My Pink Square and the Hot Shot

9-29-12

I have a pink square on my chest from radiation.  It’s so bizarre, I feel like I want to stand in the middle of the yard and just say it 20 times!  My doctor tells me it’s perfectly normal and very mild.  But since I have never seen a pink square on anybody else’s chest, I have no reference point.  Pure 100% aloe vera applied 4 times a day keeps me pretty comfortable.  I wonder what the other cancer ladies in the waiting room down in radiology would say if I walked in one morning and said “I have a pink square on my chest!”  They are all so sweet, I am sure they would be quick to tell me it’s normal and mild too.  Because hey.  We can all sit around with pink squares on our bodies outlined in fat blue marker.

I complained to my radiologist this week about my fatigue from the radiation.  He leaned forward with genuine concern and asked me what kind of fatigue I am experiencing.  I got really serious, and told him that I have to sleep 6 hours a night, I can actually nap for real on Sunday afternoon, and am quite content to sit on the couch and watch the “Garling’s Get Ready for the Next Day” show on the weekdays without otherwise participating.  He smiled, put down his little book, and gently told me my symptoms were very mild.  OK, mild to YOU, Hot Shot, but it’s fatigue to me, and you ought to write it in your little book.  Next week I am totally making something up so he will write in his book.  Sheesh.

Isn’t the Lord good?  Praise Jesus, my fatigue is mild and unworthy of the ink in my radiologist’s pen!

And I have a pink square on my chest!

My Giant Ziplock Bag

Have you ever known you were supposed to do something, but just couldn’t bring yourself to do it?  Maybe you convince yourself the timing isn’t right, or you just aren’t going to do it as well as people who have gone before you, or that it’s just another one of your strange ideas that will go away in a few months.

I’ve been thinking exactly that, up until today. 

You see, this morning, a friend of mine began a journey that will be a huge challenge for her. It will test her courage.  It will test her faith in God.  It will test her humor and drain her strength.  I know this because I have been on a similar journey, and so she has been on my mind and in my prayers all day. 

So no more hiding behind bad excuses.  It’s time to be transparent.

The first thing I did was go into my closet and find my giant ziplock bag.  I had mixed feelings digging it out—my hospital wrist bands are in there, all the cards I got, pathology reports, anything that had to do with my experience.  I pawed through all of that looking for those worn out pieces of paper with scripture verses written on them that I carried around for most of my journey.

Did I mention that when I got out of surgery, we discovered that my surgical team actually taped those scripture verses I had written to my hand so they wouldn’t slip out of my fingers while I was in surgery?

I knew the Lord intended for me to share with my friend the scripture that would be on the first one I came across.

And there it was; a folded up wad of well-worn paper with a scripture verse written in green pen.  Psalm 61:2.  “From the ends of the earth, I cry to you for help when my heart is overwhelmed. Lead me to the towering rock of safety.”

Overwhelmed.  Yes, that is it.  A familiar feeling, but one that the Lord never intended for us to know so well.  But the Psalmist provides the solution.  Go to the rock. 

And I wonder.  How often do I allow myself to be overwhelmed and not go to the Lord?  Before I began this journey, it was a lot.  My “To Do” list is simply huge, and the world had tricked me into thinking that being busy all the time with the “To Do” lists of this world is natural.  It is not natural.  We were not meant to live like that.  But now on this side of my journey, I know that even if that list is 200 items long, what I really need is to cling to Jesus.  Only there am I truly safe and at peace.

Some journeys can make you feel overwhelmed.  I pray that you will recognize those moments for what they are, drop everything, and go to the rock.