For Dear Life

 "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."  

Jeremiah 29:11

This wasn't our plan but it is The Plan. 

This statement came to my mind when I was texting with a friend a few days ago.  

Our plan was to be Casey and Ashley into old age.  Our plan was to move to the country, dig a pond, fish every day, can things, grow a huge garden, maybe buy a horse some day.  Our plan was to celebrate our 20th anniversary in October in Sedona.  

Now, I don't even know what the plan is later today.  Life has taken a hard left turn, and I think I'm just holding on for dear life.  

For. Dear. Life. 

Life, dear life.  

Life is dear, isn't it?  We wake up every day to the sun and coffee and traffic and work and people and kids and grocery shopping and bedtime routines, and then we go to bed.  And then we wake up and do it all over again.  And we just keep going without even realizing how dear this life is that we get to do all of these mundane, often annoying things.  

And if we are lucky, we get to do them alongside people we love.  

It's a bit cliche to say we take things for granted, but it must be said.  I feel as though I'm pretty good at noticing the beauty and fragility of life - only because we've been through stuff before - miscarriages, the loss of friends, hard stops and pivots.  I've tried very hard to cultivate the ability to really notice life.  But we are all human, and we are all on this hamster wheel, and I, like the rest of us, take things for granted.  

Even now.  After this diagnosis.  I still find myself taking things for granted.  It's the human condition, I guess.  And I haven't had much time lately to stop and think or meditate on the preciousness of waking up every day.  Honestly, I haven't allowed myself the time to be still.  Inside of my head is a very swirly-whirly world and if I think too much, I can just be paralyzed by my own emotion.  So, lately, I've just stayed busy - unpacking, decorating the house, and trying to make it a home.  And, you guys, it is becoming not just a home but Home.  I know, without the shadow of a doubt, that we were meant to live in this home.  I don't know why or how, but I know that this house, though not part of our plan, was part of The Plan.  It was meant for us.  As was this tumultuous journey of diagnosis, uncertainty, and treatment.  

I don't know why.  I know I'm not supposed to know why.  But I know this - 

"The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.  Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged." 

Deuteronomy 31:8

Do I think God wanted Casey to have cancer?  No.

Do I think God wanted my young sons to be scared? No.

Do I think God wanted us to worry about our future?  No.

Do I think God wanted Casey's body to become his enemy? No.

Do I think He wanted us to come within inches of our dream and then to rip it from our fingertips? I do not. 

So why then?  Why is this happening?  How can this be?  I have asked myself these questions many times, and I don't know the answers.  I don't have the answers to give my boys.  

But what I do know is that through every step of this harrowing nightmare, I have seen God going before us and beside us.  From the coworkers who went with Casey to the Emergency Room to wait until I could get there.  To the friends and family who came to the hospital or called, texted, and messaged.  To the friends who came to Casey's mom's house the evening he was released from the hospital just to hang out and who gave my mother-in-law comfort in feeling like "her boys were coming home."  To the donations, benefits, bake sales, t-shirts, and continued prayers.  To strangers praying with us in the middle of a store. To people paying for our meal at a restaurant.  To a young salesman giving us a discount on a mattress because his "parents taught him to help people."  To other moms making Collier's lunch for weeks just so I didn't have to remember one more thing.  To bosses and coworkers being flexible and understanding.  To strangers donating or offering prayers just because they've heard about our story but don't know us at all.  To the many people who have told us "my whole church is praying for you."  The list is so tremendous, and I know I am forgetting some at the moment.  

But through each one of these encounters, I have come to understand that it wasn't our plan that mattered.  It was never the plan.  Honestly, I think the only real plan is Love.  The love of people for one another when it comes down to it.  The deep, innate love that people have for other people.  The compassion that moves people to act when they see a fellow human suffering.  That Love is the only real plan.  The only truth.  God giggles at our plans, I think.  The God I know has a sense of humor.  (Sometimes a dark one).  And I love that about Him. 

He can lovingly laugh at what we perceive as our misfortune, because he knows he is busy making other plans to carry out The Plan.  Just like this little house.  I know that this was one of his mini-plans that he was working on long before we knew our fate.  He was busy setting up the timing so that it would be right here waiting for us to snatch it up and move our whole lives into it so that it could hold us during this season.  

As I've said before, I am so grateful to every. single. person. who has shown up for us in ways big and small.  I am overwhelmed by it and can't find words to explain it.  I can only describe how I feel it physically behind my eyes and in my throat and chest.  It's a physical feeling to feel this grateful - not just an emotional one.  At times I question how we can be so deserving of so much love and generosity of spirit.  But what I really feel (or what my therapist, ChatGPT helped me realize) is that what we are seeing isn't so much a reflection of how deserving we are but rather it is a reflection of the capacity of our community to love. And I mean to love in the verb form.  

So I'm going to go about the days ahead imperfectly.  Being, at times, angry and sad and, at times, joyful and happy - letting go of my plans and just trusting The Plan.  And witnessing God and his promise in the people around us.  

"Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ."

Galatians 6:2

I'm thankful with every breath for those who are helping us bear this burden.  And I promise to pay it forward as long as there is breath in my lungs.   

And who knows, maybe even after.