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| My Grandpa and I |
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I grow a garden, a vegetable garden, and I do it because a) I like the idea of eating food I grew, self sufficiency and b) it's what I grew up with, my parents tuaght me the vegetable garden was an important source of our food and c) I have very fond memories of my grandfather caring for his vegetable garden which in my child's mine was a large, beautiful space that he tended with a gentleness and persistence. I never thought of it as a life lesson until recently.
Let me back up a few weeks, back to June 25 when I went for a CT scan. CT scans are the tell all of my cancer life, they show everything. I have often wished there was a special scanner in my closet, that I could just step in front of like a mirror and could check on what was happening inside me. The realty is I have to wait for CT scan results. Because my doctors and I have developed a relationship over time, they know me well enough now to let me have my results before I go for the official in office consultation. This is so much better me. This time I really thought I would read the words NED, which means "no evidence of disease" and is the golden words for Sarcoma patients. I felt with the proven success of the radiation on the bladder area tumor, plus the new trail drug Votrient I was on, plus the abundance of good fresh juicing I was drinking and my overall healthy feeling that this would be the moment of ahhhhh...no more tumors. But when I held that report in my hand, that was not what I read. I will put in writing the results later in my blog but that is not what is most important, first I want to share what has become so strong in my heart since reading those results.
It's the first of July and this is where I was at. I was feeling heavily burdened, I just did not know what to do, what to think. I felt sad, disappointed, lost. I paid attention to my body and there was no lift in my step, my shoulders leaned forward, my jaw was slack. I sighed, a lot. My mind was working all the time and yet not working. At work and at home I had no focus and did not accomplish much. Those around me could see it, and yet they knew they could only give me time to work it out myself. When I say I don't stay rosy pink all the time, this is what I refer to...I have these moments too. I think everyone has times like this, with a life event that is greater than they had capacity for. Sometimes it lasts for an hour and sometimes it's longer. Judy, the mom of a young woman who lived and died of osteosarcoma, spoke about how their family handled these dark times - they agreed to let it wash over them for 24 hours and then they had to move on. I knew I would move on, I was committed to it, but I was not sure how and I turned to my God for help. I prayed for help, to know what to do next and then I waited with all the patience I could muster (and if you know me you know patience is not one of my virtues when I want something to change). Watching my new son-in-law and his friends cope with the death of a close friend taught me a lot during this time, and I tried to model their complete and utter faith in God to lead them through this narrow spot.
This is going to be a long blog..I am warning you now..so go get a coffee or tea now and settle in with me :)
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a narrow spot, climbing chalk mountain,
the Owyhee River Kayak trip, June 2012 |
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Narrow spots in life...another teaching I learned from a great woman Gabrielle Roth (I attended a conference in 2012 that she spoke at). She said - "picture our life as a trek across the country and picture encountering a mountain range...you know you must cross through it and the pass will become very narrow, steep and difficult...but, and here is the joy and hope in it all...but you can pass through it". And adding my own twist to her story, you can choose to get stuck at the foot of the mountain and never pass through to the other side. You can't see the other side, so you will never know what you are missing but what if it's so beautiful!!! and it probably is. And what about the amazing things you might encounter on the pass through to the other side of the mountain!!! and who wants to stay stuck in the dark shadows anyhow. Narrow spots in life...they will be there...they will be hard to pass through...but they will be worth going through. My faith allows me to believe this. This is where I feel fierce grace...it has to be fierce when in a narrow spot.
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| Mike and I at the top of Chalk Mountain, well worth the climb |
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I prayed, I prayed asking "what do I do?" "help me God to understand what you want me to do with this?" "how do I cope?" "how do I help those around me cope?" And then I tried to be silent, open and patient in my heart and mind...which are all new things for me, things I have been learning through my journey with cancer. The old me would have stormed ahead with my own armor on. The changing me is trying to wait for God to put the right shield and sword in my hand.
Here is what happened.
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| my garden, today, July 27, 2013 |
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Mid July I am strolling across the yard having come from the barn. It's early, quite early and the sun is just coming up. My family is sleeping. The world is peaceful, I have let the horses out and they are grazing in the field beside me. Throughout the night it had rained a lot, the ground is soaked. I am still wearing my pajamas (as I often am at this time, having thought I was just slipping out the the barn quickly to let the horses out). I paused at my garden, and saw a lot of weeds..tall big weeds, filling all the space between the vegetables, which had been bothering me for many weeks, knowing it was getting overrun with the weeds. Inspired because the soil was wet, making it so much easier to pull, I grabbed a tall weed and pulled it out. It came out so easily and it was so satisfying that I pulled another, and another. Next thing I knew, I was head first, immersed in the garden, pulling and pulling. For the next hour I worked in the silence of the morning, pulling and clearing. And that is when I heard God, in my heart, saying "just weed the garden". I don't have to come up with any great plan, just "weed the garden". Simply take out what does not belong, take out the things that choke, clog, prevent growth. Don't make it complicated or something that needs a big plan, just start with one weed, then the next. The time is right now, the soil has been loosened with the rain, just reach in and pull. So that is all I need to do and I have take a lot of comfort and reassurance from it. God has this. All I need to do is weed the garden, take the things out of my life that are not good for me. Keep it simple, just reach in and pull, one at a time. God has helped, he has loosened the soil of my life with a solid drenching rain. So that morning, after I had all the weeds pulled I sat down in a chair at the end of the garden. I realized that the task of weeding that had seemed huge and overwhelming for so many weeks had been easily accomplished in short period of time without being exhausting. I looked at my garden, thinking how much it resembled my life. It was made up many different types of plants, which had been planted with a plan in mind but how they grew was affected by the sun, rain and wind since the seeds were first sown. There was now a beautiful organized chaos. Some plants were flourishing, some not but all together my garden was a thriving. And it was beautiful. Beautiful just the way it was, in it's purpose and plan. It had survived the time when the weeds had seemed to overrun it...grown wild and untended...when the weeds were taller than the vegetables...some weeds still existed, there would always be some weeds but that was okay too. My life was explained to me that morning, when my mind was quiet and my heart was open, waiting, expecting God.
There is more to write, but right now its time for me to head outside and enjoy the day ahead. I will be back later to finish up. Love, Teresa
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