Then.
The door cracked and light from the hallway spilled into my room.
Framed by soft yellow, my uncle entered quietly. He walked to the side of my bed, knelt down.
“I’m sorry!” I threw my arms around his neck, the tears pouring out along with my words.
I don’t remember him speaking. There’s a pretty good chance I might have shocked him into silence. Nor do I think it matters. Within seconds, we hugged, I said my burning goodbye, and he was gone, back out the bedroom door to rejoin the conversation in the living room.
The hall light vanished, as did my grief. My room resumed the shade of night once again.
But I would never be the same.
God came. I called to him and, in spite of my bad behavior, he answered. In the form of a favorite uncle, God made sure I knew he had heard me.
Decades later, as I stretched out on the family room couch recovering from cancer surgery, unable to speak or swallow for the pain, I thought of how God accomplished far more in the heart of that five-year-old girl than a second chance at a goodbye. Although vast and unfathomable, he knew I needed to see him as real. Not some two-dimensional, flannel-board cutout. Not a God “up there” or “out there” and beyond my reach. Not a God reserved for Sunday school teachers and sweet picture books.
A God for me. With me. Close enough to touch. Always listening, always working. He knew a day would come when I’d need more than cliches and anecdotes, more than cute stories and neatly packaged feelings.
And so he gave me himself. In a powerful, memory-searing way to the five-year-old girl crying tears on her pillow.
But belief wasn’t always that easy. Real life turned out to be far more complicated than a girl forgetting to say goodbye to a favorite uncle. Prayers didn’t always get answered the right way. Sometimes it seemed God stayed far away. From my perch on the couch, I didn’t blame God for cancer. I didn’t feel bitter, angry, or unjustly treated. I just felt confused. Hadn’t I done everything right? I’d eaten healthy, taken care of myself, avoided tobacco. I exercised five or six days a week, slept eight hours a night. Heck, I flossed. Daily. That deserved bonus points.
I wonder if this is how the disciples felt in those tension-filled days after Jesus’ death. They’d banked their entire lives and families on Jesus being real, the true Son of God. They’d seen him turn water into wine, heal the sick, even raise the dead back to life.
But they’d also seen stakes driven into his hands and a sword thrust into his side. Those who stuck around, who didn’t flee in fear and panic, watched his final exhalation, listened to the wails of his mother as she mourned. He rescued and resurrected countless others. Couldn’t he have done the same for himself? For them? And if he could have, why didn’t he?
Were they bitter? Not that I can tell. Confused? Yes. And heartbroken.
In the absence of understanding, the disciples, the ones who’d seen Jesus work the miraculous day after day, panicked and ran. Their king was now a criminal. Because they’d cavorted with an enemy of the state, their lives were in danger. So they split, holed up in a room together with doors locked and knees knocking.
Had Jesus been nothing more than a mirage? Had they believed and followed a sham? They hadn’t expected the story to turn out as it did.
Then light spilled from the hallway.
“On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them.”6
Jesus, alive? Impossible. They blinked and fanned their faces. A wish? Or real?
“ ‘Peace be with you!’ ”
The mirage spoke. The first words of the Savior to the saved.
“The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. Again Jesus said, ‘Peace be with you!’ ”7
All it took was the presence of Jesus for terror and tension to flee. Not a change in circumstances or a reassurance of how the rest of the story would play out. Not even a solid answer to the question of why.
Instead, presence.
Peace isn’t a byproduct of control, the payout of a happy conclusion. Peace is the infiltrating, life-giving presence of a very real God. One who loves nothing more than to step into the middle of locked and darkened rooms and impossible circumstances, close enough to touch.
It took me half a lifetime to learn this lesson, to see my need for presence over perfection. From the beginning, my fantasy of a perfect life was just that — a fantasy. It grew from the innocent and untried imagination of a girl who wanted her life to read like a fairytale.
But I’d forgotten that even fairytales have villains and hardships and unexpected twists in plot. I kept holding out for my happy ending, but missed the fact that I’d already received it.
A hero who pushed past my fear with the reassurance of his very real presence.
“Peace be with you!” he said. He still says.
To the five-year-old crying tears on her pillow, and to the grown-up woman who needed his touch from her place on the family room couch. The organ pipes, one hundred and eight of them, reached like large golden arms toward heaven. Every eye in the church’s sanctuary, including my own, turned upward. We couldn’t help ourselves.
Christmas Eve. Fourteen days postsurgery. Earlier that night, I ate soft food that didn’t require a blender or a straw. I showered, put on makeup, and dressed in my holiday finest. By 11:00 p.m., I sat in a long wooden pew, three quarters of the way back on the left side, sandwiched between my husband and three sons. There was no other place on earth I wanted to be.
I saw the organist’s shoulders widen and lift as he breathed deeply and prepared to play. Raising both hands and head, he began to dance on white keys and dark, wooden pedals, arms and feet moving in perfect camaraderie. Like wise men from the East, the organist offered his gift to a newborn king. In the process, he delivered a slice of heaven to those of us looking up from earth.
