Mirror, Mirror, on the Page

I travel many a road when it comes to my reading moods. The year started with a leisurely stroll into theology (Reforesting Faith: What Trees Teach Us About the Nature of God and His Love for Us by Matthew Sleeth). From there, I meandered over to the memoirs (Surprised by Oxford by Carolyn Weber). I then hopped over historical fiction (Becoming Mrs. Lewis by Patti Callahan). I made a pit stop over to romantic suspense (One Wrong Move by Dani Pettrey), only to discover I had actually already read that one. Only a few pages in, I thought to myself, "Waaaait a minute. This feels vaguely familiar to me." Right, well, when you've already read it, yes, it should feel familiar. Although, I do have a brain tumor, so I pulled the cancer card with myself on that one and let myself off the hook. I still re-read the book as a refresher, knowing the next book in the series was about to be released.

Even now at the young age of forty, maybe I need to pull a Dan Pelzer move and start a log of every book I read. However, thanks to the wonders of technology, my library account does now maintain a 'reading history' for me. I wouldn't have recalled even the short list above if I hadn't referred to that.

Amid the highways and byways of the bookshelves, I managed to find myself reading an autobiography this summer, a task that felt equivalent to a long-haul trucking assignment, crossing state lines, aiming to get from one end to the other in a timely manner. I started it in July, thinking I'd have it done by the time I finished treatment, which was earlier this month. The entire collection is roughly nineteen volumes. I'm working on volume fifteen, so my goal of finishing by the end of treatment obviously did not happen. 

Autobiographies can be hefty reads just because they span an entire life, unlike memoirs that capture a limited point in time and are more digestible. Autobiographies can also be boring at times, tedious even, which makes it hard to push through them (see also Open by Andre Agassi. I attempted to read that earlier this year and abandoned the cause because it was, in fact, a slog, and I could not maintain the energy or desire to finish. What the author cares about may not always be what the reader cares about, and I did not care about tennis.)

It can also be disorienting at times to read everything in first-person, when you are up close and personal with the author's thoughts, behaviors, and perspectives. Maybe you cringe a little. Maybe you laugh a little. Maybe you cry a little. Maybe you disagree a little. You run the gamut of emotions with the author. You get a glimpse into their past, where you find places that maybe are less than glamorous, places that maybe the wider world was unaware of until the person disclosed it on their own terms, in their own words. And you see how that past shaped their present, bringing them to whatever moment in their life they find themselves at the point of publication.

Wondering what the title is and who the author is that I've been trying to make my way through for nearly three months now?

Untitled by Courtney.

I've been reading my own story.

In my own words. 

Page after page.

Volume after volume.

Year after year.

I've kept a journal since January 2, 1997. I was twelve at the time and in the sixth grade. I have nineteen full journals, twenty-one if you count the two bonus ones that I mailed back and forth with friends (those are tagged as volumes 2.1 and 4.1). All of them are stored between three waterproof and fireproof safes and are my most-prized possessions. I would be so grieved if something happened to them, and someone else would be grieved if they broke into my house, thinking they hit the jackpot with three safes, only to find them filled with paper and ink rather than jewels and money.

Ah, the resolutions of my twelve-year-old self.
Clearly my priorities were the welfare of my pets 
(Bud, Maggie, and the fish), and improving my hygiene.

There is at least one entry, typically far more, from every single year since 1997. Almost twenty-nine years of documenting my life. The longest period of time a single journal covers is six years and three months. The shortest one spans a mere four months. I'll never know for certain how many words total I've written but I wouldn't be surprised if it was in the vicinity of half a million words or more.

This isn't the first time I've re-read my own words. I've done it multiple times in the past, and the last go-round was in late 2021. But even since then, I've filled three more journals and working on my fourth. So, every time I do a read through, it is taking me longer and longer to do so. I decided the next time I do it, I'm simply going to read the most recent five years.

