and credentials to fill this need. Let’s do this.” So I did it. I walked through the open door.

But wow, did I have a lot of heart-to-hearts with God that year—really good conversations amidst feeling like a (small) target was on my back where I would ask Him, “Lord, have I been ‘rebellious’ in pursuing this? Am I overstepping my role and Your Word? The last thing I want to do is go against Your Word; I want to submit to You and be obedient, and yet, I feel like You just placed this in my lap.” I prayed that He would make it abundantly clear if I was being “rebellious” or even sinful in pursuing these “ministry leadership roles.” 

I should make clear that I had people in my corner, people who had my back. It was a few people with some weight to their titles adjacent to the school who were opposed to my two roles, but I was shielded from a lot of the full opposition by friends and bosses, and I was fortunate in that. 

But here we come to my boss, Rod King. After that meeting with administrators that afternoon where it was made clear that those adjacent to the school weren’t okay with me “leading” chapel [finding speakers] and teaching the men teachers [facilitating my curriculum of others’ words], I went home frustrated and a little tense, feeling that target on my back.

It’s hard as a woman in this situation because if you try to defend yourself, people who are totally opposed to women in ministry leadership positions to begin with can say you’re not being submissive in your defense but are just proving their point. It might seem ironic that it helps to have men defend women in these situations since some assume women are trying to prove that “they don’t need anyone defending them,” but that’s a narrow view of what’s going on. Most of the time this isn’t about a 1970s bra burning campaign to be sinful and rebellious “by preaching Jesus to menfolk.” Most of the time, it’s women who feel called and equipped to steward their lives in a way it seems like God is leading. I won’t say that for all women in ministry—some might be scheming and in pursuit of power, but if so, they’re in better company than just women in that regard.

The next day after this meeting was a chapel day, so I was feeling a little exposed after the previous afternoon’s revelations. I was standing up at the front of the chapel, mic in my hand, welcoming students in, when Rod, our high school principal in his first year at the school, came over, and between my announcements on the mic whispered to me, “About yesterday…I’m a ‘grace guy’ and I’m of the mindset that if you have the background, education, and gifting in it—and you clearly do—then why would we just go out and get a man to do the job?” I turned to look at him and smiled, then I lifted the mic back up and said, “Okay, go ahead and take a seat, students!”

It was that quick of a moment, but it was formative. [I’m writing a long missive here about it, after all.] It was formative because it showed me that others had my back, that I was not crazy or being openly rebellious for taking a step forward into what others had approached me about and what I felt like was an open door. And it was formative because I realized then, “Yes! That! That is my view of egalitarianism and complementarianism, of women in ministry.”

Again, we could get more into the theology of everything, and I could tell you about my time studying the oft-quoted passages in the letters to the church of Corinth…from my time studying in Corinth. And I’m still not sure that I want a woman pastoring and shepherding my church community, but I wonder how much of that is because of cultural norms and what I grew up with versus how much is theological (jury’s not back on that because I am still a Bible-belt grown human and have a very high view of scripture at the end of the day, and I can make a case in many ways, but lots of them come out looking very cultural).

But as Rod said, “If we have someone who’s got the background, education, and gifting in [fill in the blank], why would we just go out and get a man to do the job?” That pretty much sums up my view of women in ministry leadership. With caution and wanting to be obedient in God’s eyes, I state that, by the way. It’s not about “men are the worst and women are the future, so women pastors HUZZAH!”

I was in a particular situation where I felt called, I was approached about using something in my background and repertoire, and I felt like God was opening a door. So target on my back or not, I proceeded in a posture of humility before God, seeking Him to stop me if I was out of bounds or being disobedient, and He never did.

Rod King was a father of three daughters, all somewhat close to my age. I have to think that he was, indeed, a “grace guy,” but that his understanding of what women are capable of and called to has probably also been influenced by having three daughters. Honestly, my dad would probably say he’s a complementarian and be opposed to women pastors in theory (and maybe in practice, too), but he has empowered me to pursue where God has been leading and calling me, including “leading chapel” and “teaching menfolk in a spiritual formation curriculum.”

