Imago Dei Blog

As the Pastor of Women’s Formation, I find I spend much of my time listening to stories.   Stories of women who find themselves in a variety of situations: times and places filled with joy and sorrowing, hope and despair, waiting and healing, anger and forgiveness…

There are times on a Sunday morning when I look around the community and I see many of these women with their hands held high in worship, or couched in the arms of others at the communion table.  At these moments in the service, I find it hard to not hold back the tears.

These women are my heroes.  They press into Christ in the midst of many different and difficult circumstances.  They wrestle, they moan, they cry out.  As these women stay, waiting in these spaces, they hold on to hope found in Christ.  And out of this space, redemption begins to pour out of them…it is nothing short of a miracle.

Here is one women’s story, previously told in Stories of Redemption, a book of Imago Dei women sharing how Christ is working in the midst of their pain and joy.  My hope is that women who have their own story would be inspired to write…to share…and to live into redemption with one another.

The doctor stepped halfway through the doorway and paused. “You might have something called lymphoma,” she said. A strange silence followed. Tears ran down my face, trespassing without permission. I turned to my Dad, who sat beside my gurney. He held my hand with fierce compassion and led in a prayer. With his first words, I felt the entrance of a presence stronger and more overwhelming than the doctor’s overwhelming news. Jesus’ Spirit came tenderly. Swallowing my salty tears, I inhaled the Lord’s comforting aroma. His words of promise washed over my anxieties. He reminded me of His promise never to leave or forsake me. I believed Him and was suddenly covered in a nearly indescribable peace. In a place designed to handle emergencies and tragedies, it was a peace that felt wonderfully foreign, comforting, strange.

I was transferred to the oncology floor where I began chemotherapy that same night. For the first six months of chemo I was determined to recognize that my diagnosis of Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, while it threatened my physical life, didn’t need to threaten my hope in God. I still had Jesus, the source of true and lasting life. Nevertheless, pain and fear were present. I remember the first time I read the statistics about my condition. I was sitting on the couch the second week of my treatment: over 60% of patients with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma die from it. I gulped hard. The possibility of death seemed…well, very possible. I closed the brochure and set it aside. I preferred my Bible instead. The promise of a future with Jesus, abundant and eternal, was more certain than the statistics anyway. I couldn’t deny my pain, but trusting that Jesus remained with me in and through it brought great comfort.

Even so, as the journey stretched longer than expected, the comforting light of God’s comfort became harder to see. Pain remained. And the shadows grew darker. After completing chemotherapy, the doctor’s were optimistic about my prognosis. Before long, however, I experienced symptoms that made me certain the tumor was growing back. They ran more tests.
We waited. Finally, after days of hanging by the phone, our doctor’s number appeared on the caller ID. Her news made me go numb. My heart sunk—and took all I had not to let it plunge into despair. My soul wept, my eyes too, more than ever. My tumor had grown back. More extensive therapy was needed: a bone-marrow transplant, a procedure normally reserved as a last resort. I left the phone and fled to my room. I threw myself on my bed and screamed. Hurt, I clung my pillows and wept until they were soggy and then punched them until they knew my pain. I felt so broken. My plans—my hopes for school and life—were on a painful pause, and I wondered if a life without fear and pain would ever begin again at all.

Summer came and the bone-marrow transplant began. Before long, I was experiencing tremendous pain, extreme sleep deprivation, and frightening reactions to some of the drugs. It was excruciating, but it was the only thing I could do. In
the treatment, the body is blasted with a high dosage of chemotherapy, which attacks cancer cells and healthy cells alike. Afterwards, healthy cells are injected into the body to replace those that were destroyed along with the cancer cells. But this can be very risky. If the body interprets the transplanted cells as foreign or harmful, it rejects them, leaving the immune system without the power to fight even the most common cold. Death becomes suddenly imminent.

While undergoing the transplant, an unexpected blessing occurred: a foundational Christian belief became more than doctrine to me. I realized that the reality of sin, much like my cancer, causes certain death if left untreated. And without a healthy, sin-free donor to provide blood, there can be no cure. The Bible describes all of us as terminally sick with sin, and Jesus as the only donor with the blood we need. Those of us who through faith accept Jesus’ sacrifice receive His life-giving cells. But when we refuse His blood, whether from fear or doubt or willful disbelief, we reject the only power able to give us life, we remain caught in the cancer of sin. In the midst of the chemo process, I could do nothing—nothing but receive the donation of the blood I needed to restore life in me. Similarly, we can do nothing to be delivered from sin other than simply receive the costly gift of our great Donor. This is the Christian life.

Whether or not the actual bone-marrow transplant would prove successful, I began to find increasing rest in the promise of sharing in Jesus’ life. While this assurance didn’t prevent pain and emotional agony, it did provide perspective, perseverance, and an agony-tested sense of trust. Now, whenever I am afraid or confused, I think back to that season; His constant presence and love saved and preserved me. When I can’t feel His love, I trust that He is good; when I can’t see His work, I trust that He has never left; when I don’t understand His plan, I trust that His heart is faithful. I have learned to trust—not in what I think is the best outcome—but in the God who knows all things and works all things for the best of the ones who love Him.
Stories of redemption

I am now celebrating three and a half years of remission. But the lessons God taught me during that hard time are not lost. Every year that passes, I must learn and relearn them; I must remember to celebrate the fact that God is always with me and that He is always good—two truths I once took for granted and even thought trite, but which I now regard in awe as truly profound.