Hope That Does Not Disappoint

I'm going to get dressed in about 40 minutes to get ready for my ride to infusion # 4,  the grand finale for chemo Lord willing! Its been something of a moderate Disneyland ride, not a wild one but enough to throw me around and one I am ready to exit from 'to the right" as they say. Today is all about cravings, I am realizing how daily life is full of them.  When life is swirling, as it is, and even when it is much more still, I'm always looking for an emotional exit from negative thoughts to peace, from anxiety to joy, from fear to comfort...sound familiar? I like being happy, no I LOVE to be filled with joy and peace, a craving we all share I know it. If you have a sugar craving, its like the balance you feel once the chocolate is going down the hatch. If you have a person craving, its like that phone call, or awareness of being chosen, singled out, adored by the object of your desire. A thing craving might be satisfied by that new car smell, or the number in the account, or the treasure found and brought safely home. Make my cup full! Fill my cravings for joy!

Suffering, I have concluded, is something like a hole burrowed in the bottom of the joy cup. It deprives us of access to things we crave so that our joy cup can be filled, that sigh of contentment we seek. Right now I want to have my hair back and quit being the cancer patient in public, and my eyebrow and lashes would be great too. I want to run and not be wearied by the concrete that fills my legs after 30 seconds. I want to walk and not feel faint until the usual time, which is way later than the present one. I don't want anyone to have to worry about how I am doing, as sweet as it is now,  I want the joy of giving not taking, I want to pursue my goals, stop feeling bloated, etc. etc. etc.  My suffering, as small as it really is, is the absence of my ability to satisfy my cravings for things that make me feel good.

Hope Chassen  8/18/2013

This time of sickness has made me think a lot about hope, meaning what we decide will bring that joy to our lives, which makes us pursue them and depend on them, resting our hope in their ability to give us joy. My thoughts this way have been sharpened even more so since she died yesterday. It was one of those days you never forget, and because she was a pet you feel a little stupid for weeping, but you do anyhow. Hope cat came into our lives when one of our kids got sick and had to stay home for quite awhile last year. She was a true God send, a constant companion, curious observer, follower, purrer estrodinaire, and finally a mother. I thought her impacted  milk duct would loosen up by the onslaught of nursing she provided constantly to seven, and then only five, robust mini Hopes. By the time a vet had something to say about it, it was too late. She crawled away from our hot compresses and hovering, and at four am yesterday morning Ben and I both woke up and wondered if we would find her alive. There she was at our door, so we pet her all the way through her final labored breathing, and into heaven only a few minutes later. Shocked and grieved we both began to cry, for her but mostly for our child who loved her like a wild craving. We thought Hope would be a part of our lives for years to come.

(I have to run now and get ready but I will finish when I get home from the hospital!)

I'm back now. Hope and her passing have made me ponder where I have set my hope, and how transient everything is, like a beloved pet.  We all hope that people first of all can make us happy, but no one is perfect and everyone leaves us at a some point in one way or another! I hope in the joy that feeling healthy and strong gives me, but that is vulnerable indeed. I hope in the joy that my children reaching my goals for them will bring, if only I had control over it all! I hope that life will go the way I plan it, and I expect that to bring me great joy...if it would only follow my plans more. I think we are so vulnerable to the things we hope for. When they shine we smile, but when the clouds come in we're left with a joy cup half full, or even empty, and then we are suffering.  Suffering comes when we are robbed of the things we hope in to bring us joy.

So I'm thrilled to say that God promises us a hope that does not disappoint!

" Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;  perseverance, character; and character, hope.  And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us." 

Romans 5:3-5


Suffering will pull back the coverings of your heart and expose what you hope in, which makes trials a teacher of sorts about the heart. Every tear falls from a hope longing to be refilled again while it is being emptied. I guess I can be thankful that cancer has peeled back the outer layer of my heart and made me face more clearly what I depend on, and how fully do I depend on Him or not?

If my sins are forgiven I now hold the hope of eternal life, and no one can change that.  As for the here and now, He promises that if we will trust Him in our tribulations and look to Him for love and strength to carry us through, the result will be the growth of a proven character, and that proven character will in turn provide the hope that does not disappoint.  Food, friends, success, health, beauty, power, riches, all will be compromised in some way and eventually fail to fill our joy cup, but this hope will not, the one that does not disappoint.

