My oncologist arranged PET and CT scans post-surgery for breast cancer, the request form reading, “suspected metastases”.
This week is fraught with what has the potential to be anxious times.
The week of tests have come with challenging pre-emptive tales from those who mean well by sharing theirs or a friend’s stories with unhappy endings.
I began the week with thermography, ordinarily a helpful and informative process, non-invasive, at least on a physical plane!
Jeff reminded me on the way home after this encounter, that the thermographer’s personal experience with breast cancer and her “cautionary tales” and experiential advice is not my story and I have a relationship with God that has been my guide and peace. Still, it had troubled me throughout the week, causing me to question myself and my faith in God’s promises and my recent history of His grace and provision. It was in this mindset I arrived at the hospital for my scans.
In these times, when I let my guard is down or I’m distracted, it is not uncommon to find my thoughts revert to worry and those bad habits of my past of rehearsing scenarios and conversations, taking me from a passing thought to a full- blown anxiety attack. In these moments I feel I struggle to hear God’s voice when really, it’s that I have given credence and preference to another’s words and forget my faith in a God who is good.
So how do I live in expectancy in this and other uncertain circumstances? It was clear that those around me in their various advisory and experience modes have a different expectancy to mine and they were determined to share their concerns and build in me a preparedness for the worst-case scenario.
On both test days, the circumstances were such that in a moment I found fear overtaking me and my body began to shake uncontrollably.
I hate the PET scan and with these new rulings of having to keep a mask on while in a room alone and in a confined space, strapped down to the table, it took a few minutes to gather myself and remind myself of my dependence on, and my faith in, a God who provides all my needs. A simple prayer of “help” …it was one of those “Let go and Let God “moments, to overcome and control my body’s fear responses. I had read only that morning a piece called “Trust Fall”. It spoke of a “trust exercise” where one must allow themselves to fall backwards in an act of radical faith that their counterpart will catch them in their arms. In that moment I had to act in expectancy…to let go of fear, to fall back into the promises that “He will never leave me nor forsake me”.
Obviously, no information is forthcoming from the radiography staff, so with 2 tests done I had now to wait for the results. Now, I am challenged. Real time faith! So, what is my stance in the face of these results and in the nay-saying I’d been fed during the week …and my faith? It was Friday. My follow up appointment and treatment weren’t until Tuesday.
In these next few days, my focus was on the promises of God and the conviction that He is a good God. Reading His Word I was reminded again and again of His love for me, of my dependence on Him and my belief that I am loved not matter what happens. I spent my weekend making cards, keeping my attention on my mission of encouraging others by speaking love, joy, and life while in the infusion ward every 3 weeks rather than on the treatment itself or the pending results.
I was writing in cards to leave at the ward while waiting for my appointment with the oncologist and I wrote about speaking life, positivity, healing and claiming God’s grace only to realise I was actually affirming myself in this moment.
My expectation is that God is Good. He is not Good “because”…. He is Good. That is Who He is. So then is my faith tied to Good things happening to me? Can I maintain my thankfulness in all situations…even in the face of a negative result?
This was illustrated in my experience this morning. It was raining and we awoke to our usual audience of 4 white cockatoos sitting right outside our window looking in…anticipating being given seed. Wet and bedraggled, over the course of the morning, their expectancy did not waiver.
As I sat on my bedroom floor, as I do every morning, for my devotion, I had one cockatoo sitting on the pergola almost directly above me, and two eyeballing me just outside the door. After some time, I just pulled the curtain enough to obstruct them from my view. They just hopped along the veranda a bit so they could still see me, so I closed the curtain again just a little more…and again they bobbed along until their line of site…. and their intention… were abundantly clear to me. It made me laugh and realise that is exactly how we should behave in these situations of life. The cockatoos were quietly but determinedly expectant of a feed…and so they waited…and waited. They were not deterred in that expectancy. They had had a previous experience of grace at my hand, rewarded for their patience and persistence, and had no reason to believe that this day, this situation would not deliver similar results.
The difference in this scenario is that as wild birds, their expectation is one based on habitual behaviour. They develop no emotional attachment to me as the Provider who fulfills that expectation. They come. They are fed…or not. While I meet their expectation, they will keep coming. When I stop, so will they.
My decision and faith to expect from God cannot be emotional or conditional. A negative test result is not more or less definitive if I believe in a God who is Good and who loves me. I cannot tie Him to, or insist on, an outcome that suits my mindset of or my determination of what that particular outcome may mean…for me or for Him. In Isaiah 55:8 God says…” For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways”.
On what then do I base my faith and expectancy that causes me to hold to a position of positivity and a belief in a God who loves me and has a plan. He says in Jeremiah 29:11 He “for I know the plans I have for you…plans to prosper you and not to harm you” ……. trust.
This was not where I started in my thinking in writing this piece. This has become a revelation to me on the eve of receiving my test results. God is at work in me to bring me to a place of trust in His ability and His love and goodness….to be immersed in and hold to, His promises.
Isaiah 43:1 says,
“Fear not for I have redeemed you and called you by name. You are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you,
Through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you.
When you walk through fire, you will not be burned and the flame will not consume you.
For I am The Lord, your God, The Holy One of Israel, your Saviour,
…. because you are precious in my eyes and honoured, and I love you.”
Then living in expectancy can only go hand in hand with a belief that I am loved. I can live in this space because of Who He is and not because of what He does, where the focus shifts from my situation, my outcome, my response to all of these…. It’s because of what He has already done that gives me the confidence to trust in the face of all the unknowns, the unexpected and the unexplainable.
This is a game changer in my Living in Expectation, because once the focus is off me…my need and wants….my perspective factors in an acceptance that I do not and cannot understand all that is at play here. I trust that God knows and out of His love for me, will provide all my needs. Sometimes that will make no human logical sense in the moment. That has certainly been my experience so far but “… we know that God causes everything to work together for the Good of those who love Him and are called according to His purposes for Him.” Romans 8:28
I read a small piece recently that talked about car headlights in night driving. They light a few hundred metres ahead of us…not all the way to our destination. This is what its like for me in my walk with God. I keep moving forward in faith. Occasionally I get a glimpse of a greater purpose but for the most part I am given all I need for the moment. That is the meaning in the “Lord’s Prayer” when we say, “Give us this day our daily bread “, trusting that God knows my needs and will provide.
I do not have an answer for all the questions…. when what I had expected did not eventuate in the time frame I felt necessary or circumstances did not change in my favour. Lord knows, I have been there…not had the answer I have prayed for, believed I’d get and battled with disappointment.
In times of greatest need we are commanded to show love and compassion, empathy and kindness and sensitivity for the situation or others in similar places.
One thing I am learning…and I’ve a way to go still….is the power of words. Our shared experiences give others hope and enliven their expectancy for peace of mind, our words and the words and promises spoken over them, to them and for them are powerful when chosen to elevate, empower and enable them.
All I am able to offer from my own experience and insight, such that it is, is our need to respond to others with compassion…. and given some have experiences similar to our own, that response should bring with it all the wisdom, assurance and understanding we have gained along the way and then all the comfort we can muster. We aim to lift others up and help each other to live with expectation and hope.
2 Cor 1:4 “He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us”.
I am learning to unclench the white-knuckled hold on the steering wheel of what I believe I can control…but cannot….and give it to God. Trust that He loves us. That is all. A simple “help” will set the wheels in motion…. Then accept with grace and gratitude our daily bread and continue to live in expectancy.
Photo by Naomi Roorda cockatoos
Photo by Daria Sannikova from Pexels– headlights
Photo by Matheus Ferrero from Pexels -steering wheel