Pardon the dust ’round here. I know it’s been quite some time. The thing is…

I have oh so much to say and far too little organizational tools in my headspace right now to put anything down that feels jointed. So, while I fly through my day (and that’s just about exactly what it feels like) I come across huge thoughts and bits of introspect that often times stop me right in my tracks, but while I ponder and brood over it … I’m off and brooding over sumpin’ else. Then two weeks fly by. Or 4. Then I’m here — ‘splainin’ where I’ve been.

I’ll be honest too. I’ve had some rough weeks. I’ve soaked a few bits of tissue in both the good and the not so good. But I love that the good trumps the bad. The good carries weight. I can FEEL it’s sway. God has been hard at work on me. It’s like He has His big index finger, dipped in my chest, swirling and twirling and whirling it around in a slow rotation that becomes more and more visible the longer He does it, like a plume of water in a vortex.

Pleading. Begging. God, use me, show me, make me an implementer, an instrument. Bring good here. Show light here where it’s dark. Use this tiny little story of mine and make it seriously significant………………

……….USE ME!

(and He is.)

When we are immersed in the worst of something, we resolve ourselves to being inadequate of repairing … well, anything. (We get wilty and weak.)

But show up  and stand tall to the good in something, and we move towards the best in … everything. I’m ready to move towards the best in everything. I just am.

One of my favorites ::

—–
Lord make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light.
And where there is sadness, joy.

Oh, divine master grant that I may
not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love
For it is in giving that we receive-
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned.
And it’s in dying that we are born to eternal life. 

—–

The last few weeks have been FULL. There have been birthdays and celebrations and long drives and 3 hour dinners, late night talks and amazing time with family. I’ve wrapped my arms around all of my incredible (local) friends and really put solid energy into spending quality time with them. I’ve encountered some of the most stouthearted people. Warriors in Christ. New friends that have truly become underpinnings and reinforcements when I’ve literally felt like my legs had fallen out from under me. I’ve been devoted to creating tribute to these people. MEMORIES. Chances to eat and laugh and contemplate and muse on. I let myself dream with them, beyond cancer deadlines and looming diagnosis. Outside of fear and worry and things that are not mine to control. God has chosen soldiers for me in this season. Do you know what a soldier is? It’s someone who fights FOR you.

My gosh, I’m thankful. I am LEARNING. And my heart is FULL.

…

I spend a lot of time now thinking of when I’ve been my most happiest. Do you know when yours was? I reflect back on snipits that really stand out to me. I think this is probably a normal phase for someone in my place right now.  I let myself go backwards here, even though I am facing forward with all my might. I know that I believe that God is good (abundantly good!) and has purpose. I know I’ve asked a thousand times in the last year, why He would allow turmoil or induct a season that has no worth or contribution to my future. That’s just it, He doesn’t. The Hebrews felt that the future was not whole without the past. I’m in the same boat. It all leads here. Now… live intentionally.

For me, I’m cataloging. I’m allowing myself valid nostalgia. I think about peanut butter and banana sandwiches in the back yard when I was little. Of hanging on the fence hollaring out to my friends who lived on the other side. Of my yellow banana seat bike that I rode for hundreds of miles. I think about my childhood dog, Sam, and how she trompled behind my brother and I throughout the neighborhood, wherever our tireless feet would take us. I think about swimming with my dad as he tirelessly dropped quarters for us to race and find at the bottom of the pool. I think about what a treat it was to stop at 31 flavors for rainbow sherbet. I remember tapping morse code messages on the wall in my bedroom at night to my brother on the other side. I think about Camp Tadmor and my summers spent giggling over boys and Wet N Wild shimmer lip gloss. I remember bike rides to the Pole Pedal Paddle and fireworks off the butte … spending warm twilights at the softball fields collecting pop cans to buy Pixie Stix and licorice ropes. I remember spending every July at Trinity Lake, where I would crush on a different boy each year, drink my first beer and worry about nothing but my tan and my hair.

Mmmmmm, isn’t the good, GOOD?  What are YOURS?

Go on you peeps of awesomeness…

continue being remarkable.

be lionhearted.

be present… here… now.

be kind.

be you.