When we pursue Him in the good times and the bad, our hope becomes more and more attached to Him and not the transient things around us.  He gave us all good things to enjoy, but learning to love and trust Him brings hope that never disappoints. He won't fall out of love, or my investment in Him won't change with the economy, or make me fat and sick, or go through a transitional crisis and stop calling for a long time.  He alone is steady and unchanging, called the Rock of the Ages, the same yesterday, today and forever, and His love never fails.

To the degree that I do hope in the One who never disappoints, I have found strength in time of need, and often it has been through the people who are sent my way! I had to take a valium for some intense shoulder pain during the infusion today, of all things, and then the anti-nausia meds are making me sleepy now.  But getting dinner is no worry as my adorable friends Jimmy and Mehelle Johnson brought over some awesome looking bar-b-qued chicken salad with a huge tray of blueberries and strawberries for dessert. My cup is certainly filling up with a delightful, (though temporary) joy!!

And...
- for all of the reminders sent my way of promised prayers for today
- to Karla and Diana for helping me bury Hope and then feeding the kittens today while Julia and I were busy
-  for dinner last night with booty camp girls to remind me that there is something to celebrate in all of this (last one!)
-for the sweet cards and texts that keep coming
- for all the meals lined up next week for my yuck time,
-to Sharon for the ride there this morning
-to my adorable hero husband who left work to sit with me and take me home

 Thank you Lord for Your promise of a hope that will not disappoint. Thank you for this little school of suffering that exposes my heart so that I can learn to do it better.

Romans 5:2-5

The Comfort of Knowing

Last Saturday they were driving together, wrapped up tight in the enormous white SUV with shiny chrome wheels and black and white tiger striped seat covers, just happy to be together and enjoying the mountain drive. With head snuggled comfortably into her pillow against the window, she asks her mother what she thinks about the possible meaning of words in Atmosphere's latest rap streaming into her hears on headphones, while mom isn't thinking about much at all except noticing the curve that the top of the hills make against the skyline left in a blur behind them.  It's peaceful in the car, it's so good to be with someone you love, its a beautiful day.

How much fear can you feel in a second, or part of one?  Order turns to chaos, ears assaulted by hellish vibrations, mother screams herself awake and the windshield splinters into an electrical storm right in front of their faces.  The world outside begins to spin, tires against asphalt make a piercing crescendo, daughter wails from deep in her gut, can't breathe, can't see.  Peaceful quiet becomes the quiet of death. Shock keeps them numb, the mind trying to catch up to the change in reality, pinned where they are and unable to move except to blink their eyes and listen to the sounds of air escaping from pressure.

When I saw the two blond women they had already been rescued from their car and were sitting in the back of a huge, red fire and rescue truck on the shoulder of the road with yellow coated rescue workers hovering nearby.  Shock, fear, and confusion showed on their faces and in their bodies. Thirty yards down a gold colored minivan, unharmed and parked parallel to the road caused our eyebrows to curl...were they just rescued from an adventure gone wrong down below, or did one of the cars in an accident come through unscathed? No one in our car was mentally prepared for the large brown bear who became the next installment of the disaster, sprawled I think where he landed from a cruise through the air, body straddling the guard rail, paws flung wide and big furry head bowed to the ground. The shattered SUV came next, and then it was over.  "Oh the poor bear" we all said in one way or another, but our own shock brought quiet to our car too while we tried to sort out the 5 second tragedy we had just seen unfold on the roadside.

Hitting a bear must have been more of a shock for those poor women than seeing it dead on the side of the road was for us, but either one is a completely unexpected head shaker none the less.  Hitting something is rarely or ever premeditated, it just happens when your mind is thinking the regular things it always does. A doctor telling you over the phone to sit down before he gives you her news is one of those hits.  If you haven't had one yet you are probably young, but I can guarantee that your own will indeed come just as surely as death and taxes will. But the answer is not to sit frozen in fear because that stops no train.

The bible, as always, has something to say about how to get ready for this uncertainty. It meets the uncertain future with the unchangeable, all powerful, all knowing, and all loving Creator of all we CAN see and are certain of. "Remember your Creator in the days of your youth..." because what follows is the gradual breakdown of the body into old age when hands tremble, appetite wanes and and eyes and ears are turned to the lowest setting. "Remember your Creator before the silver cord is loosed, or the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher shattered at the fountain...". In other words, before it all happens, before the unknown hits your windshield on a sunny day, before the heartache comes, know your Maker.