O holy night, the stars are brightly shining; It is the night of the dear Savior’s birth!
I closed my eyes and allowed the organist and his pipes to both serenade and soothe. The music, long a language I knew and understood, washed over me, cleansing me of weeks of tension. Muscles released, stomach settled.
Every Christmas Eve, regardless of circumstance or weather, we play hooky from our home church. Instead, a couple of hours before midnight, we drive the forty minutes from our suburban home to an old stone church in downtown Denver. In a room of strangers, lifted by the music of a single organist and the voices of a hundred worshipers, we celebrate Jesus’ birth along with the centuries: “Glory to God in the highest! And, on earth, peace.”8
Founded in 1865, Trinity United Methodist is Denver’s oldest church. The building, completed December 1888, oozes history. Rhyolite and sandstone decorate the outside. Inside, the posts and rails are constructed of carved oak. Stained-glass windows give the room both color and natural light.
As for Trinity’s Roosevelt pipe organ (No. 380), the wonder extends far beyond the obvious. Behind the one hundred eight pipes visible from the pews sit four thousand ninety-four others, varying in length from one inch to thirty-two feet and constructed of everything from mahogany and pine to zinc and tin. It’s an intricate structure, hidden away from public view. But when the dancing hands of the organist take their position, music explodes for all to hear.
Surrounded by such history, I thought of the thousands of parishioners who likewise celebrated Jesus’ birth on the same wooden pews: mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, husbands and wives. Those who held hammer and nail to build the sanctuary in which I now sat were no longer. Those who’d take my seat decades from now were, perhaps, not yet born. But for this day, this year, the seat was mine. I felt the wood, strong against my back. Felt the floor, solid and unyielding.
Gooseflesh covered my arms and legs. Alive. I was alive!
A thrill of hope, the weary soul rejoices, For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.
I’d been given a second chance at life. The opportunity to live better, love more. I wanted to slow the service, hold each moment like a jewel in my hand, turn over the sights and sounds and marvel at the sparkle and shine. Facing the reality of death does this to a person. It transforms the routine into something of the miraculous. It turns handholding into a moment of magic. An organist’s music into the songs of angels. The faces of your children into the makings of history.
The choir director led the singers through well-rehearsed songs. The pastor presented an inspired message of God’s love for mankind. Soloists stood on the balcony, a cappella voices echoing off the hardwoods — choir loft, balusters, and pews — giving the entire presentation a depth of holiness. Gloved musicians rang their handbells, working in perfect harmony, one person and one note at a time, to create a symphony of music possible only with the uniting of many hands.
I sat in my pew, overcome. Like light spilling into a darkened room, an awareness of God’s nearness filled me. It was as if he opened my eyes and ears to see the world — my life — from the vantage point of timelessness. In that moment, beyond all explanation, the fog of circumstance lifted. Everything became clear.
My life was merely one detail in a beautifully crafted story that opened at the dawning of time. Cancer, although wretched and worthy of grief, wasn’t the defining characteristic of my life. Or anyone else’s life. It was merely scenery in a vast and glorious story.
God created. God blessed. God rejected. God mourned. God promised. God loved. God gave. God healed. God rescued. God redeemed. God will come again!
Fall on your knees, O hear the angel voices!
O night divine, O night when Christ was born!
O night, O holy night, O night divine!
As I sat in a pew with hundreds of others, I could see the timeline of my life from the sight line of eternity. I’d been so desperate for assurances of health and longevity. I wanted answers and specifics. Cancer, in all its erratic unpredictability, had left me exposed, vulnerable, and afraid.
But with golden pipes lifting my eyes toward heaven, I sank into safety. It was a rare moment of clarity and focus, one that I later recalled and leaned against when the euphoria faded into the hundreds of tough days that followed. It wasn’t something I expected or orchestrated, but like a kiss on the cheek, it landed soft and gentle, warming me head to toe. I knew if I reached for it, tried to grasp it in my hand, the moment would fly away. So I held my breath, closed my eyes, and released myself to the revelation.
For a brief moment, I knew to my bones that God would never let me go. Like four thousand pipes hidden behind one hundred others, he’d been working in the invisible realm, making all the parts and pieces fit together in a plan I couldn’t fathom. God, real and close enough to touch, had been dancing on the keys of my life, childhood to adulthood, making music I couldn’t fully understand.
Led by the light of faith serenely beaming,
With glowing hearts by His cradle we stand.
He knows our need — to our weakness is no stranger.
Behold your King; before Him lowly bend!9
After more than a month of fear, peace descended, for a time. Isaiah had prophesied the coming of the one. “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father,” Isaiah called him. But he saved the best name for last, the one that meant the most to me: “Prince of Peace.”10
The pastor called us forward, row by row of men and women and children, to receive communion. I lowered myself to the kneeling rail, feeling small, shy even. I brought my palms together and opened them like a cup.
“The body of Christ, broken for you.” She put the wafer in my hands, a gift I couldn’t reach for and grab. I could only open myself to receive.