Rod’s words were so simple and quick—and the memory of them makes me smile since they were offered as a whisper up in front of the whole high school student body and faculty and staff between my mic announcements—and yet, they were so empowering. They were like a lightbulb, summing up what I’d been coming to define as my understanding of women in ministry leadership: if God has gifted me, provided an opportunity for me, given me the credibility and credentials for it, and called me to it, why should I stand back and defer to a man who is “qualified” because he is a man to fill the role God has placed before me? (That sounds really cynical—I don’t think all men are falsely called “qualified” simply because they are men, but hopefully you get the point from Rod’s words.)

This whole story is completely self-referential and not universally applicable, I know. But the point of this story is that my understanding of women in ministry leadership roles never really had to be defined until I found myself in a “ministry leadership role” with a small target on my back (I know this isn’t persecution, here. First world problems, for sure). And when it came to a head and I had to reckon with whether I was being disobedient or wrong to step into a ministry role very much laid right before me, Rod King’s words were the encouragement and empowerment I needed, a defusal of the vulnerability I felt up there on the mic “leading chapel” after I’d found out people were upset that I was leading chapel because I was a woman.

So many others had my back and were supportive of me that year—some in administrative roles, too. And I’m grateful to Rod for so many more things than just that moment between mic announcements that no one else probably even noticed.

When it was time to decide what I was going to do—to return or not after my second year at the school—I was in a big state of indecision. That fantasy of running through the hallway screaming was a daily dream of mine in my second year at the school, and yet stepping out into the unknown was terrifying. A known terrible entity is sometimes more alluring than an unknown future for someone who’s an Enneagram 6 like me.

Other administrators needed an answer—and I got it because I wanted them to have time to hire my replacement if needed—and they offered all kinds of advice. One told me to look for where there’s peace, and that’s probably good advice for others, but back to my being an Enneagram 6…. I realized there wasn’t peace either way. If I stayed, I had no peace because I would be returning to the land of a target on my back and countless hours of mental anguish over grading papers and a job that was draining me. If I left, stepping out to start what would become Still Waters, there was no peace because I had to pay my bills, and it’s a terrifying thing to quit your job at the age of 30 when you’re single and don’t have another income to fall back on as you step out in faith. 

Rod offered a different strategy. He came into my classroom and sat on a stool and asked me what I was thinking and how I was processing. I shared with him about my indecision, my heart for the cancer community, and more. Rod had battled pancreatic cancer for a long time, and while I think then a lot of the school assumed cancer was in his past, he explained to me that he was still undergoing treatment. I don’t think he shared with everyone, but cancer is that community you never want to be a part of but once you’re in, you’re in. 

He also said, “I wish I could tell you what to do because I’ve been in your shoes, and I know exactly what you’re struggling with—to stay or to go. But I can’t tell you what you should do because I’ve been in your shoes. But I will pray for you.” He knew that I needed to be obedient to the Lord at the end of the day, and I’m so grateful he didn’t try to sway me, indecisive and fueled by duty and obligation as I was (and am). He was my boss and modeled professionalism plus honesty and grace in a way many others didn’t or haven’t. That conversation gave me great freedom in my decision because I knew that I wasn’t “letting anyone down” if I left; I needed to truly seek and then follow where God was leading. (Spoiler alert: I did end up leaving and starting Still Waters, and I’m grateful to Rod’s encouragement in that, too.)

I found out last night that Rod passed away from his long walk with cancer on Sunday. The way I’ve just shared, you might think that I worked for him for 10 years. I worked for Rod King for exactly 1 school year. And I hope this isn’t one of those, “I knew him well!” stories which make me think of high school when people even slightly acquainted with someone want to be “famous-adjacent” when something happens with that person.

I didn’t know Rod super well. I worked for him for just one year. But it was a year in which I found my voice in some ways, where things that I’d long been learning and my understanding of God’s calling and equipping started cementing into place. Others were part of that year and my subsequent learning, too, and I don’t want to overstate how well I knew Rod and how he “forever changed my life!” in some insincere way.

But amidst the running-down-the-hallway-screaming dream I held in that contentious and incredibly exhausting year, Rod King was a gift to us at the school. He was a gift to me in letting me know he had my back, in helping me crystallize what I’d been learning about my role and calling “despite being a woman in the church,” and in giving me the freedom to decide where God was leading me.

