THINGS I HAVEN’T SAID

Healing is not something to be chased. It is something to be proclaimed.

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If I’m estimating correctly, there are 192,000 of them—
some chosen with agonizing precision,
some that spill out like a secret that can no longer be contained.

These words. I thought that after five years I would have used up every one of them, even overusing my favorites from time to time. And I have believed you would forgive the redundancy, seeing it as something powerful, ordained, divine.

This new year comes with the revelation that I have focused so intently on what’s been written that I nearly overlooked what hasn’t been said. This is where the boundaries need to be pushed, I tell myself. Authenticity is a room where the soul resides.

It started with a conversation on New Year’s Eve in a home I have never been in. Someone whispered that the beautiful young woman perched alone on the well-worn brown leather sofa was dealing with chronic health issues of her own. After exchanging a few incidental words I asked, “How do you use your pain?”

She, knowing nothing of my own journey, glared at me as if a hawk set on its prey.
Maybe I had overstepped an invisible boundary.
Likely, it was a question she had once, or several times contemplated herself.
The question wasn’t easy.
But it came from a knowing, loving place.

Since I know you better than this curious stranger, I am compelled to ask you—How do you use your pain?

This is where the story turns to a difficult admission that falls under the category of “Things I Haven’t Said.”

In the last four years I have become very good at using my cancer to excuse away so many unrealized hopes and dreams. To be fair, without concern of offending, this curious stranger could have easily turned the question on me.

The idea that we make friends with the enemy [in my case, cancer] is not a novel idea. In fact, the practice of it doesn’t really surprise anyone, particularly not the One who navigates us through every big and small ordeal.

“Do you want to be healed?” Jesus looks intently at the man he addresses who’s perched upon a worn, ragged mat.

His question, more indictment than invitation.
It brings to mind certain people who complain over and over yet never really seem to change.

The next four words, not request but command, broaden our understanding of a Savoir who isn’t playing around…
“Get up and walk.”

There are two miracles embedded in this story—
In the healing touch of a Creator, absolutely.
Also, an act of will to walk away from an identity tightly held.

What are you holding onto tightly?
Healing is the new skin lying under the garment not shed.

MY cancer. How many times have I said this. How ingrained my identification with it has become.
To agree that cancer is my story is to neglect all the other aspects of my personhood, to erase all the other chapters of a life exquisitely lived.

Do you want to be healed? “Of course,” you expect me to answer. But what does that healing require me to give up?

This healing. Of body, perhaps mind and spirit more. Can only come when I agree to let go of all the “benefits” I have cultivated since being diagnosed with this disease.

If you read this like a confession, I invite you to join in with me. I am guessing you are holding in the same admission for varying reasons and degrees:

Cancer…

Gives me a reason to say “no” when I’m tired,

entitles me to leave early when I’ve had enough,

enables me to emotionally check out when relationships are challenging,

brings attention when I’m feeling left out or lonely,

explains away the emotional distancing of a heart that’s on guard,

provides a reason to hold back joy and keep my hope in check,

and worst of all, excuses me from not trying my best.

There is no question that there is great joy and purpose in apprehending this journey for the intention of helping and healing you.

But leveraging cancer and healing from it cannot co-exist.

Healing is not some illusive mystery. Not something to be chased down.
It is mindset, a journey, a release of what binds and distracts from purpose, an alignment with the One who intends only good in my life.

NOTES:

Some things are difficult to admit, even to ourselves. But in the darkness of a worship-filled auditorium I felt the burden of what I’ve been carrying being lifted.

Sometimes hope, especially little bits and pieces of it, is a bitter pill. It’s easier to believe the lies of “it’s not so bad,” and “it will always be this way.”

These are lies. Straight from the pit of hell. I know because these thoughts deplete me, they rob me of my joy.

There is no alignment with a true Savior, no real belief in being saved, inside a spirit that identifies with the very thing meant to seek, destroy, and kill.

At that same New Year’s Eve gathering, someone I had just met asked me, “What do you do?” Without even thinking about it I responded, “I am a healer—a healer of homes, and lives.”

I love that this organic response made it’s way to the surface. Something inside of me knew the truth, and that truth was declared. You know the rest of that story…the truth sets us free.

What purpose do you want to declare? What are you compelled to let go of, to allow purpose to flourish? It’s in the letting go, not in the taking on, that resolutions are realized.