Another Rusty Star...

Has it been a month already?! Here I am, going for that rusty star again, one post to avoid having a zero on my monthly blog post list.

First, no hair shots this month! I have some, but I'm on my new iPad, and don't have the energy to figure out how to do it. It should be simple - I just took a photo with the iPad a couple days ago, but "iPad photos" isn't an upload option. So - I'll double up next time.

And my thoughts today aren't even my own! What can I say: I'm tired after a long day (swimsuit shopping after a doctor's appointment downtown).

BUT they're really great thoughts. Last week I was at camp with my 11th grade girls from church. Excellent week in spite of painful recovery from radiation. Church camp always produces a spiritual high, which is great, but we usually don't prepare the kids very well to go home and maintain their commitment. This year our speaker, Adrian Depres, gave a looong list of practical ideas! Hip, hip, hooray!!! So that's what I'm going to share with you - for yourself or to share with others. Pass it on, baby.

After the message, I had my girls choose two items from each category that they would do when they got home. So this isn't an overwhelming, do-it-all list, just suggestions to weave spiritual growth into your life.

1) Bible Study
a) Treat your Bible like the love letter it is: with urgency and anticipation
b) Use all 5 senses when you read - imagine yourself there, in the scene
c) Write in your Bible - underline what resonates, star what has special meaning, question mark wherever you have questions (and then go ask someone)
d) Remember your Bible is living and active - a protection against Satan's attacks

e) Get an audio version of the Bible and listen to it (YouVersion has a free app! I like it a lot.)
f) Read it everyday: start in Genesis and Matthew - 3 Old Testament and 1 New Testament chapters per day will get you through the Bible in a year!
g) Memorize!
h) Take your Bible to school/work, and get it out once a day to read 1 paragraph.

2) Praise/Worship
a) Place rocks where you will see them. They are a reminder that God says the rocks will cry out if we don't praise God.
b) "7X" Write this on index cards and place them where you will see them. Each time you see them, praise God for something.
c) Listen to Christian music (side note: other music isn't banned, but be aware of how it affects your attitude and contentment level).
d) Download sermons and listen to them.

3) Prayer
a) Remember this is Satan's first target in our lives: communication is always the first target in a war.
b) Prayer cups (this is my favorite - I'm going to use my insulated Starbucks' cups): write people's names on cups and pray for them when you use those cups.
c) "PBIP" = phone beeps, I pray; you can set several alarms, too.
d) Sirens: pray when you hear 'em, someone undoubtedly needs extra help!
e) Shoes, hats, scarves: see prayer cups: write names on these items and pray for those people when you wear them.
f) Place people's business cards in your Bible and pray for them when you come across them - or when they fall out (I don't know about this one, personally, falling cards might produce frustration rather than prayer...).
g) Prayer teams at work or school: three people, same gender
h) Write a prayer on Post-It's and place in trouble spots so you're reminded to pray when - or before - you encounter trouble (in the car, anyone?)
i) "Empty wagons rattle" - sometimes, go before God with an empty wagon (without any requests)

There you have it! Hopefully a nugget or two will work for you!

For the Rusty Star

I’ve maintained radio silence for over a month because, to be honest, radiation has been a rough road and I’ve been hibernating. Today I write for two reasons: my sister-in-law’s beautiful encouragement last night, and the desire NOT to have a big zero on my blog post count for this month. That’s my rusty star – having one post in June. Yay me.

My hair continues to grow – I think. It’s a little too long for spiking up, and a little too short to do anything else with it. I got compliments last week when Mike styled it for me! Here are a few shots from the last month:

This month I took a three-part writing workshop offered by Cancer Lifeline. It went so well that we’re trying to keep the group going. Ironing out logistics is proving a challenge, so it might fizzle, but hopefully not.

The workshop was, I felt, skewed toward poetry. I’m a prose girl. There are a few poems I love, but many times I just don’t get it. Although I do love the Psalms and really appreciate song lyrics, so maybe I’m not totally lost when it comes to poetry. I did my part to add some balance by sending in a short paragrapah when the facilitator asked us to contribute to her “creative collection.” J

I sent her something I’d written during the workshop. The assignment was to draw your body and place stars on it wherever cancer had affected you, and then write something from the perspective of a body part. I gave voice to my partially reconstructed breasts. I was just a few fills away from exchanging tissue expanders for actual implants when I found out I had to go back for more treatment. In spite of several ideas and pleas on my part, the doctors and I decided the best choice is to put them on hold until my cancer treatment is over. So here’s what “they” had to say:

"Hey! Wait! What about us? We were getting so much attention - you were celebrating our progress! But now, other than a repositioning shove into your sports bra and a half-hearted attempt to cover your double cleavage, we are completely ignored. We might be totally out of alignment, and we know you have more important things going on now, but we still represent hope and healing. This road is longer than you expected, but we'll be with you at the end, youthful and perky and ready to live. Don't give up on us!"

The hope they represent is important, but sometimes elusive. The very first writing assignment made me question whether or not I wanted to be at the workshop. It was a warm-up exercise, and we were supposed to answer “What have you done for your body this week, and what has your body done for you?” My immediate answer was “Nothing and nothing. It’s not being nice to me, and I’m not being nice to it.” So I went to the bathroom.

When I came back, I wrote:

“My body and I are waging war right now. In a year where I was planning to regain strength and endurance, I am feeling weak and leaden and exhausted. Add in last month’s surgery, which rearranged my colon, and I’m feeling betrayed.”

I was just mad. Yes, me, mad. After we wrote about that topic, we got to introduce ourselves, and I could barely recognize the girl who was, albeit lightly, describing herself as mad.

Our take home assignment that week was to write about fear. We were supposed to list all of our fears and choose one to write about. Well, happily, I don’t have many fears. Maybe weird, irrational ones like not wanting my dog to stick her head out of the car while we’re driving because a rock could fly up and hit her in the nose. Highly unlikely, but those are the random things I think about. But I don’t have many every day fears because I believe in a loving, personal God who knows what’s coming and promises to take us through those challenges. Or just protect us from them. And he has done that for me, many, many times.

Instead, I wrote about why I was mad. I was inspired by a song Mike found for me when I lost my hair last year: India Arie’s “I am not my hair.” So I wrote “I am not my…” and listed all the symptoms, side effects, changes, and circumstances that had me fuming.

That led to a list of what I AM. Which included “loved by many, strong of heart & mind & faith [although that hasn’t felt too true lately], a fighter, optimistic, a chosen child of God, a nurse,” etc. And then I wrote:

“I am not defined by these negative things, but right now my life is consumed by them. I don’t have to love and accept them, but it sure would be nice to make peace with them. Most of them are temporary, and somehow they will help me comfort and encourage others. I don’t want them – they are not welcome, and I hardly recognize the scarred, teary-eyed girl in the mirror. I will endure, I will conquer, I will adjust, I will grow, I will minister, I will love.”

Last year, a Bible study with my teen girls brought us to a somewhat obtuse passage: 2 Corinthians 1:3-5.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ.”

We read it aloud and they said, “What?!” This is why we keep quoting Jeremy Kingsley, our camp speaker a few years ago: “Don’t read the Bible to finish, read it to change.” Nice, right?

So we broke it down slowly, so it made more sense. Basically: when we suffer, God, the expert, unlimited comforter, will comfort us, and then we can pay it forward.

For me, now, cancer is giving me a royal beat-down. But, ultimately, its triumph will be short-lived, and I will go on and use this experience to comfort others. So there, cancer. :P