The Gap Filler

I know I am overdue my promised post. I didn't know I would need a breather after that last appointment, but I did. It's not that I learned anything terribly new or distressing about my condition...hasn't spread to any lymph nodes as far as they can tell, around 2 cm., will need chemo and radiation both because of its size and my age. But I learned things about breast cancer and its treatment in general that started to feel like getting punched.

 First, while you can one day find yourself free and clear of other cancers after a certain number of years that it doesn't come back, breast cancer does not give that blessing for 20-30 years. Meaning, when I am 78 I will finally be able to take a sigh of relief knowing that it won't get me after all. Looking back on the last few days, if I was a nail that would be the first hammer strike that hit me. Then there is the lasting affects of radiation, skin that loses its flexibility, possible loss of comfortable range of motion, permanent death of fat cells which can leave one looking "skeletal" in that area. Wham. In a best case scenario I will be undergoing treatment or recovering to get ready for the next one until the end of the year, but that could change it things are more advanced when they can actually see for themselves in surgery. Reality strike.  A lumpectomy can leave significant disfigurement, my surgeon broke his arm last Friday, giving me a month to wonder what it's doing in there before he will be able to operate, chemo makes you constipated for weeks on end. Bam!

Every hit drives me deeper into confinement, or into the loss of something I am now in possession of.  It's the human condition isn't it? There is this gap between where I am and where I want to be, the gap between where I find my health and the safety I want to feel. And unfortunately the increase of my "blows" in no way decreases those of others. Things that might have kept me up at night a bit had to move over temporarily, but they're back. My heart hurts for the gaps other people I love find themselves stranded in.  What fills these aching chasms for us...faith, hope, love?

When I was in high school I was taught by my youth pastor at church to spend time every day reading God's word and then to talk to Him about it, a quiet time alone with God.  It has shaped everything about my life, but surprisingly right now I'm finding small comfort there. I kind of expected the opposite, but was mightily blessed by a message sent over by a friend of mine who has been building a brick house the last few months in the sweltering heat of South Sudan. He is a quiet timer like me, and much more so I am sure, yet the intensity brought on by the huge significance and time pressure of this building project has been consuming his time and thoughts completely.  This caused him great distress, but looking back he realized that God had been teaching him something all along.

When we reached the top of the walls at the height of 11 feet and both sides measured exactly the same and were within 1/6^th of an inch from what it was supposed to be, this was a miraculous sign that Jesus was with us! God was teaching me that I should not just come to Him in quiet moments seeking to be fed, but wherever and whenever He feeds or blesses. Again, He assures me over and over that I can rejoice in the fact that He is there and loves me.

Sounds like he was learning to experience God's comforts in the midst of the gap.  I find myself there too, seeing how much God loves me  not so much by quiet time revelation but by all of the things people say and do to reveal it.  I would say that in times like this people come back into your life from every layer of the past into the present. It can be almost overwhelming, but at the same time, every gesture of affection is a reminder that your life has significance to someone, and who can feel down with that kind of feedback???

I have to run even though I would like to mull this over more. I hope it encourages everyone who finds themselves in a gap between where they are and where they want to be. The Holy Spirit is our gap filler until the time comes that we see Him face to face. (Eph. 1:14) I'm looking to Him for myself and my family and those I see around me who are struggling. Will you do the same?