from an article originally posted September 19, 2014…

Today Jason and I have a series of appointments. There is a debate among my doctors who is the most important in my life. My doc dealing with my brain cancer wants to be first, and my doc dealing with the growing cancer in my body wants his turn first. They both have the very best intentions of wanting to see my cancer halted, but we cannot decide who gets their turn with my wimpy body first. So, we go to the appointments today and we ask all the questions. As they debate who gets to go first, we ask them to do that together and just inform us after.

Personally, each appointment feels harder and harder to show up for. Psychologically, with each new appointment, I know what’s coming. And it’s tough. Not a little tough. Tough where my body fights even when my brain agrees to the treatment. Some days simply entering the treatment room makes me want to vomit.

But the kind workers know my anxiety and support me—the whole me.

I have had the opportunity to share my story on so many different platforms. October is around the corner and everything will burst into glorious shades of pink. Every business will have some form of pink to promote the awareness and research of breast cancer. I have struggled at moments with all the pink. But not this year. This year I get to lend my story to the cause. I get to give the disease a face. In sharing my story, and the facing of suffering and hard, I get to give the disease a real face, family, story. But my book is not simply a story of breast cancer. No, it’s a journey of finding Jesus in the midst of hard. And that includes us all. Hard is hard. I’m not trying to win the hardest story. I want us all to look at our hard and invite Jesus into it to walk near to us in the midst of it. Hard things are asked of us all, but as we walk through hard we are kept. Beautifully kept. And more than just inviting Jesus into our hard—He can teach us to live a beautiful life, even when the story isn’t what we had planned for ourselves. We can thrive in the face of awful. We can hold our heads high knowing we serve a God that is not uninvolved in our story.

But I’m limping along looking for the grace. And it’s there. It’s so stunningly there. My friends are carrying us, loving us, overflowing our home with giant love. It’s unreal. I whisper a need and it’s cared for beautifully. It’s so humbling to be so amazingly kept.

Today, tell me, what is the hard you are facing? How are you trusting God with your shattered pieces? How is the trusting hard today? I love you reader. Thank you for showing up today. Thank you for your prayers and your giant love. I head off to have a mask made today; I will be returning to the snort I call the stink eye. The targeted radiation on my brain. Ugh. My brain. My poor brain. But would you please share your heart?