Rumors of a Writing Career

Since I first decided to be a writer, I've dreamed of writing books. I have part of a novel written; I have compiled a rough collection of Advent essays; I have even outlined an entire book on modesty for young women.

All of these manuscripts live in the recesses of my laptop memory card, only bits and pieces have seen the light of day. Some of these words have never been read by anyone but their mama. That's me, the one who painfully birthed these phrases and sentences, only to keep them hidden.

Putting Together the Pieces

On the day after Christmas, my mom and I trekked to one of the local department stores for the deep discounts on holiday items like wrapping paper and greeting cards. As we maneuvered our cart through the aisles crowded with other bargain hunters, I spotted a selection of boxed jigsaw puzzles, their prices also marked down.

“Look at these puzzles,” I said to my mom, pointing to the boxes with colorful pictures on them. “I think I’m going to get one. I haven’t worked a jigsaw puzzle in years.”

When I was a child, my mom often set up the card table in the living room during the winter and laid out the pieces of a 500-piece or 1,000-piece puzzle for us to work together as a family. Just last year for her birthday, I bought her a puzzle with a picture of Elvis Presley on it. And within days, the card table appeared again. Each time I visited over the course of a couple of months, I saw Elvis emerging from the cardboard pieces.

The selection of puzzles was picked over as other shoppers grabbed their favorites, but soon I settled on a seaside painting stamped on the jig-sawed cardboard. Three dollars would be a cheap way to carry on a family tradition.

The Other Side

She left this comment on my post about living and planning and hoping after years of fighting cancer:

Tried to make plans, but my husband's cancer didn't allow it. Prayed, others prayed, he died. Don't understand it.

And I don't understand it either, why sometimes we pray and hope and plan and the cancer just keeps coming. It was all I could do to just go back there and tell her I was sorry and that I was grieving with her. It was all I could do, but I know it's not enough. Those words won't help.

I don't even know her name.

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Since I was diagnosed with cancer in 2007, I can think of dozens of people who have received similar news over the phone or sitting in doctors' offices. Some of them heard their name and cancer together for the first time in the last four years. Some of them discovered a recurrence. Some of them have died.

This is the darker side of my cancer story that is harder for me to write about. Every day -- and I mean literally every single day -- I am aware of my imminent death. Though I am doing pretty well right now, and though I may still have many years ahead of me, the specter of cancer casts a long shadow.

As I consider even the possibility of a long life, I imagine year after year of wondering if this is the year I die.

People tell me this is normal for a cancer survivor. Doctors tell me they would be worried if I didn't have death as a concern; nurses tell me that most of their patients talk about it. A radiology tech once told me that she knows a woman who has been coming for annual CT scans for more than 10 years, and though she continues to be cancer free, she worries every time waiting for those results, wondering if this one is going to show something.

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Most recently while I waited on test results, I started planning my funeral, picking out songs I would like to be sung and imaging a chapel filled with artwork and beauty. I began writing my obituary in my head, "Charity Singleton died after years of living victoriously with cancer." (I've never liked the metaphor of "battle" and "losing" to this disease.) And I started grieving with those who will survive me.

 

When my news came back good, I felt silly for going down that road. My body was not riddled with tumors as I had feared. But today, when one of the nurse's from my oncologist's office called to confirm that they would be following up on that one area on the PET scan that was inconclusive, the fear and the uncertainty began creeping back.

This was the same news I had heard a week ago, as my doctor took me to the back room and showed me last summer's PET scan and last week's PET scan. Then, as He explained the radiologist's hesitation because of my history, and said overall, it was very positive that there was no obvious cancer but we'd have to check again just to be sure, I had felt confident and hopeful.

It might not be anything.

Or it might be. That's where today's conversation left me.

"I'm sorry I can't give you 100 percent certainty," the doctor told me last week while I was trying to take in the news that was so much better than I had expected.

"You CAN'T give me 100 percent certainty," I said. "Even if this little spot didn't catch the eye of the radiologist, I'll always be waiting on the next blood test or the next scan."

That's the rest of the story of living with cancer.

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Paul told the Corinthians that when he was in Asia Minor, he was "under great pressure, far beyond [his] ability to endure, so that he despaired of life itself. Indeed, he felt he had received the sentence of death." (2 Corinthians 1:8-9)

I could have written the same thing about my life off and on over the past four and a half years.