Men, we need more leaders like Rod in ministry and in the church and parachurch organizations (schools included). We need more people who are “grace guys,” who can empower those feeling targeted or like they’re in tenuous positions despite God’s calling and opening of doors and opportunities. We need more leaders who aren’t just looking out for themselves and the best interests of their institutions but would rather look out for the person and God’s hand on their lives.

I’m grateful for Rod King, and I’m so saddened by his loss. Complex as life is, I’m also so grateful he’s no longer in pain and no longer waging war with cancer. Cancer can suck it. I’m grieved for his daughters and for his wife. I’m grieved for the school because he was a voice of reason and being a “grace guy” made him a gift to that school. Rod was a great man and leader—not perfect since no one is, but a grace guy of a leader.

I think of that moment at the front of the chapel a lot—of the impact one person can have with one sentence whispered between public mic announcements in a well-timed and well-executed encouraging moment. We as the church have some issues, for sure, but there are daily miracles like that moment which transform, crystallize, and empower, and God is mightily at work in those whispers-between-the-mic moments. If you can give those moments, do. If you receive them, thank whoever gives them to you and make sure they know the impact a simple [compound] sentence can make.

From Survivor’s Guilt to Stewardship

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This past week was brutal at work, as Covid’s impact has had dramatic effects on our ability to fulfill our mission statement that we strengthen schools (something hard to do when schools are all over the place with plans and regulations right now). My company is going to be fine, but with so much uncertainty around school climates right now, we didn’t want to keep playing defense or be behind the curve. On Friday, layoffs and furloughs were announced, and I found myself “safe” and on our core team when many others are not anymore or are being asked to wait it out in furlough for a time.

These people are not bad at their jobs, they haven’t done anything wrong, and they’re not terrible humans; the opposite is true in every case. People who’ve been around for a decade longer than I’ve been with our company; people who’ve trained me—when I first started and even more recently for a new position this May; and people who’ve literally given me keys to their apartments and made me feel like I have community and a home in Southern California were impacted by furloughs or layoffs this week. 

I was talking with my friend Melissa, always a sage counselor and faithful listener, about the situation, and she said, “It sounds like you’re feeling some survivor’s guilt.” No stranger to my walk through cancer, the aftermath, and my ministry pursuits since then, Melissa has heard me share about this concept as a cancer survivor, and her words struck me deeply. I have been feeling that sense of survivor’s guilt with work this week.

If you haven’t heard of it, survivor’s guilt is a phenomenon experienced by those who’ve gone through trauma—from war veterans to survivors of natural disasters and traumatic events, and it’s something many cancer survivors experience.

Here’s what survivor’s guilt has looked like for me as a cancer survivor: for whatever reason—which I’ll probably never know this side of heaven—I’m alive when so many others are not. I didn’t do anything special or more heroic to make it and others didn’t do anything wrong or less brave.

What I’ve learned through cancer survivorship is that survivor’s guilt can leave you stuck, struggling with the “why” question, and focused on so many things you can’t do anything about. It’s a real and fair phenomenon, but, just as I learned in the early years of my cancer survivorship, if I believe that God is sovereign and good and has a plan—even when I can’t understand it or make sense of what’s happening all around me—then I believe I am called to turn that sense of survivor’s guilt into a posture of stewardship.

Survivor’s guilt says it’s not fair that I survived when others didn’t. That’s true, and I feel that—with cancer and with work now. But if I sit in a posture of survivor’s guilt, I’m stuck mourning that hard reality and it’s hard to move on.

Stewardship says because I’m alive, I now need to do something with my life, make my life count. Stewardship can acknowledge the unfairness of my survival, too—it’s not “fair” or “right” that I’m safe at work when others aren’t, but the reality is that I am safe right now. If I sit in a posture of stewardship, then knowing that—for whatever reason—I’m safe right now, I’m going to steward the heck out of that reality and do everything I can to make the opportunity before me count.

