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Trust

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways submit to him, and He will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD and shun evil. This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones.” -Proverbs 3:5-8

Photo Credit: Julene Wilson, Brooklyn Botanical Garden, Brooklyn, NY, 2018.

I find myself at a major crossroads in my life. My current situation is not where I planned to be when I thought about my undergrad and graduate school career path. One of the most important questions I have had to ask myself is why I am motivated to pursue particular goals. For God to show me myself and the underlying factors behind my decisions is one of the greatest gifts my Father has given me. I have been bogged down by other people’s expectations and the fear of disappointing those who have supported me over the years; nonetheless, at the end of my life, I have to answer to God.

Almost five years ago, my mentor told me, “God wants you to know you don’t owe anything to anyone but Him.” I’m paraphrasing here, but she was referring to my recovery following my second bought with cancer which was brutal. I have not gone into much detail about my struggle with endometrial cancer on this blog, except to post my testimony back in February on my Facebook page. From personal experience, I have found that God’s gifts often come in strange wrapping. That journey, and the five years since my last hospital stay have been necessary to better understand how God operates. He continues to insist that I understand His goodness despite life’s hardships and my hard-headedness, and His ability to redeem the ugly aspects of my life.

The main call of those who follow Jesus is to know Him well. His call to Himself is the first and greatest one people receive from the Savior. Growing up in church, people’s “calling” was often framed as a specific assignment they had from God, which was usually ministry related. Coupled with the call to ministry was the idea that God only calls us to success. The more people, the bigger and more well-known the ministry, and the more charismatic the individual, the better. While I do not believe God is calling us to mediocrity, success and the charm of personality can distract from the necessity of spiritual maturity, decreased hypocrisy, and a sensitivity to God’s voice.

“Do you trust me? Have I not proven that I am trustworthy? Will you trust me now, in this season?”

I cannot tell you how many times God has asked me these questions. What I do know is He is presenting them to me again.

Do not be wise in your own eyes…

I keep forgetting that God is not impressed by my self-sufficiency. Sometimes, I am like a child who keeps calling to their parent, “See! Look what I can do!” When I think about how I have had to lean on God over the past several years, my attempts to impress Him are silly.

Day 239: What God Won’t Do

The first person I heard say “God helps those who help themselves” was a high school teacher. I did well in his class but this phrase still made me uncomfortable. At the time, it seemed to imply that those who suffered hardship were always in control of their circumstances. Over the years, I’ve also heard it used by people who want to absolve themselves of caring for their neighbor. In Western culture, there is more of a focus on individualism versus communal responsibility. It’s one of those phrases that falls in line with “Pull yourself up by your bootstraps.” Some people don’t have footwear and others don’t have feet. However, there is some truth to the adage. There are times when the trouble in which we find ourselves is of our own making. Furthermore, the victim mindset prevents us from seeing a way out. Part of being an adult especially if I am a Christian, is to own my mess. Everything is not someone else’s fault and I can’t be the victim in every story.

This August marks three years since I left the hospital after a weeklong stay to recover from the effects of chemotherapy. Since then, I have been doing a lot of unpacking. Here are some lessons that I’ve learned since then about what God will and will not do.

God will not be manipulated by my temper tantrums or self-pity. Life can be hard y’all. It’s hard in different ways for billions of people. The story that is unfolding in Afghanistan in the midst of a global pandemic is just another example of how difficult things can become. I want to be careful to say I do not mean that our individual struggles do not matter simply because the world is on fire, literally and figuratively. We absolutely need to process our particular issues and how they impact us. Nonetheless, we can get to a place where we believe that God owes us something for the pain we’ve suffered which is a normal human response. To stay in that mindset is also not helpful. There are times when God allows us to catch a glimpse of how our pain can serve a purpose but sometimes He doesn’t and that’s His right. While that’s frustrating, I don’t think we are as prepared as we think we are to handle the answers to some of the questions we ask God.