What was so astounding to me in this particular re-reading saga, however, was a theme I hadn't really picked up on before. Or if I did, I have no memory of it. (But this is a prime example of why I re-read them - God shows me something new every single time I re-read my journals, some new way he was faithful to me that maybe I had forgotten about and of which I needed to be reminded.) I would get through certain years, especially my high school and college years, and I would be horrified and convicted about how I spoke to myself through those pages. The words I documented reflected my own thoughts, which were primarily thoughts about all the things I "should" have done differently. 

I should have been more loving . . . 

I should have known how to do that . . . 

I should have said this instead of that . . . 

I should love God better . . . 

I should lead better . . . 

I should work harder . . . 

I should try harder . . . 

I should, I should, I should.

Mounds upon mounds of self-condemnation and self-loathing, seemingly chased by a constant sense of failure. It was never explicit, like saying, "I hate myself," but the meaning was there nonetheless, just masquerading as a girl and a woman trying to hold it all together, all the time. It both angered and grieved me all at once. My boss joked with me once, "Court, you've fired yourself a dozen times over from this job. Quit being so hard on yourself."

Even I got sick of reading my own thoughts after while. It all just felt gross, like, "Dang, girl, grant yourself some grace and space to not be perfect." The more I read, the harder it got to continue through the years.

But there came a point when I felt this thought, this conviction from the Holy Spirit, arrive deep in my gut, "This is how you talk to yourself every day." It was as if I was seeing my own self mirrored back to me in a way that I had perhaps always known about, but was reminded of in a startling and stark way.

Mirror, mirror, on the page.

We all face this dilemma, the lies we believe about ourselves. Maybe your lies sound different than mine, and maybe yours aren't documented between the college-lined pages of journals, but they are there in your heart and mind, nonetheless. You are a sinner just like me, and as such, we are all easy prey for the devil's schemes. Satan is the father of lies (John 8:44), after all, and the implications of living in a broken, sinful world, is that we are readily deceived by his accusations. 

So, when we look in this mirror, the question becomes not who is the fairest of us all, but will truth or lies win when the Accuser comes for us?

Mirror, mirror, on the page, will truth or lies win this war we wage?

John the Baptist, the prophet sent prior to Jesus to point people to Jesus, also points us to the way in which we answer this question for ourselves. The Jews and the Jewish leaders of the day kept asking him who he was. Was he Elijah? Was he the Prophet? Was he the Messiah? John denied all of those identities.

Finally they said, “Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”

John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, “I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord’” (John 1:22-23).

Did you notice what transpired there? They asked, "What do you say about your own identity?" They handed him their mirror and said, "Tell us who you are when you look into this mirror."  

John, instead, did the exact opposite. He picked up a different mirror and answered with the mirror of the Word of God, from the pages of Scripture, "John replied in the words of Isaiah . . ." It was the words of the Old Testament that told John who he was, what his identity was, what the truth was. The mirror the people handed him was worthless because it would have been built on lies and their own wishes of who they wanted John to be. The Word of God was the only place John knew the truth would rest.

It is the only place we can rest when we seek to determine who we are. It won't come from those around us. It won't come from our spouses, our kids, our friends, our employers, or our social media feed. It won't even come from within ourselves. We are far too easily deceived. When we find ourselves picking up the wrong mirror, one filled with lies, let us pick up the mirror that tells us the truth - always - the Word of God.

Mirror, mirror, on God's page, only your truth can win this war we wage.

May we all start looking in the right mirror, one filled with truth and not lies.

Fed by the Unexpected

Every morning around 7:30 a.m., they start descending, as if controlled by an air traffic control tower somewhere in the skies above, unseen by us earthlings. Like unruly, feathered teenagers, they poke and pester, sometimes awkwardly crash-landing on top of one another, as if they didn't even see that their intended landing spot was another member of their own species—an equally large, dark, gangly bird. They line my fence row so closely together that I can barely make out one from another. I need binoculars for my own backyard, it turns out.