The shift from a posture of survivor’s guilt to stewardship came after a conversation with one of my Wheaton graduate school professors in 2013. Dr. Schultz, my Biblical Interpretations professor, and his wife had students over to their house for dessert and conversation a couple different times, so I signed up to drop by on one cold October night. We started talking, and Dr. Schultz shared that he had gone back and read my blog which I started writing when I was diagnosed with cancer during Wheaton undergrad five years earlier. I was honored but also quickly embarrassed because Dr. Schultz translated Hebrews, Isaiah, and many other books of the Bible for the NIV.

THE ACTUAL NIV, Y’ALL. 

I knew there had been human translators and committees, but I never thought about the actual individuals responsible for choosing one word over another and offering up the bound biblical translation all my memory verses had come from all my life.

After I stammered through a response, saying something like, “Oh, wow, that’s so nice and also, you really don’t need to be reading my blog,” Dr. Schultz asked me more about my book which had just come out and how I came to write it. He said something then that has changed my whole perspective on survivorship. He said, “It sounds like you feel a sense of stewardship with your cancer.”

I knew the word “stewardship” as a product of growing up in the church and 18 years of private, Christian education, but I’d always thought of it in terms of stewarding my resources—mostly financial resources, but also my time and talents. I’d never applied the idea to experiences we’ve walked through or the things God has done in our lives. It wasn’t a novel term but rather a novel application of the concept. That moment was profoundly impactful, putting words and clarity around something I’d been feeling for the past five years of cancer survivorship.

Dr. Schultz then shared about how he and his wife lost a daughter due to literal fallout from the Chernobyl disaster in the mid 1980s, and they had experienced that sense of stewardship afterward, wanting to make something of the loss, what they’d learned, and all that God had done in them and shown them through the tragedy.

I’m definitely not doing justice to their story, but I’m so grateful for that night and conversation because it was one of those “lighthouse moments,” shining a path through what had otherwise been a somewhat dark journey through survivorship and survivor’s guilt. What had bordered on feeling guilty at times for the fact that I was alive when so many others weren’t shifted to my feeling a sense of stewardship over the experience.

No longer was it a “for some ‘arbitrary’ reason, I’m alive, so I better do something with my life,” but it became a calling to steward the work God had done and continues to do. If I’m alive, I believe God’s got more in store for me, so I’m going to be a vessel with the time I’ve got, what I often refer to as “bonus time.” People will for sure get tired of hearing me talk about cancer, but I’m stewarding the heck out of what God has done in my life, which means I will keep talking about cancer and the wonders God did and things He’s since taught me until He tells me otherwise or brings me to Him.

Since Friday and the fallout from work, scenes from different movies and stories keep circling my brain as I’m processing all the emotions of this call to a new kind of stewardship in the workplace and with my job. I’ve been thinking of Avengers Endgame because it’s just so perfect anyway, but also because the heroes wade through survivor’s guilt versus stewardship in the first act of the movie. At one point, the character Black Widow says the heroes who survived Thanos’ snap owe it to everyone else who’s not in the room to try and fix things. The song “Seize the Day” from Newsies the Musical also keeps echoing, especially an early lyric where the main characters talk about fighting for their brothers who aren’t there to fight with them. Those feel appropriate as I’m now fired up to fight for our company to return to full strength and fight for those who’ve been laid off or furloughed.

But a scene from the final Hunger Games movie, Mockingjay, Part 2, has been most on that mental loop in my brain. In the scene, Katniss Everdeen starts to list names of people the heroes have lost along the way, people whose lives have been impacted by her quest to take down President Snow. In some cases, Katniss’s actions—borne of good intentions—have directly contributed to their deaths. Her words convey the deep sense of loss she feels as she implicitly wonders what all that loss was for. Peeta Mellark understands her question, answering that all of those deaths remind them that their lives were never theirs to begin with anyway. He adds that if Katniss stops now, the loss of those heroes will have been for nothing. But if she will continue on and finish this thing out, all those deaths and all that loss will mean something.

I realize, in light of cancer and real people losing their jobs this week, a fictional clip of a dystopian young adult series probably feels simultaneously too lighthearted and melodramatic, but I think the reason that scene keeps replaying in my mind’s eye is that it hits on the shift from survivor’s guilt to stewardship. Katniss is overwhelmed with survivor’s guilt in that initial moment in Tigress’s basement, unable to move on and think about next steps. But Peeta challenges and encourages her to steward the fact that she’s alive while others aren’t, making it count and finishing the job ahead of her.