But Paul wasn't writing to the Corinthians to complain, he was writing to tell them the truth. This sentence of death wasn't to cause him fear and anxiety; it was given so that he might rely on God, not himself.

That's why I am praying that the Lord will help me stay in this long season of cancer, to keep living through the pain and difficulty, because I need to learn this reliance on God, too.

And that's the truth.

Photo by EmsiProduction, via Flickr, used with permission under the Creative Commons License.

Stay In This . . . Uncertainty

This weekend, I was waiting on news. The mind crushing, soul bruising waiting that happens when the outcome is uncertain. I feared -- no, expected -- the worst.

In between the moments of panic when I was nearly undone, I found solace in this: casting my cares on the Lord and surrounding myself with beauty.

 At times my heart nearly stopped, consumed as I was with the things I couldn't know yet.

But in the off moments, I laughed hard and breathed deep and clung to the people who gathered around me.

This time, the news came back good. I was flooded with relief.

Next time, the Lord will still receive my cares, the beauty will continue to shine, and my soul will be filled, whether in joy or grief, by the mercy of friends and family who walk with me.

There and Back Again: Dancing Priest

I met Sarah Hughes and Michael Kent on New Year's Eve, and they were the first people I spent time with the next day, in the early hours of 2012. They felt like old friends by the time I said goodbye Sunday evening, but I probably won't hear from them again until summer. At least that's when I hope to meet up with them again.

Michael and Sarah are characters in Glynn Young's recently released first novel, Dancing Priest, and a sequel is due out in a few months.

I had been hearing about Glynn's book since it was first accepted for publication; Glynn and I work together as editors for The High Calling. So, on Friday, when I took all of the gifts cards and cash I had received for Christmas and bought a Kindle Fire, I knew the first book I would download would be Dancing Priest. 

My only disappointment was that I didn't buy it sooner.

The storyline of the book is hard to summarize quickly since the action takes place on two continents, in at least four countries. There are two main characters, and a host of supporting actors. The summer Olympics make an appearance, as does the schism of the world-wide Episcopal church and the declining popularity of the British monarchy. But none of this is what the book is really about.

At the heart of this story is a young man whose great faith makes everything he touches great and a young woman whose great doubt threatens to undermine them both. This book is also about family and friendship and what it means to live out both in the context of Christian faith.

The ambitious storyline with the cadre of amazing young people as leading characters reminded me a lot of some of Madeleine L'Engle's fiction, like The Small Rain or A Live Coal in the Sea. The lives woven out of Glynn's imagination also took on that air of cultural exuberance that always intrigued me of L'Engle's characters, as well - people who excel in art and music and architecture and athletics and preaching. In that sense, the work ethic and talents exhibited by the main characters become a character of their own.

Dancing Priest is also a love story, told from two perspectives, that kept me flipping through the pages as quickly as possible to see what happened. 

And since I'm notorious for giving away plots, I'll leave it there, except to say, you should buy this book. You will love it.

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Just this week, Glynn made the first chapter of Dancing Priest available on his blog. Read it here.

Also, you can read this wonderful interview of Glynn by Maureen Doallas. He reveals more about the story, the process of writing, and why sometimes he has to put away the keyboard and use a pen.

You can also go THERE and visit Glynn's blog, and then come back HERE again!

Join me for regular jaunts around The High Calling network, randomly visiting fellow bloggers, soaking up their words and ideas, and then coming back here to write about them from my perspective.

Each Thursday, consider going "There and Back Again" yourself. It's simple.

Fix the Thing

I rolled the thread from the spool a length just past the end of my arm, thread light blue like a summer sky. I slipped it in the eye of the needle on the first try. I pulled the two loose ends together, smoothing out the distance back toward the needle. When all was even, I knotted the end just like my mother taught me, close and tight.

Sewing is no hobby for me, so on New Year's Eve morning, when I looked at the frayed edges of the rug in the laundry room just one too many times, it took about 10 minutes searching for a sewing kit to know if I could even salvage it. When I finally found the little cylinder kit with needles and samples of thread and the tiniest scissors, I knew what I had to do.

Fix the thing.