I have inadvertently become a birdwatcher in recent months.

A vulture-watcher, to be precise.

I stand at my kitchen window every morning, eating breakfast and counting buzzards. If anybody wonders what I do with my life as a single, 40-year-old woman recovering from cancer treatment: I watch buzzards, and I count them. I also take lots of photos and videos of them, and I text updates to anybody who cares to know what the latest count is at Buzzard Landing, as I occasionally call it. Even if they don't care to know, I text them. If someone were to scroll through the photos on my phone, they would have serious concerns about the state of affairs in my life because I have a lot of photos and videos of a) buzzards, b) random body parts from this past year that show odd side effects like rashes, bruises, and wounds that won't heal, c) my head, showing the progression of my hair growth, and d) MRI scans that show a giant black hole in my brain. Once they see the MRIs, they might be like, "Ohhhh, well that explains a lot."

Most days there are about twenty to thirty vultures gathered. We topped out at forty-one one day and then forty-five a few days later, but those were just the ones I could see in my own yard. Who knows how many more were in the neighbors' yards to my right and left.

I don't know how my yard came to be the yard of choice for these ugly-as-sin birds. Has anyone else's yard in town become home to this "venue" of vultures? (I'm learning a lot about vultures these days, as you might guess.) There are no carcasses for them to feast upon, and it's not near the road for them to pick up roadkill of any kind. Although I have long wished they were birds of prey rather than scavengers, as I'd like them to take care of my groundhog situation. They just perch in some old, scraggly trees at the back of the property, occasionally fanning their wings out to dry. (I also learned they do not have water-repellent wings, so they basically have to hang them out to dry by fanning them out in the sun. Oh, the things I have Googled in the recent past about vultures.)

I used to count them every day but then gave up the habit because usually the answer is quite simply that there are a lot of them.

They tend to depart by 10:30 a.m. and are gone for the day. A few might return in the evening, but never in the quantities I see in the morning. 

But every morning, there they are, hanging out. And every morning, there I am, watching them hang out.

I have oddly grown fond of them, as they have become a symbol of God's provision in my life.

In the story of Elijah, found in 1 Kings 17, we find that Elijah the prophet has been sent by God to declare to Ahab, the king of Israel, judgment on the nation: no rain or dew for the next three years except at Elijah's word. From there, God sends Elijah to Kerith, a place whose precise location is unknown in modern times:

Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah: "Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan. You will drink from the brook, and I have directed the ravens to supply you with food there." So he did what the Lord had told him. He went to the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan, and stayed there. The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook (1 Kings 17:2-6). 

Ravens. 

Bringing provision. 

Every morning and every evening.

This unlikely creature provided precisely what Elijah needed to survive in a landscape headed for rock-hard ground in just a matter of time. Bible teacherPriscilla Shirer shared in her study Elijah how ravens were truly a surprising pick for the daily duty. They are restless, greedy, and indiscriminate creatures. They are not apt to stay in one place for long, and by Jewish law, they are deemed "unclean." 

Surely God could have chosen another, more majestic, 'clean,' bird for the job.

But he didn't. 

He chose the unexpected, the less desirable, the unwanted, the unlovely—the raven, of all things.

During one of the many mornings I have spent watching these silly birds recently, I wondered, "Perhaps these vultures are my ravens, daily reminders of God's provision for me?"

Perhaps these unattractive, awkward vultures are to serve as a reminder of God's provision for me—a reminder that every morning, every evening, and every moment in between, he is mindful of my needs. As I stand there eating breakfast (which, for the record, was not provided by the vultures), he is mindful of my needs. As I stand there washing dishes, he is mindful of my needs. As I work, he is mindful of my needs. As I sleep, he is mindful of my needs. As I am in the doctor's office, he is mindful of my needs. It's just that maybe those needs aren't met in a manner or form in which I expect because I'm too busy looking for eagles or hawks, different doctors or a different body.