God will not do for me what I can do for myself. Most times, God nudges me when He wants me to address something in my life. After my first cancer battle, I realized I needed to begin therapy. I had to unpack what it meant for me to be so checked out from my body that I did not make the connection between my health issues and how difficult it was for me to work and attend graduate school. I had to deal with the unresolved trauma that made me uncomfortable with being touched by medical professionals which led to neglecting my health and ultimately, cancer. I am also unpacking what it meant for me to not struggle with the decision to to relinquish my womb. Although I believe I made the right choice because the cancer came back with a vengeance, I am now aware that I never thought I’d be married or have children anyway. Nonetheless, I now better understand my friends’ concerns about undergoing a partial hysterectomy even though I was frustrated and hurt by their opinions. They seemed to be privilege a potential spouse and children over my real health issues. I know their concern was genuine but they did not fully understand what was taking place in my body because I did not disclose certain details. These last few sentences need their own post(s) or a book.

The truth is that any kind healing is often a complicated, drawn out business and I have to participate in the process instead of just expecting God to make me whole. Healing comes in facing things and realizing they’re not so monstrous they can’t be overcome. I realize that I must deal with what has been done to me, what I’ve done to myself and lastly, what I’ve done to others. Sometimes I am the perpetrator. The ability to participate in my own healing is a gift because it shows that God has given me what I need to thrive in spite of hardship and bad choices. That in itself is grace.

God will not make me disciplined about anything-not about managing time, money, resources, health or other areas of my life. I can’t shout and praise my way to discipline. I can’t quote Bible verses in place of discipline. Neither can you. Jesus said the person who listened to Him and put His words into practice was like a house built on a rock that could withstand life’s storms. The person who just listened or mentally assented was like a foolish person whose house was built on sand. That house was destroyed by the same storm.

God will not not make up my mind for me. If I’m honest, I sometimes want God to write in the sky before I make a decision which causes me to waste valuable time. There are times when I should be cautious in my decision making. However, there are certainly occasions when I need to make a choice and trust God to walk with me through that process. We don’t trust that God is able to redirect us if we take a wrong turn in our attempt to follow Him. The visual I have is of a child who is just learning how to walk. They usually keep checking in with their parent to make sure they’ll catch them if they fall. Their posture and facial expression is, “You’ll help me if I hurt myself, right?” That’s often how we approach God.

God will not make me believe Him. The extent to which I believe Him will be evidenced in the unconscious and conscious choices I make throughout the day. Faith shows up in whether I give into my emotions or acknowledge them and move on. Furthermore, the extent to which I believe God is based on trust and I am aware of how life experiences can make it difficult for me to do so.

That’s all I’ve got for now. I am so grateful for this period of my life where I have the privilege to unpack and make wiser decisions based on what I have found.

Day 5: Consistency

The general consensus is that it takes twenty-one days or three weeks for a new habit to form. A few weeks ago, I heard a psychologist say it takes longer than that and I believe her. When I began writing two decades ago, I would never have imagined that I would share my writing with the world. A mentor had given me a journal and I suspect that she sensed my need to express my thoughts via writing. Or, perhaps she thought a journal might have suited me. It did. She passed this year and although I don’t remember any of our conversations, I do recall her sweet spirit and the gift she gave me-permission to express myself honestly. Prior to this, the only writing I did was for school and short stories I wrote for myself.

Two decades and over twenty journals later, I am still writing. There is an ebb and flow to my writing which means there are times when I write several pages a day for weeks or months on end, and other times when I write sporadically. The pressure of a global pandemic along with the political, economic, and social unrest that occurred in 2020, resulted in depression. These things were an added burden to the personal struggles I was experiencing. Most of last year proved to be one of those times when I found little comfort in journalling. Usually, I had to force myself to write or my emotions reached an unbearable level and writing was one of my few escapes. Good friends who knew about the importance of writing in my life often asked whether I was still journalling. My usual response was, “Not as much as before. It’s hard to write at the moment.”