If you wait until you are in a state of shock, that getting to know Him part will most likely be put on hold until sometime when you can think straight again, and then how will you know where to find His strong hand to hold on to in the moment of your crisis? Sounds childlike maybe, but tragedy strips away our adult-like sophistication and leaves us with more child-like humility.  I can say from experience, and not only this last go around, that He is a strong tower and a strong comfort in the greatest time of need. I can't imagine facing things in the past, or the things I know are still unknown to me and yet to come, without His strength, His promises, or His wisdom.

I've been trying to get to know Him since I understood His love for me when I was thirteen. Its almost the easiest thing in the world to do, yet you may also find it extremely difficult at the same time. We have the tangible world to speak of Him as it reflects His nature in its glory, but even easier to understand is His word, the bible. It's really that simple. I meditate on his word to know Him, and here is one ultra simple way to do it.

1) Choose a book of the bible to read. Decide how much time you have to get to know your Creator each day and spend half of that time reading from the book you chose. A book marker is a must!
2) For the second half of your time each day, pick one verse that caught your attention or curiosity and copy it down on paper (or laptop).  Then go through the verse phrase by phrase and rewrite it in your own words, trying not to use any of the same words you copied from the bible.
3) Sit back in your past few minutes and think about what you just wrote down.  Answer one of these two questions, "What did I learn about my Creator's personality?" or "What example or direction does this give me to follow?"  Then talk to Him about that very thing and how it can become a part of your life that day, in addition to anything and everything else you want to talk to Him about.

Before the brown bear hits or the golden bowl breaks, know your Creator!  When you are hurting or in shock you only want to be comforted by those you already know really well. He really does love us, and we need Him very much for the unexpected things in life that come along.

I have my last infusion a week from this Wednesday. This past one was a bit harder than the others so I'm getting mentally ready for the same or more. But following that my hair can start to keep records of my life again and that is something I am looking forward to; new hair, new understanding, a changed heart, a new beginning. I'll have a few weeks  afterwards to recover and then start on six weeks of radiation therapy...and then its over. In case you are wondering about the picture, they are piles of some things that were sent to help me along the way, like strong shoes on a rocky road. Thank you so much again for helping me through this with all of your love and prayers...I will never forget.

Where's the Love? Part 2

The sky is blue, the roses red and birds are singing, I feel like myself again today. What I mean is I don't feel TIRED.  Its actually rather gray outside this morning but I know the blue is coming. I'm curled up looking out the window starting the day with my bible, two chubby chickens looking for the dog's bowl on the far end of the porch just walked by the window accompanied by strains of my neighbor practicing some very good piano playing. I've been finishing what I started last post in my mind the past few days,  so now I'm going to take the time to write it down, which helps me think.

It started a really long time ago, sometime in the early part of this year, I was standing at the kitchen scrubbing away when a name came to my mind. Sometimes the sound of a name seems to entertain my ears and it repeats over and over in my head as though my mind was tossing it against the wall and back in play. I just sit back and listen, I find it rather interesting that my mind enjoys certain sounds  so much. This time though there was a difference, I felt like I should really listen to the name instead of just the sound, so I googled it. Yes, the almighty google revealed to me that this name was a person I must have heard talked about at some time in my life, probably when Ben worked in a little church as its youth pastor way back at the beginning in the early 90s.  Winkie Pratney Winkie Pratney Winkie Pratney...he wrote quite a few books, but the site said his best seller was a book called "The Nature and Character of God."  One punch of a keyboard key with wet fingers and there it was at my door in a brown book box, and I have been devouring it ever since.

I can't vouch for his theology on every single point, I don't feel the need to in case you decide to look for yourself, but what I have found here is an anthology of writings of the church fathers from antiquity to the present day contemplating the nature and character of God. How interesting, since His nature and character were something I had been questioning myself, impertinent sinner that I am. I was, am being, challenged to reconsider, the most august of all Kings inviting one of the lowliest of scullery maids to consider His glory. It shames me even as I write that.

I now force myself to stay focused because I want to reprint chunks of the current chapter I am reading called God is Loving. This follows the chapters God is Uncreated, Infinite, Spiritual,Glorious, and Creator.  Do you think He is trying to set me straight somehow? First the teacher and then the time! Maybe it had to be because I have been gifted in the area of stubbornness, but I wonder if you have noticed as I have that one's gift used wrongly can become one's downfall. I'm afraid I don't flex like a good piece of clay must, which is okay if I'm in a completed shape, but deadly to the Potter's dreams of making something beautiful if I am far from done.  Hopefully I am not the only one out there with this fault because there goes that measuring stick again.