Author Lysa Terkeurst offers up this reminder in her book Forgiving What You Can't Forget:

When Jesus taught us what to pray each day, his first request was for daily bread. But isn't it true that bread took on many different forms in the Bible? Sometimes it looks like a loaf from the oven (Leviticus 2:4), other times like manna from heaven (Deuteronomy 8:3), or best of all like Jesus who declared himself as the bread of life (John 6:35) . . . All three are God's perfect provision. But with our human eyes, we could probably only recognize the loaf as good and most fitting, and what a tragedy that would be. We may be crying because nothing looks like a loaf while we have manna all around us, or even better, Jesus himself (160-161).

Are there things in our lives where we are butting up against God and his timing or his provision because it's not arriving in the manner or form we expect it to? Are we so busy looking for some other form of God's provision than what is right in front of us, even if it is unlovely or unwanted? 

We go looking for a loaf when he sends us manna. 

We go looking for eagles when he sends us vultures.

We go looking for some other person when he sends us Jesus Christ himself.

Let us not dismiss whatever God has placed before us as provision, no matter what season of life we find ourselves. May he cover us with his feathers and hide us in the shadow of his wings (Psalm 36:7), even as he sends us vultures by the dozens. What a tragedy it would be to be blind to his perfect provisions.

576 Days Later

Five hundred seventy-six days ago, I had a seizure that sent me to the ER. Five hundred seventy-four days ago, I had a brain biopsy. Five hundred seventy-two days ago, I received a diagnosis of a rare type of brain cancer, an oligodendroglioma, WHO Grade II, with 1p/19q co-deletion. Since that first seizure, I have undergone a brain biopsy and a craniotomy, twelve cycles of chemotherapy, and thirty fractions of radiation. I have also attended numerous speech, physical, and occupational therapy appointments, probably an equal number of appointments with neurosurgeons, radiation oncologists, neuro-oncologists, neuropsychologists, and assorted other specialists I’ve had to pick up along the way, as well as a number of blood draws, MRIs, and CT scans. I have had a total of forty-one staples removed from my skull on two separate occasions. I didn’t drive a vehicle for eight months and was unable to live independently for ten months. As Kate Bowler said in her book No Cure for Being Human, “In times of tragedy, everyone is an accountant” (47). I have become a very good accountant in the last 576 days, although ‘tragedy’ feels a bit steep for my circumstances.

I have shaved my head multiple times. I have lost sleep. I have thrown up. I have lain on the bathroom floor, waiting to throw up. I have lost weight. I have had mysterious rashes that made me itch so badly I bruised my body up one side and down the other. I have struggled to eat. I have had nausea so severe that even the taste of water made me gag. I have swallowed innumerable pills.

I have plunged into the depths of despair, depression, grief, and sadness. I have wept at times until I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I have had multiple seizures—at the gym, in the ER, in post-op, in the neurocritical care unit, and at home. I have wondered how I was going to make it to the next hour, let alone the next day or the next week. I have wondered if my left arm would ever work properly again and if I would ever make it back to the gym. I have felt as though I were walking through a metaphorical fire so hot it was going to burn me alive, my lungs gasping for air.

Five hundred seventy-six days ago, I was told I had brain cancer.

Five hundred seventy-six days later, I am told I still have brain cancer.

Those may seem like depressing statements to pair together, but I find them wildly miracle-filled and full of hope because of what has transpired deep in my heart and mind (quite literally) during those days in between those two statements. I will start by saying what I know has not happened.

Not once have I been bitter or angry with God, and not once have I asked him why. (For a woman whose favorite question in life is "why?" and who is extremely prone to bitterness, this transformation alone is perhaps a greater miracle than being cured of cancer.) I have never felt abandoned or forsaken. To quote Kate Bowler again, but from her book Everything Happens for a Reason, “At a time when I should have felt abandoned by God, I was not reduced to ashes. I felt like I was floating, floating on the love and prayers of all those who hummed around me like worker bees, bringing notes and flowers and warm socks and quilts embroidered with words of encouragement” (121).