One of the reasons I’ve chosen to share my writing with others is because I know my experiences are not unique. Millions of people have suffered from cancer. Many have battled it more than once. Like me, others have felt the sting of rejection and wrestled with questions of self worth. Still others have questioned God about the meaning of life’s pain and tragedies. At the risk of being told I am offering unsolicited advice, I am extending an invitation to others to have conversations about deep rooted things. Perhaps you are already having these conversations. If so, I am glad because we all need permission to share our lives in safe environments. Perhaps you are someone who keeps things bottled up. As someone who can be private and has slowly opened up to others over the years, I will not preach to you about lowering your walls. I know how comforting they can be.

I constantly return to writing because it is a necessity and a source of joy. There is a freedom in writing that I don’t often find in other spaces. Writing has also allowed me to become better acquainted with myself. Thousands of hours of jotting down my thoughts have provided me with opportunities to process things that I did not even know I had buried. A few weeks ago, I looked up a compulsive behavior I had not thought about in years and reflected on my time in high school. I will write about that at another time.

Sometimes, consistency is a matter of necessity. I write because it is one of my fundamental needs. More importantly, I need to write in a manner that allows me to express myself authentically-no shade to academic writing, but really. I write to remind myself that I do not need to use academics or religion as facades. I am tempted to hide behind both of these things and it is a struggle to grapple with the intersections of faith, socio-economic class, gender, nationality, race, size, and other identities I have not even considered.

I write as a method of investigating my inner life. I keep finding things that surprise me and enable me to make the connections between thought processes and certain behaviors. So, I will keep writing.

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Adjustments and Expectations

I’ll title this post once I’m done writing because I don’t have clue what I want to say. I just know I need to write.

It’s Christmas Eve and the sun won’t rise for the next two and a half hours. The world is still. By now most people have flown out or driven to their destinations to celebrate the holidays with family and friends. I’m reminiscing about the madness surrounding Y2K in 1999. People were afraid their computers would crash and possibly bring life to standstill. Those who were alive and remember can laugh at the mild worry that existed. We survived and are here to tell the tale of all that has transpired over the past twenty years.

The thing about getting older is that you usually have a different perspective about certain things. For example, I used to think that someone in their thirties was “old.” I also possessed the naive belief that adults knew what they were doing. That’s part of the reason why many children don’t worry. Until life proves us wrong, we honestly believe that adults have everything figured out. Why else would they expect so much from us or dole out advice? I’ve come to the realization that adults are just older children with some knowledge who are still trying to figure things out. Not having to know everything is a relief. And yet, the nagging feeling that you don’t know as much as you need to know may be one of the undercurrents of life. And the fight against cynicism is real.

Over the past twenty years, I prepared to graduate high school and transition to undergrad. I had a career and completed my master’s. I entered my PhD program and battled cancer twice. Now, I often tell myself the years since graduating undergrad have been about drawing my own conclusion about God’s character. Borrowed faith from sermons and family can not sustain us. We have to experience God for ourselves. Is God good or is He capricious ? Is God spiteful and vengeful rather than compassionate and caring? Is God dependable or does He take joy is watching us flay for help in life’s unexpected and difficult circumstances? Is God merciful or does He hold our past mistakes and failures against us? Are we here for purpose or just to have fun, pay bills and breath air? Is life a roll of the die or something more intentional?

My life thus far has told me that while I can not always figure God out, He is always intentional and far more compassionate than I ever imagined Him to be. Over the past year, I have been struck by the realization that my existence occurred without my consent or input. For some, this is a question they thought about years ago. It’s not that I haven’t thought about this question before. I’ve just been preoccupied with other things. The specificity of my placement in time and space along with other factors leads me to the realization that God is in the details. Written into my physical DNA is the script for my physical representation in the world but I also have a spiritual DNA which God spoke into existence. In the noise of life, the spiritual DNA fights to express itself the way God intended.