So the point for today is really just a comparison between two words, phileo and agapao, both of which mean love in ancient Greek. There are many different English words which describe the many facets of love too...affection, compassion, benevolence, infatuation, etc.  It makes a difference don't you think?

Phileo love is commonly understood as a love between siblings, a shared affection between friends, the kindness of one human being to another,  "a love of liking, and affection for someone or something that is the outgoing of one's heart in delight to that which affords pleasure." This is the word Peter used to answer Jesus when He asked if Peter loved Him in John 21:15-19.

The problem in the exchange was that Jesus asked Peter if he "agapao"ed Him, not "pileo"ed Him.  He pressed the point, He wanted Peter to understand his own heart because I'm sure the Lord wasn't asking something He didn't already know.  Agapao love is translated "to show love; it is a giving, active love on the other's behalf", or "It is a love called out of a person's heart by an 'awakened sense of value in an object which causes one to prize it'. It's impulse comes from prizing."

The main difference I see here is what draws the love from the heart,  the delight or pleasure that the object of love brings to you, or the placing of intrinsic value on that object of love because of what it IS, not necessarily for how it makes you feel about it. Books have been written, I can only try to take from this what I can that helps me see my own heart in a truer light today. What is my own love for God based on? What drew it out of my heart in the first place?  What sustains it today?  In the beginning God created for me a way to eternal life and I loved Him for that.  Along the way He has been faithful to me, shown me care in practical needs and desires met, and I have loved Him for that. He has saved me from great suffering, even death, times when I knew it and I'm sure many times I have been unaware, and I have loved Him for that.

What category would I place this kind of love into, phileo or agapao? Nothing is so black and white you say, and I agree, but for the most part, which one? He has delighted me, He has given me a great deal of pleasure by His care and blessings along the way. But I see here in the exchange with Peter that He would like to have the other like He gives, a love that values the intrinsic qualities of the object loved so much that the absence of tangible pleasure associated with it does not change the sacrifices one will make, it's just that valuable.  So do I love God when He does not answer my prayers? Do I love Him when He allows suffering, disappointment, loneliness? Do I love Him when I simply cannot understand what He is doing, or not doing for me? In other words, does the absence of pleasure or delight change how I feel about my Creator?

In reflection I am seeing that one love is more fully developed than the other. Shall we say mature, or more precious like a good wine that has improved with age? Having been married for almost a quarter of a century I can see how married love gives insight into the difference and the progression from one kind to the other. At first love there is the excitement of becoming one, of being lost in someone else's universe, of being adored and the focused object of someone's attention.  But time adds distractions, responsibilities, sickness, children, mortages, etc. Hopefully at this time love has matured to a deeper appreciation not for what you receive from your spouse only, but also for who they have shown themselves to be in action, in faithfulness, in perseverance and in character. You've had a front row seat for a long time, and can you now love them as much for who they are as much as for how much pleasure you receive from their company?  When applied to my love for God then, how would I answer Jesus if He asked me if I love HIm? Would I be able to answer back that I agapao Him, or would my honest answer have to be "I phileo You Lord"?

If I lost you a long time ago don't worry, I'm thinking out loud. If this speaks to your heart as it does mine, then I hope you will have a small window of time to sit alone and look at the sky and think about your own love for God... phileo or agapao?

Where's the Love?

( Couldn't find a picture this time that could say the right words. Let me know if you find one!)

A book came in the mail yesterday, and without it I don't know what I would have done with myself this weekend. Good thing I love books written by thoughtful, interesting people, and I can get lost in one completely.  This was my yuck time but I'm not complaining, no way. In a round of chemo I seem to have only about 2 days like this and the rest are either coming clean of it or just fine. I have what I must call cancer lite, though I don't minimize in any way the impact that even a little bit of cancer can have on a body!

My brain is feeling a bit fuzzy around the edges.  I'm not sure if its just me or the experience, but I'm anxious for it all to go away like you do waking up with a sore neck. Maybe that's why I haven't written anything for a longer stretch here...the thoughts and feelings hit a foggy bath beneath the surface and just float lazily along.  My taste buds, hearing, and sight have also taken something of a temporary hit which contributes I'm sure to the feeling that I am in my own zone in a strange, hard to explain way. In the journey of life some things are just uphill more than others and this is just one of those more solo climbs I guess.