I remember telling my boss when he came to visit me the day after I was admitted to the ER. I said very pragmatically, like I was giving an emotional shoulder shrug, “Boss, people get cancer every day. Why would I think I’m exempt from that reality?” I knew God didn’t owe me anything. I didn’t shake my fists at him. I didn’t beat down the door of heaven with my own battering ram, demanding answers. In the words of Max Lucado, “God owes no one anything. No reasons, no explanations. Nothing. If He gave them, we couldn’t understand them.” I didn’t stomp my foot and throw a tantrum. I knew him, and I knew he had a purpose and a plan. Was I remembering that when I was sobbing my way through rehab as the therapists handed me tissues like they were handing out candy at a parade? No. Was I remembering that when I was staring in the mirror as my dad shaved my head in the sterile, bright white light of the hospital bathroom? No. Was I remembering that when I was racked with seizures, asking whomever was in closest proximity to hold my left hand steady? No. But God kindly and gently brought the truth of his sovereignty to the forefront of my mind—in time. He is a God of process, after all.

On the night of my brain biopsy on February 5, just two days before the formal diagnosis, I texted my immediate family and a few close friends:

I don’t know what comes next, but I do know this beyond a shadow of a doubt:

Jesus is in my next. And that’s all I—or anyone else—needs to know. I put a stake in the ground a long time ago regarding what I believe to be true about God, and the presence or absence of suffering and bad things won’t change that. This song by Christy Nockels has long been my anthem: ‘Should I ever be surrounded by the fire or the flame, there’s a name I will remember, there’s a name I will proclaim. Let it be, let it be, let it be Jesus.’

If all this brings me closer to Jesus, then I’ll take it. For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.

I love each of you, and your prayers will not be in vain. He may choose to save me from the fire, and this mass may vanish in a miracle. Or he may not. Either way, I get Jesus.

Five hundred seventy-six days later, after all the chaos that comes with a cancer diagnosis, I still stand by those words.

I may still have cancer, but I also still have Jesus.

If I have not been bitter, angry, or forsaken, then I can also say, on the flip side, what has happened for the better. I have plunged into the depths of his goodness, kindness, and mercy. I have wept with gratitude at times until I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I’ve had multiple encounters when I have been so aware of his presence—at my parents’ house, walking laps around their yard; in my car, reveling in the freedom of driving again; and at my house, washing dishes and marveling at the movement of my left hand working as it once did. I have seen him stop one of my seizures instantly when I cried out to him. I have walked through a fire so hot I thought it was going to burn me alive, but I have also seen a fourth in the fire with me, just as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did in Daniel 3. I have marveled at his timing and how so many things happened at the precise moment to preserve and protect me and my family. I have had far more good days than bad days. In so many ways, my cancer experience has been anything but ‘typical.’ (Although, as my neuro-oncologist loves to say, a phrase which I came to loathe, “It’s different for everyone.” And let’s also remember this is not the suffering Olympics.)

I would never wish these past eighteen months on anyone, for they haven proven to include the very worst days of my life. But they have also included some of the sweetest days of my life. These past few months, in particular, have been incredibly precious to me. After the previous summer, which just felt like such a dogfight—going to rehab, starting chemo, and then going to radiation every day—this summer has felt nothing like that. This summer has instead felt so redemptive and restful, filled with peace and stillness, as if I have been hidden in the shadow of his wing or by the brook at Cherith, as Elijah was in 1 Kings 17. It has been the exact opposite of everything that was last summer.

And it has been these days that I wouldn’t trade for anything. Kate shared again in Everything Happens for a Reason how terrified she began to feel at the prospect of losing that floating feeling. I understand that terror myself now. She began asking herself and others what she would do when that feeling was gone. They generally responded that the feeling would, in fact, go, and there would be no formula for retrieving it. “But they offered me this small bit of certainty, and I clung to it. When the feelings recede like the tides, they said, they will leave an imprint. I would somehow be marked by the presence of an unbidden God” (122).