Being the stubborn person I am, I have fought God over the details of my life. I have demanded answers to certain things and been arrogant enough to believe I could handle the weight of those answers. Life is teaching me that certain knowledge belongs to God and He will not give those secrets to us just because we throw a fit. And that’s the wisdom of God, to know what to withhold and what to give, and when and how to do both.

I am looking forward to the new year. My vision board is mounted on the wall in front of me. I’ve had to make adjustments and adjust my timeline about certain goals of the past three or four years I’ve had it. There is a joy and anticipation in knowing there is more in me than I could ever have dreamed, which was the design of an intentional God. For however long I’m on this side of eternity, I want to express my spiritual DNA which requires clearing myself from noise.

Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays, whichever you prefer.

I Don’t Want to Suffer

(Originally posted on Friday, April 19th, 2019). Today is Good Friday. The Bible describes Jesus’ last moments throughout the Gospels-the Last Supper where he washed his disciples’ feet where he flipped the script and showed them that to be truly great you had to willingly serve others, his agonizing moment in the Garden of Gethsemane where he told his Father, “If at all possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will but yours be done.”

I don’t like suffering. In a world where suffering is so commonplace we often become numb to it, I’d like to pass my cup. It does no good for me to say other people have suffered more than I have, or that I should be grateful that I’m still alive. I can acknowledge these things, turn them over in my mind again and again, mentally assent to them, and still say that I’d like to relinquish this experience if I could. At the end of the day, I have to carry my own cross.

In December 2017, I was diagnosed with a recurrence of endometrial cancer after almost two weeks in the hospital. It would be another week before I was able to go home. As a private person, I would rather not divulge the details of that experience to people but I will because I believe I should. I started to share on my personal Facebook page but thought a blog would be a more appropriate place to talk about my experience. Starting a blog is part of my healing and I believe my posts may be helpful to other people.

Jesus knew there was a purpose to his death but he didn’t pretend the process was an easy one. I won’t go through the details of cruxifiction here. If you’ve seen Passion of the Christ, you’ll see a fairly accurate picture of how the Romans carried out this form of punishment.

“Father if at all possible, would you let this cup pass from me?”

I remember one Sunday in the Spring of 2018 when I took an Uber to the hospital because I was experiencing pain on my left side. My main tumor was in my left pelvis and was large enough to press on my bladder and back up urine into my left kidney. To prevent me from going into kidney failure, my urologist placed a stint in my left ureter in December 2017. Fortunately, tests revealed I only had a bladder infection during this visit.

As I waited in the emergency room, I called a friend in Michigan who had been praying for me. During our conversation I told her “If I could crawl away from my body and leave it here, I would.” By this time, I had already completed my first round of radiation and chemotherapy. My health had improved but I was still experiencing hip pain and fatigue along with the emotional and spiritual toll of enduring a recurrence of cancer. Unlike the first time I was diagnosed with cancer at thirty-one, I am choosing to process the emotions that come my way. At that time, I did not have to undergo chemotherapy or radiation after the removal of my uterus and cervix. As I write this post, I realize the physical pain and treatment I underwent during my recurrence has mirrored my internal excavation. I continue to have doctors’ appointments, my most recent being a colonoscopy. However, the internal worked I’ve been forced to do during this process is not something I would have willingly done because I was not aware of some of the things I have buried over my thirty-six years.

I am trying to avoid Christian cliches as I write this blog. We are usually so uncomfortable with pain that we would rather serve people platitudes than sit with them in silence as they share something personal. I have been guilty of this. With that said, I am grappling with the God’s goodness in the midst of suffering. Romans 8:28 says,

“God works everything for the good of them that love him and have been called according to his purpose.”

We are often tested on the things we claim to believe. And that’s a good thing or else we risk living our lives by comforting words/beliefs that don’t hold up under pressure. During this process, I am waiting with expectation for God to weave this moment into something good. I’ve seen moments of my Father’s faithfulness during this journey. However, there are other moments when his goodness and purpose seem hard to trace. I know God is resurrecting me. I just have to undergo the process. And the process isn’t pretty.