That sounds like a lot of pressure, and it is if you’re a teenage girl trying to topple an authoritarian regime in a dystopian future. In some ways, it could sound like a lot of pressure for anyone feeling survivor’s guilt, thinking stewardship now means they’re responsible to make their lives count and make meaning of others’ loss. But because I know to my core that I am part of a larger Narrative, one in which the God of this universe is sovereign and all-powerful as He writes the story, stewardship doesn’t have to mean a ton of pressure.

Instead, it means living into our calling to steward our lives, our experiences, and our time, money, and talents, too. It means looking at what’s before me, whether it’s fair that I’m still alive or employed or not, and saying, “Okay, Lord, because You have given this to me, I’m going to give my best and do my very best with it.” I’m not responsible for saving anyone or anything because I’m not the Savior, but I serve the God who is, so I’m going to give my best as a vessel, as a steward. The only pressure I really have is the choice to sit in survivor’s guilt or move to stewardship.

If you’re feeling a sense of survivor’s guilt for any circumstance in your life, know that it’s a psychologically recognized phenomenon and fair to be feeling. But I encourage you to think of whatever you’ve been given in terms of stewardship rather than survivor’s guilt.

Let’s not feel pressure to singlehandedly carry the world on our shoulders in response to what we’ve been given—after all, it is for freedom we’ve been set free, healed, employed, and more. But instead let’s recognize with humility that God has—for whatever reason—protected us in some way, and let’s steward the heck out of what He’s given us, done for us, and called us to.

If we sit in survivor’s guilt, the gift of life, continuing employment, and whatever else we’re feeling guilty over can very well be wasted. But if we’ll move from survivor’s guilt to a posture of stewardship, serving as vessels for what God wants to do, we can rest in the fact that nothing—including loss along the way—is wasted in His economy, in the grander Narrative He is telling.

Confident in Hope

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Every day, a notification pops up on my iCal at 7:55 a.m. with the names of 5 people to pray for, all cancer patients. Fun fact: it actually pops up on my iPad and my iPhone, but my iPad is half a second ahead of my iPhone, based on how that notification arrives. [Apple, can you look into this?!]

It started with my cousin Ashley’s name a couple years ago, and then I just kept adding to the daily calendar event. The once-“Pray for Ashley” became “and Sabrina” then “and Amy” then “and Ellison” and more; it started showing up on my screen with an ellipsis. If I had faithfully added to it with all those I’ve met and been asked to pray for, there would have been far more than 5 names, but while I didn’t type their names out, I mentally added them to that list and prayer time.

For me, this notification and these names are a daily reminder of the pain people are walking through and the burden of this terrible nemesis called cancer. Of those 5 names, 1 is in remission, and I thank God for that and for Ashley’s life. But now it’s also a daily reminder of the grief those 4 families and loved ones walk through daily, marred by the pain and loss cancer causes. I know there’s a lot going on right now and it can all feel overwhelming. In fact, I told my friend Monica that, if these are not the end times, I for SURE do not want to be around for them (probably not sound eschatology from a double Wheaton grad, I know. But you get the point).

I created this image after hearing about a loss of one of these five names over the weekend, someone who showed me great care and who prayed for me in my cancer battle, whose family is very near and dear to me. Life lived in the tension means my heart is broken again, for my friends and what they’re walking through as well as for the one who passed. I know in my head that’s odd and wrong since he is now healed and whole in the Savior’s presence, not wishing for a moment he were back here. Yet, I’m inclined to grieve for the years he won’t live, for the experiences his family won’t have with him, for what could have been.

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it many times to come: life is complex. Grief is complex. Hope is real, and I know that earthly healing and victory over cancer are nothing in light of the eternal healing we have in Christ, yet pain and grief are real, too.

I love Ellie Holcomb, and the lyrics of her song “We’ve Got This Hope” keep coming to mind:

“Even when our hearts are breaking,
Even when our souls are shaking,
Oh, we’ve got this hope.
Even when the tears are falling,
Even when the night is calling,
Oh, we’ve got this hope.”

