Learning to Live Two Stories at Once

 

Life Just Keeps Being Life

It's funny how quickly life can change, and at the same time...not really change all that much.

When I wrote my last Daybook, I ended with the thought that cancer wasn't a pause. It was a pivot. I knew that was true even then, but I don't think I had any idea what that pivot would actually look like.

If I'm honest, I think somewhere in the back of my mind I imagined that everything else would stop. That every conversation would be about cancer. Every thought. Every day. Every plan. That somehow it would become the thing around which all of life revolved.

Instead, something very different has happened.

Cancer has certainly entered our story. It has changed our conversations. There are appointments to schedule, doctors to meet, phone calls to make, treatment decisions to pray over, and medical words I'm learning that I never really wanted to know. But as I've watched these first few weeks unfold, one thing has surprised me.

Life just keeps being life.

One of the things I've been noticing is that cancer hasn't become the only story we're living. It's certainly one chapter, and a very important one, but there are still so many other chapters being written right alongside it. Daniel grilled wings and pizza on the Big Green Egg over the Fourth of July weekend. I made sourdough pretzel bites that turned out to be much easier than I expected. Robin and Deb came through town and we met them for breakfast. Sarah went to work while I watched the children. We sat on the deck after a summer storm rolled through and enjoyed weather that finally felt bearable again.

None of those moments changed Rachel's diagnosis.

But they mattered.

In fact, I think they matter more now than they did before.

I'm beginning to think that one of God's great mercies is that He allows ordinary life to continue even while we're walking through extraordinary circumstances. It isn't that we ignore what is hard. It's that He keeps reminding us there is still goodness to be found in the middle of it.

There are mornings when I wake up feeling hopeful. I think, "Let's get started. The sooner treatment begins, the sooner we're on the other side of it." Then there are mornings when I wonder how in the world Rachel is going to do this, and how the rest of us are going to walk beside her well. Those thoughts seem to ebb and flow. Some days one is stronger than the other, and sometimes they both show up before breakfast.

Maybe that's what faith looks like sometimes.

Not pretending everything is okay.

Not pretending everything is falling apart.

Just continuing to trust God with today while refusing to borrow trouble from tomorrow.

I don't know what the coming weeks will look like. I suspect there will be days when cancer demands much more of our time and attention than it does today, and there will likely be harder days ahead than the ones we're living now. But I hope we never lose sight of the ordinary gifts that continue to surround us, because I'm beginning to think those things aren't happening in spite of this season. They're part of the way God is carrying us through it.

I've also realized something else. When people ask how we're doing, it would be easy to answer by talking about doctor's appointments or treatment plans because those things are certainly part of our lives now. But if you actually spent a day with us, I don't think that's what you would notice first. You'd probably find coffee on the deck in the morning while the house is still quiet, grandchildren running in and out, someone making dinner, someone else folding a basket of laundry, conversations around the kitchen table, and laughter that catches all of us by surprise. You'd hear prayer woven naturally into the middle of ordinary conversations and see people simply continuing to love one another the best they know how. That's what our days look like right now. Life hasn't stopped. It has simply made room for another story, and somehow the ordinary moments have become even more meaningful because of it.

I think that's one of the things I want to remember about this season.

Joy and sorrow don't seem to take turns. They sit beside one another. Gratitude and uncertainty somehow share the same space. I don't pretend to understand everything God is doing, but I know without question that He does. Trusting Him doesn't require me to have all the answers. It simply asks me to surrender today's questions into hands that already know tomorrow. There is a peace in that. Not because the circumstances have changed, but because He hasn't.

And for today, that's enough.