What’s the Purpose
People are annoyed by all kinds of things; pet peeves that rub them the wrong way. I have a friend who goes ballistic when he hears gum-popping. Another friend of mine hates pennies. They give her the heebie-jeebies. At a restaurant one time, Ty took a few pennies and dripped water on them so that the wet pennies were on our table when she arrived. She leaped backward—like they were going to bite her. All these years later and that image of her visceral recoil still makes me laugh.
I hate the sound of crunching ice, so by no surprise, I married a man who somehow feels that all is not right with the world until every single piece of ice has been chewed up, one cube at a time, loudly, while sitting in the car next to me. His pet peeve is probably not being able to consume all of the ice in his glass, so that’s how you know God has a sense of humor.
Not using turn signals
People eating off your plate
Double dipping
People standing too close
Pen clicking
Public grooming
Leaving hair in the drain…
These are all common pet peeves, and you may be one of the thousands of people that would call one of these their own.
I mentioned the ice, but that’s an afterthought. My whole family knows that I have one, big, overarching pet peeve. And just to make sure I’m right, I texted Ty while writing this blog and asked: What’s my pet peeve, Ty?
It took just moments to get a response:
Wasting your time.
Bingo. I feel known and loved.
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I’m writing from Houston, post-surgery. Quick catch-up: our original plan for surgery in December was turned on its head when I saw my cancer growing back in late September. Ty and I had just a matter of days to throw clothes and personal items in a car and start across the country for expedited surgery at MD Anderson Cancer Hospital in Houston. We arranged childcare, dog care, Houston housing, medical payments, and a caretaker calendar all while on the drive to Houston. We left Knoxville on Tuesday and I was on the table for a 14-hour surgery by Friday. It was a whirlwind.
The short of it is this: surgery was a success. The surgeon was able to get all of the cancer, which was not a guarantee. This makes it all worthwhile! I’m healing up nicely. I’m up and about, albeit slowly. I can even handle a light stroll—I expected recovery to be much more painful.
We are finally at the last leg of treatment: radiation. I’ll wait 3-4 weeks post-surgery for my body to heal, and then we’ll start radiation here at MD Anderson. I’ll be radiated twice a day— best practice for Inflammatory Breast Cancer—for 22 days. If all goes well, I should be finished right around Christmas.
Please, sweet Jesus, let it be so.
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While Ty is single dadding it in Knoxville, busy with a full life of two teenage girls’ schedules and a chatty, boisterous 4-year-old at his hip, I find myself in an odd place. I’m here in Houston. My family is back home in Knoxville living their regular life, sans-Mom. We have a few visits planned for them, which I keenly anticipate. In the meantime, it’s quiet here.
Before we left, Ty mentioned that he hoped he would find purpose in his time with the girls. The thought resonated with me, and I’ve picked up the word purpose and held it, polishing it from all sides.
I hope for purpose: there can be more in this than just a frenetic bustle of family life without Mom, and he wants to glean that. Their little foursome can grow closer, lean in, and help one another. There may be a depth, a bonding ahead for them, living together without me for a few months. It’s not all bad. The lack, the gap I leave…this may be a special season for them all in some way, and I hope they embrace it.
And here I am, living the solo life halfway across the country. Can I do the same?
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I began this journey with a mantra: Don’t waste your cancer. You can read more about that here.
Here in Houston, intentionally without a long list of things to accomplish, I daily battle the fear that I’m wasting my time.
But this time, I will not let that old provocation worry me. Instead of throwing my hands up in the air and wondering what in the world I’m going to do for the next three months, how I can prove myself, or what I can accomplish, I’m going to embrace this unique season. I find myself with a distinct opportunity: almost three months of a sabbatical, and I don’t want to waste it.
I contemplate the word purpose. The dictionary defines purpose as the reason for which something is done. With this in mind, I’ve created a few themes for my time here in Houston. Because while my regular daily life isn’t happening here, there are other things. These slower, quieter undertakings can be mined to reveal precious jewels, more than just a passing of hours.
These are themes—not goals, not aims, not strategies. This isn’t a get these things done list, but rather a be found in these things list. I suppose it’s an Inventory of Purpose, in some ways.