….figuratively, literally… I’m in so many ways, feeling cluttered, spinny and a bit overwhelmed with decisions that need to be made, projects that need a restart, home-life that needs a system again, time that needs to be assigned, relationships that need to evaluated… yada, yada, yada.

I had a birthday this week. Better yet, I GOT another birthday this week. How sweet is THAT? I made it to 37. Seven months ago, we weren’t entirely sure. Heck, 6 weeks ago, we weren’t entirely sure.  (see my dad’s reminder below)

Even yet, thirty-seven years later, I’m still working on becoming fully ME. Isn’t it easy to slip and slide on that? How many smokescreens do we create on a daily basis that dilute who we really are? I know I’ve done it. Don’t we continue to work endlessly hard at BECOMING something? Anything? Living up to what others want us to be, need us to be, expect us to be and less of what He wants us to be?  (*raising hand* ) What’s even harder is doing that while not hurting anyone or disappointing anyone AND while still not sacrificing anything truly genuine. Eeeesh, that’s some hard math. I don’t think it happens all at once… I think it happens daily, when we wake up and choose it. Killing, slice by slice,  the forgeries and the reproductions long enough to realize that the only one who REALLY sees, is Him anyway. That doesn’t mean we stop trying it just means we adjust where our priorities are. I used to REALLY be a people pleaser. I’ve recently let go of that (sorta) and made it a daily focus to let others’ know what I need, because before, I just morphed myself into what others’ needed ME to be.

So, for the rest of my little tiny life, on this little tiny planet … whatever amount of time that may be, I’m desperately trying to be a better person. I can’t have a redo. But I get to have a restart. Everyday is a restart, but I deeply hope I don’t need  a daily restart. I kinda hope I take a few things with me each day from the day before it. With that choice, I get to be selective. Not in a non-inclusion, secret club, “what’s the password”, kinda way … but in a “hey, I only have so many days left, what am I going to do with them and who am I going to do them with?” kinda way. I think everyone who goes through some sort of smack in the face with mortality asks themselves what they want to cram in. Mine is coming on now. Slowly… and not in a non-realistic way, but more of a pragmatic, literal and straight-forward kind of way.

1.) WHAT DO I WANT TO DO ?

2.) WHO DO I WANT NEXT TO ME WHILE I DO IT?

I ask myself that a million times a day now and while God is certainly not an amateur at this whole, love unconditionally deal, I certainly am. With that in mind, I try  not to limit things, experiences or people but it’s becoming necessary. I simply have to pour myself into those who need and want me to; into the things that are important, that will last, that will be remembered. What are my treasures? WHO are they? But also, what are my pangs? If my way  is hurting people, I absolutely need to change and in the same breath, if my way is hurting me … I need to change.

I am tearing things down…. lots of them. Taking all things apart, so that I am able to see over the top of the dust cloud, and rebuild. Isn’t that what a remodel is? I’m being remodeled.. built UP…whether I have 3000 or 3 days left. THAT my friends, is the beauty of changing seasons.

And here, what is more than likely to become my next round of ink… maybe aside the scar that reminds me daily, two of my favorite verses, written together… Exodus 14:14 and Psalm 46:10

difficult… but not impossible.

… well, hardly … but the boys sure did get a kick out of seeing their sweet faces on the front of this months True North magazine. (and for those that aren’t local, it’s a wonderful parenting publication here in Central Oregon.) They’ve both gotten stopped in the grocery store from people who recognized them. Cooper quickly informed them that he doesn’t sign autographs cause he doesn’t like to do cursive.

In addition, I was notified a few weeks ago that, (by the sweet grace of God and the very wonderful people in my home community) I was voted Woman of the Year by the Source Weekly, an edgy weekly magazine in our area. I have no idea how one becomes anything of the year, but apparently, if you play your cards right and get a daunting diagnosis and have to undergo some tricky procedures, it puts you in line. Regardless, it was pretty difficult for me to accept such a nomination without including the entourage of people who have continued to make it even remotely possible. Thus the photo concept of the names which were written onto my naked, scarred torso making it just edgy enough to qualify for placement. Regardless, these two publications have done an amazing job of highlighting some important issues and bringing the ovarian ick, to the surface. So, I thank you.