Lest that sound too rose-colored-glasses and happy-Christianese, it may help to know that Ellie wrote that album amidst her dad’s cancer diagnosis, so there’s nothing trite or trivial in those lyrics. No, they balance the complex reality of our eternal hope and present sorrow in this life lived in the tension. The best songs, the truest ones I put on repeat in the storms of life always do that.

Even when our hearts are breaking and the tears are falling, we’ve got this eternal hope in God. Even when the world feels like it’s imploding, we’ve got this hope in Him. The tears and broken hearts and world’s implosion don’t cease at that truth [though they could—looking at you, Psalm 46], but they’re mitigated in some ways by the reality that we live into our tears and broken hearts and we press on in an imploding world with the reminder Jesus gave: “…in this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33b).

The pain and loss, the racial injustice and systemic issues, the pandemics and chaos are real, yet so is the already-but-not-yet fact that He has overcome the world and is our Hope.

Today, I’m leaving this image here as a reminder, a “speaking myself into believing” anthem which I say and sing out loud to claim, remembering that we WILL see the goodness of the Lord. My confidence isn’t rooted in my own ability to believe that (which is weak and falters) or the things of this world (hello, dumpster fire that is 2020).

I will remain confident of hope because of who GOD is and because of His faithfulness amidst all the storms and chaos and injustices and sicknesses. He is still good, and He is still on His throne.

I’ve been tempted to remove the 4 names who have passed away from my daily notification because new names keep getting mentally added and because the daily reminder of their loss and so many others’ isn’t something I super want to think about daily at 7:55 a.m. But I think it’s something I may need, even though I don’t like it. It reminds me of the good work to be done, the gratitude I have for my healing and the healing of others I know and love, and the reality of living in the tension, something I would like to escape [please reopen, Disneyland], but which I know is a daily reality and calling as a believer.

I will remain confident that I will see the goodness of the Lord because I am called to do so by Jesus Himself, just as I am called to pursue justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God—no matter the dumpster fire of 2020, the loss of another to cancer, or prayers that didn’t end up how I hoped. And each day at 7:55 a.m. when that half-second-separated-double notification arrives, I will live in the tension and trust that He is working and that HE is the hope we’ve got amidst the sorrow of our lived experiences.

11 Years Post-Treatment (and everything’s different but also the same)

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Wow, what a time. COVID season has been really interesting, and I wrote on some of what I’ve been processing through the other day and hope to publish it soon, but my first foray back into publishing my work here is on a different subject (though one which may still resonate amidst this strange time of illness, fear, and isolation). My mom just reminded me that today, May 14th, is the anniversary of my finishing chemotherapy. Maybe it’s the COVID craziness of days running together or maybe it’s that enough time has finally passed that every single cancerversary isn’t acutely seared into my consciousness, but it’s almost 5:00 p.m., I’ve been working since 6:00 a.m., and I just now realized the significance of May 14th.

May 14, 2009

I’m inclined to think it’s the former because cancer has actually been on my mind often lately. Still Waters has been at the forefront because of coronavirus, given that our retreat is scheduled for the end of June and our “target audience” is an immunocompromised population. Some would say that’s problematic against a pandemic, so it’s been occupying a lot of mental energy. Beyond that, I’ve had some great conversations with a friend in cancer ministry lately, discussing the heart we have for what we do and for the cancer community to know Jesus, while at the same time finding solidarity together in the fact that the subject matter weighs heavily and has led to burnout in some ways for both of us in the past year. Additionally, this week we learned of the painful loss to cancer of a 13 year old daughter of some family friends and a 4 year old daughter of some of our work family.

To top it off, one of my dearest friends and I talked for two hours on Friday about her cancer diagnosis and the fallout from that. She’s a little over a year out of treatment and a year and a half from her diagnosis—coincidentally, she was diagnosed the same day as I was but 10 years later. I met this friend a couple months after I finished chemotherapy, and her friendship, encouragement, and wisdom were an integral part of my healing process after I finished treatment and processed what the heck had just happened. We talk here and there, comment on each other’s social media often, and see each other when we’re in the same state, but we don’t talk about cancer all that often. When we do, though, everything comes flooding back because I remember being where she is and processing through what she’s feeling and thinking. 

