In the Boat
I’ve never claimed to have a green thumb—quite the opposite, but this spring, my peony bushes bloomed into something magical. Neighbors and friends commented on them, and I became obsessive, really. As soon as I saw those green orbs bursting with possibility, I checked the blooms twice daily to see their progress.
I have five good bushes up by my mailbox, and I wish I could take even an ounce of credit for their success… I can’t.
About four years ago, my mother-in-law gifted me peony plants for Mother’s Day. She went to the nursery, purchased them, hauled them out to my mailbox, and had her yard team come to my house and plant them.
Then I got cancer, and my yard quickly became a wasteland disaster. We didn’t water anything for two years and barely got the grass mowed. Peony care was not top of my list.
But in a miracle of common grace, those bushes bumped along through our trauma with us. They bloomed full pink, ruffled blossoms, and I could even bring some in to cheer up my kitchen. May was a happier time in our desolate, weedy yard.
This year, though…this year was something different! There were over 75 peony blooms on my 5 bushes. Closer to 100. That is true because I’m only slightly ashamed to say I stood there and counted them one day, like Uncle Scrooge piling up his gold coins.
One evening in mid-May, when the blooms were in their full glory, I was out snipping off some buds to take inside when a neighbor who was walking her dog called out to me, wanting to know what kind of plant food I put on my peony bushes this year. She loved them and enjoyed watching them progress as she walked her dog daily.
I laughed when I told her: Nothing. I didn’t do anything to plant them, to grow them, or to sustain them. They are all a gift. I just get to enjoy them—isn’t that the best gift ever?
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The last time I wrote, I was sharing a remarkable story with you. It can be found here, and it was a doozy. It all took place in the weeks leading up to Easter weekend. I’d love you to read it before you move on because I think it thoroughly flavors this next update. But in short, all of the terminal cancer found at MD Anderson in February seemed to be gone. It was an unbelievable turn of events. We were overwhelmed. Our supportive community was wowed. It was a massive moment in our story. We reveled in the good, glorious news.
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About two weeks after receiving this remarkable report, Ty and I headed to Oregon for my cousin Katie’s Celebration of Life ceremony. She was a couple years younger than me, and she passed away from cancer this last winter, before Christmas. I wrote a blog called Favored about this.
We hugged family we hadn’t seen in twenty years or more. Aunts and uncles, and then cousins I hadn’t seen since childhood. It was warm and lovely.
And I noticed that my pants were tight. My tummy was bulging. Gosh, I’ve got to lay off the carbs, I thought. By the next week, my abdomen looked like I was a few months pregnant. I was on to loose-fitting dresses and sweatpants.
As the swelling grew, so did unbearable pain along my lower back, sides, and under the front of my abdomen.
Upon our return home, I stood in our bathroom one night, and Ty tenderly touched my belly. It was as tight as a drum and as large as a watermelon. Honey, this doesn’t seem right. This isn’t fat. Something is wrong with your liver, and we need to get you to the doctor.
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For a few weeks, my life was a flurry of hospital stays, appointments for a liver biopsy, appointments with a liver doctor, bloodwork, CT scans, attempts to drain the fluid in my liver… words like cirrhosis, liver damage, liver disease, permanent damage, and metastasized cancer bounced around me like a pinball. Yet, we didn’t have a solid answer. We’d have to wait for the liver biopsy results.
After one overnight stay at the hospital, we pulled into our neighborhood. I could see that a storm had come through the night before. As we entered the driveway, I beheld my peony bushes pummeled to the ground by the wind and rain. The blooms that had been left were waterlogged and battered, their petals strewn about the flower bed. There wasn’t a bloom left to salvage.
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Due to a blood thinner med that I’m on, I cannot take Tylenol, Advil, Ibuprofen, or any other over-the-counter pain reliever. All I’m allowed to take is a heavy Narcotic, which I don’t feel comfortable taking multiple times daily. So, when I have an episode of pain, I’ve found one thing that helps relieve it: I crawl up into a ball in the shower like a little turtle on the ceramic floor and curl my back up towards the scalding spray of water. As the hot water beats down on my back, it somehow relieves the misery.
Isn’t it interesting that a brutal, beating rain can annihilate my beautiful blooms but bring comfort to my tormented body?