“The blood of Christ, shed for you.” She held the goblet, filled with the rich burgundy of wine. I plunged my wafer into its depths, submerging it fully before lifting it to my lips.
“Peace I leave with you,” Jesus would eventually say, when childhood gave way to manhood and a painful walk to a cross. “Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”11
Okay, I get it. You are my peace.
Peace wasn’t a feeling or an absence of that nagging fear I couldn’t seem to shed. For the shepherds and for me, peace has always been a person. The presence of God in the form of a child, sent from the perfection of heaven to an earth wrecked with pain. So the life we’d always dreamed of — heaven — could be accessible to us.
As sweet at those moments were surrounded by my family in a pew, the battle wasn’t yet over for me. Fear would still fight for my life, the unpredictable would wreak havoc with my healing. But on December 24, soothed by the music God was crafting from the discordant notes of my life, I felt moored.
I wasn’t alone.
CHAPTER 7
New Year, New Fear
My days are swifter than a runner; they fly away.
— JOB 9:25
No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.
— C. S. LEWIS, A Grief Observed
I HAD EVERY INTENTION OF OPENING THE NEW YEAR LIKE A WINDOW letting in the sun.
As terrifying as November and December had been, they had culminated in a Christmas of gifts. A negative PET scan. A complication-free surgery. And a pathology report, received the week after surgery, with another reassuring “no evidence of disease.”
Nothing but good news. Cancer caught early, and no sign of lymph involvement. My doctor said there was typically a twenty percent chance of recurrence. But without the typical risk factors — smoking, significant alcohol consumption — she thought my odds better. Mine was a best-case scenario. Standard protocol required two-month checkups for two years, followed by three-and six-month checkups until year five. After that, as long as PET scans continued to be clean and we encountered no surprises, she’d pronounce me free and clear.
Like wise men bearing gifts to the Messiah, God delivered a gift: a second chance at life. Thus, I celebrated Christmas with a family I loved more than I imagined possible. We feasted, played, and savored the miracle.
The week after the holidays, having a far brighter outlook on the rest of my life, I packed up both our Christmas decorations and cancer. I was tired of doctor’s appointments and mouth pain. With cancer now in the past, I turned and moved into the new year with optimism and enthusiasm.
A big part of that involved diving into my calling and career with renewed passion.
Twenty years before, I’d gone to college with the goal of getting a nursing degree and serving on some kind of mission field. I got the nursing degree and license, but God sent me to a different mission field: as a communicator delivering healing words to hurting people.
In the year or two before cancer, I’d slowly birthed a speaking and writing platform. I’d had several articles, short stories, and devotional meditations published. A few promising speaking engagements dotted my upcoming calendar, including a writers’ group in January and my first big-venue event in March — the Hearts at Home Conference in Illinois.
But as I moved deeper into the new year, as two weeks postsurgery turned into four, five, and six, the mouth pain didn’t relent as I’d anticipated. I’d assumed my mouth would heal like a scraped knee or cut finger, that each day would bring additional relief and wholeness, and soon I’d see no sign of any wound. After all, the cancer was behind me now. Wasn’t it?
The pain didn’t go away, in spite of the days that passed. I still had trouble eating, talking, and swallowing. Even an ordinary task like teeth-brushing turned into an endurance sport. Honestly, as I walked through those first days of January, I started to doubt my future as a public speaker. The low-level chronic pain dogged me. Simple conversations shared within our home posed a challenge. How would I speak for an hour on a stage? How would I shake the hands of new friends, engage in conversations, and offer words of encouragement when words came at such a steep cost?
In spite of my determination to cling
to optimism, it was the unrelenting pain that placed me back on the fear rollercoaster. With every chew and swallow, every twinge of discomfort, I wondered if the ulcer — and cancer — had come back.
Then, one unsuspecting day, a look in the mirror revealed two more suspicious spots. Whitish, raw, not far from the initial cancerous lesion.
Uh-oh.
Feeling the fear climb again, I called Dr. Forrester and scheduled her earliest appointment.
She came into my patient room with her characteristic warm smile.
“Good to see you, Michele.” She meant it, every time. “So, what’s going on?”
I told her about the two spots and the ongoing discomfort. “I wasn’t sure what I should do,” I apologized, embarrassed to be bothering her, suspecting my presence in her office was nothing but my own paranoia. “I thought you should check it out, just in case.”
If she suspected hypochondria or an overactive imagination, she didn’t say a word. She simply put on her headlamp, donned a pair of latex gloves, and took a look.
“I don’t think it’s anything. But we’ll biopsy it just to make sure.”
I’d been afraid of that. I didn’t want to go through another biopsy, more cutting and bleeding. More pain, more healing. More days of isolation and silence.
She ended up taking two samples that day, the process taking only a few minutes.
“I’m pretty sure it’s okay, but I’ll let you know once I have results. Probably four or five days. Okay?”
No, not okay. But I nodded, tried to mumble my appreciation without giving in to the fear. I wanted to be strong this time. Not the coward I believed I’d been before Christmas.
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