Unless, of course, you are my amazing friend Kirsten.  The temptation to snap myself with a measuring stick is here even in sickness; she is off on a retreat with her youth group following round EIGHT of chemo, I am having my husband and kids bring me Naproxin with a glass of water here at the third hole.  Must there always be someone who seems to be doing it better?  You have to know my sense of humor to take that the way I meant it, but in all honesty, there is a lot of self evaluation going on. I can't help it, I have too much time laying horizontal looking up. Wouldn't you know it, that while some of my life perceptions are fading softly in a temporary reprieve,  a sharpened, two-edged sword of self evaluation has shoved its way all the way up to the front,  parting the way for a rarely seen view to the bottom of my soul.

I hesitate to continue lest I create a reputation for myself as the one who is always in angst about something. But right now I am and I wouldn't change the course for anything because like I said before, the minute I heard about the trial I would face I felt the strongest impression ever that God was in it. That is difficult for some to accept, but why shouldn't I suffer when there are those whose feet I am unworthy to wash who have endured an oceanful of suffering more than I ever will?  Plus, there is always that small chance that I am not the only one who feels the way I do, and maybe honesty will provide enough inspiration to keep another traveler's feet moving in the same direction.

We're absorbing the book of Hebrews in church these days. Today, ..." though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered." Vehement cries and tears the writer of Hebrews tells us; My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?  If I ever wondered if God loved me, which I have, no need to look any farther than the agony He caused His own son to embrace soundly for me, for us. The question I asked last time, "Does He love me?" is settled, its in print, it isn't ever going to be undone, ever, and the answer can be seen here in the agony of Son Jesus' soul.  In truth, the only question that has any real, possible wiggle room is not "does He love me",  but do I love Him in the way that He deserves?

I LOVE to be entertained, I LOVE bread with butter and apples, I LOVE having my husband's attention, but do I LOVE my Creator, really?  There are some people who seem to exude love for God, and probably they are more generous with that gift even to His other offspring. They make me a little envious, no, not just a little. Love doesn't come that easy to me for whatever reason. That's why I think God in His never ending mercy paired me up with a very generous man who meets me more than half way to compensate for my lack of skill. Like the cushiony swivel chair I am sitting in right now. A few years ago he carried it down to my office from his own desk and has sat in a folding chair in front of his computer ever since. He has never mentioned it again, I don't think it registers in his mind at all, but I think about it every time I sit here or see him perched on the edge of his. I should think more about how he is only made in the image!

Why can't I just take the full jump?  I'm prone to contemplate God, study God, write about God, analyze God, much more than I simply love God.  Ok I'll be honest, I also hold grudges a lot longer than those loving types.  I remember disappointments,  I expect more,  I'm more afraid. Yet somehow, I don't know why, it seems that I have not been disqualified from still trying. I'm taking longer to get where I wish I was, but at least they haven't started closing down the race while I'm still running, so I won't give up.

 "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, this is the first and greatest commandment."

Maybe I need to forgive God. Doesn't that sound awful, as though He could be at fault, but I've wrongly thought He was. My incredibly self centered perception of how things have played themselves out may be the biggest dam of all. I'm pretty sure that showing honor, trusting the track record and proven character, believing the truth, these are all great things, but the one thing that really matters is the love. I'm certain He wants that from me more than all my correct thinking, though in times of such raw introspection I wish there was someone on this earth truly deserving of His incomprehensible patience and affection.

So that's what's percolating in my heart right now, with chemo for water and radiation for cream. I watch Jesus experience obedience in suffering, it gives me confidence that He is gong to put His hands together and hold my feet while I hitch up over roadblocks, that He will help me with the real thing starting with the first commandment.  Maybe Someone took their arm and swept some things off the table so that all that really mattered would get my attention. Do you see it?

"O Send Your light and Your truth!
Let them lead me;
Let them bring me to Your holy hill
And to Your tabernacle.
Then I will go to the altar of God,
To God my exceeding joy;
And on the harp I will praise You,
O God, my God. "    

Psalm 43:3-4

Hebrews 5:7
Psalms 22:1
Matthew 22:36-37