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In Matthew chapter 14, you’ll find the well-known story of Jesus walking on water. We’re constantly wowed by the miraculous story; it seems almost like a magic trick. However, one little detail of this narrative has historically caught my attention. At the story’s start, it’s an uncomfortable specific: Jesus makes the disciples get into a boat and go out onto the water. He sends them into windy, unsafe waters, then leaves them to be alone in prayer.
I don’t think I like that.
Then, of course, the wind and waves pick up, and these seasoned fishermen—with all their strength and experience—find themselves in a wild windstorm, unable to make headway across the sea. They are bearing down, gritting their teeth, pushing hard… yet still stuck.
A friend sent me this text:
Verse 24 reads: The phrase “buffeted by the waves” stood out to me. Buffeted means to strike repeatedly. To drive, force, move, or attack by repeated blows.
Do you ever think: How did I get here?
How did we let our marriage become what it is?
How did this debt snowball?
Why do I feel angry all of the time?
When did I forsake my first loves?
And sometimes, it wasn’t through a series of choices. Sometimes things have been done to you or around you. Perhaps you just woke up one day, and BOOM: you find yourself in a boat, alone, striving against the wind with all your might.
And you don’t understand any of it one bit.
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I went to the hospital three times in a matter of a week and a half. We got our biopsy results back. Ty walked up to the hospital’s Medical Records department to get our records. We knew the biopsy results had been finished for days, but due to scheduling conflicts with doctors, nobody would release the results.
As the receptionist handed Ty a manila folder filled with hundreds of my records, she looked at him and said, I think what you’re looking for is on page 57, honey.
And it was.
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Metastatic Mammary Carcinoma.
In other words: Breast cancer has moved to my liver.
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Before we sounded the horn and started letting our people know, Ty and I took some minutes alone in our little ER hospital bedroom and cried. The tears flowed.
We were wrapping up our cry-fest when in walked the nighttime shift hospital ER doctor. She was a cheerful, soft Indian woman with a brightly colored sweater. She introduced herself and sat down in a chair next to my bed. She told me that her last name is hard to pronounce, so I can call her by her first name: Chanda.
Chanda, can we show you this biopsy result to ensure we understand what we are reading?
Yes, yes. She took the papers and read through them for a moment. Then she reached over and grasped my hand.
Yes. This is metastasized breast cancer. She looked at me so tenderly, then stood up next to my bed, reached down, and embraced me fully, holding my head in her chest for a long time.
She asked to take all of my records so she could review them, and then she sat on the end of my bed, took both my hands in hers, looked straight into my eyes, and said earnestly:
Sarah, what you need is...
(long pause)
A Grilled Cheese Sandwich. And Fries.
I’m going to get you that. I’ll be right back.
And she was true to her word. She didn’t send a nurse to deliver it. She brought it right back to me herself. And I’ll tell you: it hit the spot. Something magic was sprinkled into that subpar hospital-grade grilled cheese.
I think it was love.
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When Jesus walks on water, it’s not a parlor trick. He’s not doing fancy razzmatazz footwork on the water to show off.
He’s proving He is Creator, Sustainer, and Above the natural elements and order. He’s showing these friends he loves that while He walks like they do and is made of flesh and blood, He’s actually entirely Other. Not only does he know about the windstorm, but He also owns the windstorm.
And this God-Man walking on water is headed where? Up to a high mountain to look down on them? No. He is walking across the sea to get them, straight to them. He climbs into the boat to be with them.
They are not alone. They actually never were.
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I started chemo again a few weeks ago, and I was horribly sick. I feel much better now. My energy level is higher, and I can even get dressed and do a few daily tasks.
None of us is in control of our lives. The rain that gives life and beauty to my peonies also crushes and destroys those blossoms. The toxic poison that will pump through my blood every three weeks for the rest of my life will sap and drain my body, yet potentially provide life for longer.
None of it is mine to decide.
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I’ve never felt that asking, “Why is this happening to me?” is a good question. I don’t believe the answer would satisfy me even if a heavenly voice boomed out of the sky to explain why. I probably wouldn’t like it very much.
What we really want to know in our hearts during times of suffering is whether we are alone. Like a child afraid of the dark, you can open the closet 20 times and show them logically that there’s nothing to fear, but logic doesn’t play into that situation. They want you. Your presence, your withness is all that matters to make them feel secure.
Ty and I find ourselves in a furious storm. But peony blossoms, angelic nighttime ER doctors, or a grilled cheese sandwich is sometimes just enough to remind me that the God who owns this storm has climbed into the boat with us.
We take one day at a time: His grace is sufficient.
