Grace that's home

"Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love,

for in you I trust.

Make known the way I should go,

for to you I entrust my life."

Psalm 143:8

One of the strangest things about submitting the details of your life to Christ is the state of limbo you live in. We hand over consents, sign the forms, pay the cost, and wait. Thankfully, God is much more gracious and much more personal in this process. Sometimes in the wait, we're in hopeful anticipation or just anxious for the fog to clear. Sometimes we happily welcome distractions from the reality we live in, or seek after a life we perceive as a bit more normal, something that is easier to swallow. Other times, we sit outside ourselves amazed that this is the race we're running and have been running for almost ten years.

We have dreams, but this cancer keeps our feet on the ground. The harder it gets, the more buried I feel. And I'm not just talking about the bills and the full voicemail box. At times, I feel like I've gotten used to living this way. I've invested sleepless nights, panicked phone calls, hours with doctors, tearful conversations, buried dreams. These investments have paid me back and then some so it's hard to see or imagine something different. My heart is wrapped so tightly in this. Expecting the unexpected has become home in a sense. How could I ever climb my way out? How could I become familiar with less trauma? What would I do with that kind of independence? Wouldn't life be a bit more...boring?

As much as cancer has brought us deeper into community, I still feel alien walking the path we walk. Cancer is so of the world and what we are learning from it is so out of this world. When a new symptom knocks on the door, I'm reminded that Ryan's life, as precious and dear as it is, has a number on it. My scope of what's really important shrinks to a spotlight. Energy becomes precious and I must spend it wisely. Yet my 100% is never consistently the same day to day. A life of making plans ahead of time has gone out the window.

Because home is where the battle ground is, home isn't a very comforting place to be. It's where I retreat from when Ryan loses his grip. The floor beneath me shifts more frequently than I would like. Home is where I am placed, rather than where I feel like I belong.

My concerns are not the same as the concerns of my peers, and I gauge what I share based on where everyone else is at. I get really used to asking myself the question, "If I tell them this, will they know less of what to do with me than before? I don't even know what to do with me." At times I welcome those differences as distractions and opportunities to encourage. Other times those differences emphasize the loneliness and withdrawal becomes necessary. No one is at fault. It just is what it is.

Then there are these perfect moments when we see God and who He is to us, and that is simply enough. We find a peace that doesn't swing with the pendulum of our circumstances. A peace that is on the battleground, in the desert, and everywhere inbetween. I wish these moments were more frequent. As infrequent as I allow them to be, I must say that they are sustaining. Those moments endure time and conditions, no matter how warped either of those things might be. That is where home is. It's not at our address. It's not where our suffering is. It's in the arms of the Almighty.

Copyright 2017 ->Renee Sunberg