Thank you, Ben-Ben… rockstar documentarian who always pulls my ideas out of my head and turns them into pixels.

Ok, so there comes a point when you’ve committed to blogging where, say, you don’t for a while and then you feel completely and utterly overwhelmed with all the updates, pictures and little ditties that need to be said to bring everyone up to date, but then you realize that not only is this bit about blogging going to be a TOTAL run on sentence and grammatically incorrect on a million levels, but that it’s been over 2 months since you updated last, and then you just sit and stare at your computer screen in a coffee shop surrounded by a lot of other stumped bloggers and think, crap… Facebook updates just aren’t cutting it, I just need a total cleanse. A blogoscopy.

This is my view right now. Mrs. Cheryl McIntosh is on a mission to detoxify me. AND she just scowled at me because after detailing all the the kinds of sugar I can’t eat anymore, I popped a sweetTart in my mouth and laughed. Stubborn? No. Deliberately rebellious? Nah. <insert another sweetTart here>

So instead of “Rice Krispy covered french toast”, she’s using words like: enzymes, burdock tea, yeast flakes, beets, dandelion root, liver and colon. And where she thinks she’s hilarious by making a play on words using the word Whey. Like, let’s make some “whey delicious pancakes.”, uh huh, you’re funny.

So here we are, in February. It’s been a freakin’ doozy of a lot of days and weeks filled with a lot of stuff that has been both really good, and also, really lame. We’re in over 6 months of this stuff. For some that may seems like no time at all, but for us, it’s been life altering on every level and unfortunately been the cloud over just about every single day.

It’s ALL we talk about. I’m kind over it. The last several months have been filled to the brim with downers and hope (mostly hope) but the downers are enough to sweep you out at the knee and knock you flat. Here’s the cool part… all of us in this together… we know more this year than we did last year, on SO many levels we’re just more wise. Confucius says … “By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest. So much has been experienced and only half of it has anything to do with cancer.

After a return to the hospital by ambulance for a crazy week of ANOTHER abdominal surgery, NG tubes, an ER visit for a busted open incision and our final (God willing) dose of chemo (this time, Carboplatinum, errrrr harf) … I will, with no pride, admit to being completely wiped out. I’m tired both physically and in my soul. Way deep down. Physically, I know I’m in for the long haul for recovery… emotionally, I’m turning a very wide corner… finally. I can finally see beyond today.

My friends have been incredible. Months and months later, still here, fighting along side me, literally tredging through no different than I am, providing everything from their smiling presence, to bags of fresh oranges, from homemade dinners and gift certificates to hospital visits and kiddo pick-ups, from cards, emails and weekend visits with plans to only chill and devour entire bags of chili cheese Fritos to homemade hats, wraps, jewelry and beyond, from midnight texts and charity benefits, to entire Fridays in the sun … it’s all a constant reminder that we ALL are intimately loved by the God who has infinite resources, that come in the form of these amazing people, these helping hands… adding strength and courage to any fight. I swear, without them, I wouldn’t try this hard. They are there for my sad days with endless solace and support and on the blessed victorious days, with tearful cheers. So much grace has been extended… I am constantly reminded that, I too, have so much of it to give. What a lesson! And while I struggle with letting down my walls again, with letting (just about everyone) too close to me, while I stand at a distance and prove daily, that this walled-up girl, isn’t always so tough…. always trying to keep hearts safe and the hurt and fear far away… while still trying to live out in the transparent open air of what life really is– with all it’s treacherous risk and unknown potential.

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless–it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”

So now we wait, to see how my body responded to all these months of ca-ca and ick, and pray, that God will keep it forever gone — and while that seems SO incredibly NOT easy; I keep thinking how hard it must be for our God… who waits on US constantly. Daily. I know that His best work happens in the dark. In the depths. In the despair. In the worry. In the fret. When the foundation is burnt down to ash. The rebuilding begins. Teaching us to lean on Him and Him alone. My gosh, I’m learning this the hard way, always one that is constantly aware of my own limitations and others’, my own flaw, my own mistakes and short comings… only now, nearly 37 years later, that only He is consistent and steadfast. His endurance and my trusting dependence that He knows better than I do, is sufficient.  Because there isn’t any amount of darkness that even one small candle can’t brighten and in that, faith and hope are rising. Right. Now.

