The Day When Everything Changed

Ah, the days of bangs,
gold-rimmed glasses, and clothes
that were way too big for me.
Alas, the hunched shoulders 
haven't changed much.

This coming Friday, June 28, will mark 26 years since my world forever changed. A decision that will quite literally echo into eternity. I even remember what I was wearing at that precise moment, right down to my tennis shoes. I had my then-long, blonde hair pulled back into a pony tail. I had on a red track shirt, a pair of black Umbro shorts, and a ratty pair of red and black Nike's that my mother not-so-secretly hoped would find their way into the nearest dumpster pronto. (I was notorious for wearing my shoes until I practically walked out of them.) There was a band playing that night called Delta Chi. I was 13 years old, a camper at a church camp tucked into the hills of Wilmington, Ohio.

And then Jesus entered the picture and everything changed.

I had grown up in church, hearing the gospel - the "good news" -  numerous times. The bad news was that man was sinful, in need of something outside of himself to redeem and restore him. The consequence for sin is unequivocal death, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). The "good news" was that God sent his son, Jesus Christ, to bring us from death to life. I knew that intellectually like I knew my times tables. 

But there was still a gap in my understanding. That truth had not traveled all the way to my heart. I remember a former pastor of mine saying, "The longest distance you'll ever travel is the 18 inches between your head and your heart." But that night, on June 28, 1998, I finally traveled that distance.

The teaching for the night was from 1 Corinthians 9:24-26:

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air.

There were 3 campers called up, each representing a different type of runner in the spiritual race Paul talks about here in Corinthians. One volunteer represented the person who was running the race, standing at the starting line, but hadn't actually begun running toward the finish line. Another volunteer represented the person who also was standing at the starting line, but so tied down with their baggage that they made no forward progress, tangled up and waylaid by their sin.

The third volunteer was running all out, heading straight for the finish line, loving Jesus wholeheartedly along the way.

I was the third volunteer.

In a moment of overwhelming conviction, I knew I was anything but the person I was supposed to represent. I identified far more with the other runners in the race. They probably should've had a fourth volunteer, someone who was running in the opposite direction. That would've been the best depiction of my spiritual state at the time. 

And ever since that trajectory-changing moment, I have kept running after him because he is the single greatest thing that has ever happened to me. How could you not chase after and pursue the one who has redeemed and restored all the broken parts of your heart and your life, and not just once, but again and again and again? How could you not love the only one who can reveal your sins and still leave you feeling loved? How could you not love the author of the word that is living and active, words that have the power to transform and change your very nature? How could you not chase after the one who makes all things new? How could you not chase after the one who is your living hope? How could you not chase after the one who promises life for all eternity? He is so precious to me, in a way that I can't fully articulate.

Jesus isn't merely some historical figure or some "good" man. 

He lived a perfect life and did what I could never do. I could never be my own savior. It would never be enough. No matter how hard I tried. He died a brutal, brutal death on a cross. He was placed in a tomb.  That tomb is now empty because he is now alive.

Until my dying day, I want it be said that I lived with Jesus as my one magnificent obsession, that I ran after Jesus wholeheartedly all the way to the finish line.  Will I run perfectly? Absolutely not. I am assured of my salvation and the fact that I will spend all eternity with him in heaven, yes, but I still live in a sin-soaked world and I am still very human.

The same question that was presented to me 26 years ago is the same question before you now: Which runner are you? And what will you do about that?

"Run in such a way as to get the prize." 

Jesus is that prize. He is what's waiting for you at the finish line.

______________________

Functional updates

I'll try to carve out space in each post to provide updates on where I am in the process. So, if you're just here for the nuts and bolts, in the future you can slide straight here to the bottom and skip my idle wanderings above.

I cut up an orange! I walked for 30 minutes! I held a full Yeti tumbler with my left hand! I pulled the lever on the recliner back with my left hand! I opened a package of deli meat! And all by my big girl self! The left arm has moved up from a one-star Yelp review to a solid two-star. ⭐⭐

Since June 17, I've been keeping a notebook of symptoms, exercises, med changes, and improvements, no matter how big or small. And I am marveling at the gains I've been making daily, in awe of how God has been answering so many prayers. Heading into the start of chemo and radiation, I just keep imagining my life becoming a black hole of misery. O ye of little faith! These last two weeks (reminder: I started treatment on June 10, so I'm at the start of week 3), is by far the best I've felt since surgery in April. It almost feels ridiculous to me, looking back, how much things have shifted, especially through mid- and late May when I was repeatedly slammed by seizures (last one was May 30). Stress was through the roof and everything was an emotional cliff. I was on the phone with my HR in the midst, trying to figure out how to get on long-term disability but still carry my health insurance, but what I really wanted to do was to quit my job somehow because I just couldn't fathom how to keep going and juggling the never-ending stream of doc appointments and rehab on top of work.

Are there still days when I think Dang, I hate cancer? You better believe it. Do I think there are still hard days yet to come? Sure. 

But I also see God answering my prayers to be radiant through radiation and my prayers that he would increase my energy, motivation, stamina, coordination, strength, joy, and gratitude. There was the prayer to be like the burning bush in Exodus 3, though I be ablaze with drugs that I not be consumed by side effects. I am so unbelievably humbled and grateful by his workings. He brought to mind the verses from Daniel 9:18-19: 

We do not make requests of you because we are righteous, but because of your great mercy. Lord, listen! Lord, forgive! Lord, hear and act! For your sake, my God, do not delay, because your city and your people bear your Name.

I do not make these requests of him because of my own righteousness but because of his great mercy. For your sake, God, do not delay because I bear your Name. 

My new prayer, as odd as it may seem, is that God would make me like Secretariat, the legendary thoroughbred, when he ran the Belmont in 1973. Why not? I'm not going to have not because I asked not. If God is willing to send talking donkeys (see Numbers 22), fish with drachmas in their mouths (see Matthew 17), floating ax heads (see 2 Kings 6), and all other manner of strange phenomena to display his sovereignty over the natural order, then I've got no problems asking him to make my body like that of a legendary racehorse, one who moved "like a tremendous machine!" (If you never seen the footage of the race, it really is stunning and kind of absurd what that horse accomplished, a record that stands to this day.) May I move like a "tremendous machine" as I move through the remainder of treatment, gaining momentum with each passing day rather than losing it. I want to end the race moving faster than I started (which is another historical footnote: If my memory serves correctly, he started the Derby running at 36 mph and finished running at 39 mph. He got faster as the race unfolded. The exact opposite should have happened. He still holds the record for the Derby, by the way. Read Bill Nack's book Making of a Champion for an excellent telling of Secretariat's story).

Roughly two weeks of radiation and chemo down, four more to go! And then a break from both, at which point, I don't want to see a single medical provider or rehab specialist.