HEAL
The very word convalesce harkens a pale Victorian character with deteriorating health visiting hot springs in the hopes that a change of air will remedy her health. In actuality though, convalesce just means to gradually recover health and strength after an illness or injury.
Healing takes time. My body has been through the proverbial wringer and it simply will not bounce back overnight. And so, I rest. I go slowly. I have very little on my plate. I convalesce.
We do want to skip this part though, don’t we? We want to fly right over the hard healing of tender wounds and land on the other side without the time required. I heard from a Counselor recently that 60% of relationship is repair. And research proves that the relationships quickest to repair—to work through it; not avoid it—have the healthiest outcomes and are the longest lasting.
In other words: healing takes attention and time. Our body and our spirit have the same yearning: we are wounded, and we want to be better. But convalescence is required for both. Sitting in the healing is the mandatory path to get to the other side.
CREATE
I made a calculated decision to limit working from Houston. I love my job, so it’s hard for me to essentially walk away for a few months, but I’m confident that leaving distractions and stresses behind is the healthiest choice. I may not be working, but I am creating: new product designs, writing, focusing energy on some pie-in-the-sky projects I’m excited about. Why not? Maybe I’ll even have some compelling new things to share with you when I get home. But then again: this is not my to-do list, so maybe not. The pure joy of creation—not as a means to an end—feels like a ray of sunshine in which my little Artist Heart will bask.
RELATE
Ty was here with me for the first two weeks, and then my parents came in from Atlanta. After this, I have a parade of dear friends coming in one week at a time to help take me to appointments, and well, convalesce with me, I suppose. I’m in this wonderful, light, bright, airy 2-bedroom apartment, and my list of caregivers is longer than the number of weeks I have.
At home, I have to jump through many scheduling hoops just to get dinner on the calendar with any one of these friends. You know how life is with socially active teenagers that don’t drive yet. Each one of these people is putting down their own busy lives to fly to Houston and just be with me. They are coming from Knoxville, Nashville, Brooklyn. Dear friends—just two of us at a time. What a gift: a season to connect on a deeper level with a few of my favorite people.
I’ll never have this opportunity again.
REGENERATE
Be patient with yourself. Self-growth is tender; it's holy ground. There's no greater investment. -Stephen Covey
Maybe this apartment in Houston is holy ground. Maybe holy ground isn’t a far-off place. What if holy ground is right here, wherever you find yourself now?
Recently, I reread the story of Moses’s encounter with the burning bush in the desert. God was in that bush. It was on fire, but it wasn’t consumed. Moses was in the desert for 40 years, doing nothing—just his quiet, regular life tending sheep. Then he sees this burning bush; he turns and walks towards it.
It’s only once he makes the turn and moves towards the bush that God speaks to him and calls him to a whole different life trajectory. It’s the beginning of a whole new story for Moses, his family, his nation, the world. It all started with turning and moving toward God.
While relate indicates an attempt to focus on my horizontal connections, regenerate points to a vertical relationship—a turning and moving toward God and finding something new in myself as I do it. Because change and growth can’t come within. I can’t boot-strap a healthy interior life; I can’t change even the most basic heart attitude—it must be sparked by someone else.
You’ve read some of my real, raw struggles if you follow the blog. I hope I’ve been transparent but also led you to see my hope, the crack in the door filled with light. I’ve spent time in deep grief this year. There have been days and weeks where my soul was in a pit, and I could honestly cry out: I know you’re with me, but that’s not enough.
I’m reminded of Elisabeth Elliot's cry after she learned that her husband was killed, I know you’re with me, Lord, but you’re not Jim!
That honest prayer of Elisabeth’s has been a stalwart to me over this last year. It has encouraged me. I suppose I’m saying that sometimes that essential repair portion of a relationship is equally important vertically as well as horizontally. It’s saying: God, we have things to say to each other. We have tensions to iron out.
And knowing that you’ll be met there. This is a fundamental part of healing.
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This past year has been up, down, and sideways. It has been the darkest of nights and the brightest rays of sun. I find myself here in Houston, groping back towards the light. And God, my God promises me that He’ll meet me in the relational repair and that He’s just getting started:
Behold, I am doing a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert.
- Isaiah 43:19
So here we are, you and me, on sacred ground. Let’s turn and walk towards it with a holy curiosity: I’m confident this won’t be a waste of time.