Less me :: more Him

I keep a trail of imagery on both Facebook and Instagram, it’s a simple way to document the little stuff… to which my friend, Lena is making me an album of as we speak!  I took this picture at one of my favorite little Bend spots and instantly posted::

      “upside.down.and.still.completely.full.”

and then found myself quietly praying….

“Jesus, there are so many changes taking place. I know change can be a good thing, and I am trusting you to show me the way and give me the strength to embrace thatchange and to be and do all you have called me to be and do.”

Oh, if it were only so easy… I wouldn’t have to pray for it.

So for now, while I struggle with being ridiculously anemic and nursing a sore incision, missing my kids on the days they are gone so much it literally slices right through me, having so little energy that I actually get frustrated with myself and how little I can do physically…. I focus on what I CAN do.

Like my dad said to me on our last day in the ER after I growled in teary frustration “ughhh, why can’t ANYTHING go right!?” … he simply said “it has… you’re ALIVE.” Oh yes… THAT. And he’s right. I am still here, my kids are healthy and happy, I am swarmed with true friends and united family so committed to seeing this through, that I have absolutely no room to bark.

Difficult… but not impossible.

Let me just start by saying this: I am not a writer, a photographer, a designer, a marketer or an artist.  I work at a bank.

That is where I “met” Jen.  A customer told me about her and her diagnosis of Stage 3c Ovarian Cancer just days after she got that terrifying news. Through conversation, I learned that her and I went to the same church.  Later that day something tugged at my heart. I knew that I had to do something. I knew with the resources I had available, I could help this stranger. I started by coordinating meals for when she came home from Portland and the months to follow but that didn’t seem like enough.  After a few phone calls and texts with Cheryl … they let me in her house! The first time I went out there, I took my Mom and my daughter. I had no idea where I was going or what I was walking in to. I was in AWE of her house.  Gorgeous.  We folded laundry, put dishes away, took trash out, brought packages in. The 2^nd time, Melissa and I had fun prepping for her return with vases of flowers, and a few understated welcome home goodies.  And then the 3^rd time. One of the ladies who had prepared a meal, wasn’t able to drive it out to Jen’s so I volunteered. I am not going to lie. I was a nervous wreck.  I have no idea why. I was finally going to meet this Woman whose house I had been to twice, whose friends I had talked to numerous times. It was like she was sort of a legend!  I also had no idea what to expect. I had never been around someone who just had a tumor removed. Someone who was the same age as me and had cancer. Who I met that day, was a Woman who would become my friend.

A friendship that I didn’t know would happen, but couldn’t be more grateful for.  Most of Jen’s friends have known her for years, grew up with her, went to college with her, have been colleagues of hers.  Not me. I never knew Jen “pre-cancer”. I can look at photos and imagine how different her life was and how drastically things have changed.   In the last 6 months, I have learned so much about Jen and about myself also. The conversations we have range from silly stuff, to real life stuff and even to scary stuff, like death.  My daughter adores her boys. If we had all the money in the world, they would have every single Angry Birds item we see.  If you have spent much time with her, you know what I am talking about when I say her presence is calming.  I have seen this thing called Cancer, bring her to some of her weakest points, both physically and emotionally.  Heartbreaking.

The other night when we were chatting, she said she hadn’t written a blog post in a long time, and she felt badly. I told her to have someone else write it and she asked if I wanted to. My heart skipped a beat.  Sure. But what did she want me to write about? She said, my view, my perspective. I always seem to have plenty to say but as I was writing this, my words did not flow as gracefully as I imagined.  My view and perspective is more than I could write in a blog. To be a part of a tribe surrounding Jen, is seriously wordless. It has reminded me that no matter how much or little you are there, YOU are a support and an encouragement to someone.  I guess what I am trying to say is this: wherever you are reading this:  on your couch, in your bed, on your phone, hopefully not while driving , at work, at home or at school, wherever you are, you can make a difference. You may think you are “blessing” someone but at the same time, open your heart, your ears and your eyes and take in the unexpected that may come your way. You never know where a friendship will begin.

-Marla