If you’ve ever read any of my blog or my book or know me, you know I’ll bring up cancer—or joke about working in the “cancer card” for effect—and am not shy about the topic. But contrary to what many might think, it’s not always on my mind, and I’m grateful for that. In my call with my friend last Friday, we talked about the long-term effects of cancer, some of which can be physical but for us have been more mental and emotional. I’m so grateful to be able to talk with her and encourage her 11 years from the end of treatment, but I also hate that we have this new thing over which to deepen our friendship. I hate cancer and how it leaves no one untouched; cancer’s fallout is widespread and long-lasting.

Every time I think things have quieted down for a while, cancer pops back up and I’m reminded of my heart for people with and touched by cancer. The past 7 days have been a great example of that phenomenon. I don’t have any sage words or even anything new to add to the topic; I stand by what I wrote in my book and what I’ve written here before. What was true 5 years ago is true today, even if I process things with a different perspective and think about cancer slightly less frequently these days. But this I know and still believe, 11 years from finishing treatment: 

God is still good, life is still complex, and we are still living in the tension between sorrow and hope, between the rest, healing, and wholeness promised to us eternally and the reality that life is hard here on earth. I’m convinced more than ever about this fact, and life is no less complex today than it was 11 years ago—on the contrary, it’s probably more complex now as names get added to the list of those whom cancer has touched, and I know that list will only grow as time moves on.

Today I celebrate being cancer-free—and especially being chemo free because that stuff healed me but was also the worst. And yet, I celebrate cognizant of the reality that I can say “God is good” because I’m here to write about it. Survivor’s guilt (along with PTSD) is a real phenomenon with cancer survivors, and I’ve always been aware of the fact that I get to celebrate cancerversaries like this while others do not. There’s another point for my conviction that life is complex, lived in the tension of celebrating healing while mourning loss.

On the call last Friday, my friend and I were talking about cancer’s impact, about how my friend hoped that by not talking about it too much and with the passage of time, she wouldn’t think about cancer. Yet, she thinks about it often and it haunts her in some ways. We reminisced about how, five months after my treatment ended, I sat with her and she prayed for me to have hope and remember God’s goodness because, having made it through treatment to the other side, I had this haunting sensation that more bad things were in store, as if I was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

What was my prayer request 10+ years ago has become her challenge now, and as we talked last week, we said how crazy it was that my concerns and prayer request would become her reality years later. She asked me some questions around healing and timelines and moving on, and I told her that I really hated what I was going to tell her and didn’t want to frighten her, but those kinds of things still haunt me in some ways today. They don’t haunt me to the same degree, and time has definitely turned those wounds into scabs and then scars, but we concluded that cancer isn’t really something you ever fully “move on” from.

I have moved forward for sure, and life today looks really normal (outside of running a cancer nonprofit, but that’s of my own volition and calling). But cancer is a paradigm-shifting diagnosis. In some ways it’s expanded my capacity to mourn with those who mourn, to minister to a broken and hurting world, and to use the bonus time I’ve been gifted through no merit of my own more intentionally than before. I can go on, but the point isn’t that cancer has forever haunted and broken me; the point is that cancer has forever impacted me, and I don’t think that’s going away.

With each new diagnosis I hear about, my heart will break and I will remember the terror of hearing the words “biopsy,” “cancer,” or anything else related to what most people fear above all else actually becoming my reality, now knowing what another friend or family is wading through. Cancerversaries like today will come, and it may take me all day to remember that I should have milked the opportunity to celebrate, but celebrate I will (because, hello?!? it’s cancer and that’s allowed. Fight me.). It may feel like strange territory to celebrate healing when so many I’ve known and loved don’t get to do the same, and I think I’ll always be sensitive to that in this complex, living-in-the-tension world we inhabit.

There’s a ton I’ve learned in these 11 years, a ton I believe about God’s goodness and faithfulness deep in my soul, and a ton of questions I may never have answers to. But today I’m thankful amidst so much sorrow to have the undeserved gift of healing, aware of the story I’m called to steward (which is really God’s story of working in my life anyway), and grateful for the healing He’s done in my life since treatment ended 11 years ago.

Lazarus [Still] Died

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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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A Rogue Reminder

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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

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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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