I may still have brain cancer after all those sleepless nights and innumerable tears, but I can say unequivocally that a million little miracles have happened in these last 576 days, and I have been deeply marked by the presence of an unbidden God.

While I don’t know what the next 576 days hold, I do know this: 

Jesus is in my next, and by His grace, I will continue to say, “Let it be Jesus.”

For however many days there are yet to my life, may God get his glory out of me.

PS: Remember this song? It was the first song that played during my first MRI. And then today, it was the last song that played during my last (for now) MRI. You're obviously not supposed to move when you have an MRI, but I desperately wanted to reach for my already snotty nose. I heard the first notes of the song come on, and I could immediately feel the tears dripping down my cheeks into the ear plugs.

Functional Update

Whew, gang. We made it! And I do mean ‘we’! At the start of all this when we were seeking a second opinion at Ohio State, the neuro-oncologist there said that he can always tell which patients will have the best outcomes by whether someone comes with them to the appointments or if they come alone. In so many ways, you all have been with me to every appointment and my outcomes are better for it. You have encouraged me in so many ways with your comments and prayers. “[You] came in like priests and mirrored back to me the face of Jesus. When [you] sat beside me . . . my own suffering began to feel like it had revealed to me the suffering of others, a world of those who, like me, are stumbling around in the debris of dreams they thought they were entitled to and plans they didn’t realize they had made” (Everything Happens, 121).

The process is by no means over, as I will have cancer for the rest of my life, short of an act of God. And I do feel this need to toss out this caution: Chemotherapy is over, but that most certainly does not mean that I am “healthy,” or that I can go back to life as I once knew it. I can never go back. But finishing chemo treatment is one heck of a milestone to mark. I usually am not one to lack for words, but I simply cannot express how grateful I have been for the large and mighty army of prayer warriors that have surrounded me, sent me gifts (it felt like Christmas there for awhile!), cards, texts, and emails. I have saved every card anyone has ever sent me.

Right side is from February 3, 2024,
left side is from September 2, 2025.

The last few rounds of chemo were largely uneventful, thankfully. I had an MRI earlier today where we compared today's scan to my last one in June and it continues to show the tumor is stable. But yowza, when we looked at from eighteen months ago in February 2024 to now, it is striking to me how much tumor (anything in bright white) was removed via surgery (the big black hole) and then through radiation and chemo. The measurements always need to be taken with a grain of salt, as images can vary from one MRI machine to another, and the placement of the measuring points are not always going to be spot on.

All in all, it's a given that I am glad this process is over. The prognosis for my type of cancer is fairly positive, although as I have stated in a post from last year, I have never directly asked the question, "What is the prognosis?" It ultimately doesn't matter to me what the answer is.

So what's next?

As far as treatment itself, it's obviously over. We will now have MRIs roughly every three months to start with and then eventually every six- to nine-months. It will be years, however, before we drop down to even one time a year. I will continue to be under the care of the neuro-oncologist and the seizure specialist over the long term. I remain seizure-free, and I was actually able to moderately lower one of the seizure meds under the watch of the seizure specialist. 

As for writing and providing updates, here’s my game plan moving forward. I’m going to keep writing reflective pieces as I am compelled no matter what, so that’s not going to change. I’m more than sixteen years into writing on this site, so cancer or no cancer, it’s baked into my life at this point. 

However, I will no longer post any specific health updates except when I have routine scans.

For those who want the convenience of email notifications whenever I publish something and haven’t yet subscribed, you can do so at this link. I will not use your email for any other purpose than to send notifications on new posts.

Again, what an encouragement this faithful little community of readers has been to me since my first cancer-related post back on February 13, 2024. Thank you will never be enough, but thank you anyway. You have indeed been with me to every appointment and have been like priests mirroring back to me the face of Jesus.