Only Stand and Wait
Hopeful reflections from an Anglican Priest about facing multiple myeloma.
…They also serve who only stand and wait.
~ John Milton, Sonnet 19
Those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength
They will soar on wings like eagles,
They will run and not grow weary,
They will walk and not grow faint.
~ The Prophet Isaiah from the Bible
My journey begins
On September 1, 2021, it was our turn to have our lives upended by those words.
You have cancer.
From diagnosis through major treatment in March 2022 through slow recovery and returning to pastoring in weakness, to now walking in weakness, I find myself repeating these whispered words that Christians have whispered for thousands of years: “Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.”
Treatment, tears, and hope
The early days and years of diagnosis were flooded with unknowns.
It was a year of tests and treatments and tears…and somehow always hope. The things you never know how you could face, you face. Not through the indominable human spirit rising up, but through the God of power coming down. We have had major things going on. And heaven has answered. Clearly.
Our lives that first year were met time after time with what we know as grace…that strengthening goodness that breaks through from heaven to find us. Those big moments that called for soaring, God answered with soaring grace. He showed up in major moments with major grace…through friends, through family, through strangers, through marriage and children…but most clearly through Jesus being a near, near friend.
Living after
But now… now, we are living after.
I still receive injections once a month.
I still take chemo pills daily.
I still am in a body that has fewer gears than it used to. Noticeably.
In four and a half years of this, I’ve never achieved that coveted cancer-free status. The crisis and unrelenting timetable of treatment in year one gave way to ambiguity and a new normal and a new way of being a person in year two. Year two of cancer life, my life (and treatment) was caught up in the ambiguous space between two major hospital systems. I was being overseen by Mayo Clinic, but treated locally in Sioux Falls.
The Mayo Clinic was saying that my cancer had vanished. Divine healing?
My local clinic was saying my cancer had returned, way ahead of schedule. Did treatment fail?
A new normal
Reminder: As of this writing, myeloma is not curable, only treatable.
So we walked in the tension of the best or worst news happening. Turns out they were both wrong…and things were stable. New normal.
Later in 2023, we found a small leak in a valve in my heart due to the treatment. There’s nothing to do about it except monitor it. But I can’t replenish oxygen as quickly as I could pre-treatment. New normal.
Clearly, life has been less getting-back-to whatever life was and more finding-new-life-after everything has happened. Even if I wanted to—and I would often like to—you can’t go back.
Before is a chapter closed.
Soaring in the journey
As astonishing as the soaring part of the journey has been through the high-highs and low-lows, a different wonder marks the journey since. If year one was marked by lightning strikes of goodness and friendship, year two and since has been a quiet and constant rumble from deep down. Strong. Clean. Smiling—like an inside joke.
That wonder is called sustaining grace. Heaven’s answer for daily life after. How do you walk…after?
When you are no longer in charge of the chapter headings of your own life…
When you have a low-grade terminal…
When you are often a little tired and a little fragile, but maybe don’t look ill to others…
How do you walk after?
Blessings that belong
I’ve said before often and I’ll say it again now: If I could not have cancer, I would choose that option every time. I know there are many reading this who do not know Jesus or who may be skeptical or cynical of his ability or willingness to heal. That is a delicate space.
In humility, I have no skepticism about his ability or his willingness. If God heals me, that would be most welcome. The deeper into this journey, the more I desire it. But. There are blessings that belong to the one in the story that are just for him or her.
Walking after
How do you walk after? With help. Deep help.
Jesus helps. And not just to get through each day but to see somehow, somehow Jesus takes bad things and bring good.
One of the hardest parts of the story these past years has been re-learning my own voice as a pastor. I’ve never had a stroke and lost my ability to speak or walk or think… but I feel a kinship to those who have. For life or trauma to distort and change you. To become an after person, … yet undiminished. Dimmed, yet brighter? I’m still trying to name this.
For now, all I can say is this: to know Jesus is to know that the very real things that death and dying take from you never outweigh what he can give.
It is quiet, happy work that sustaining grace brings to bear.
Finding an English friend
I found a close friend this past year in John Milton (1608-1674), an English poet who went blind in his forties. He was a man made weak when he should have been thriving. And in Sonnet 19 about his blindness, he asks: What is the role of a man whose heart is to serve God, but who has been made useless right at the point of his gifting? And he answers his own question, before God:
They also serve who only stand and wait.
Surely it is good for all of us to stand and wait on occasion.
In the West, we measure most of our lives by our usefulness. This is a deep deception. What father loves his child only because of what he or she can do? What if the healing hand of God comes to those who have been made to only stand and wait? What if his kindness reaches through these circumstances to bring us out of the darkness and into the light?
But to the ones who can only stand and wait, there is indeed good news. Whatever after is going to be, there is a great deal of standing and waiting. And I am glad.
The road ahead
Four and a half years into this journey, my own health continues to be stable. I am in perpetual treatment. We plod in the liminal space of waiting for news that my cancer is coming back. Statistically, that news will come in the next 12—18 months. And then, more hospital stays, months of recovery (Lord willing), and then into more standing and waiting. Even knowing that is coming, we are in the first season of relative stability. I even forgot I had cancer for a few weeks a while back.
Family life continues to surprise as we hit our mid-40’s. Our little babies became little boys and have become more and more little men. Charles is nearing eight, and Owen is nearing five. And it’s fun. Amy and I continue to learn how to walk and care for one another as we raise these guys.
What next?
Turns out, we’ve never really known the answer to that. It is for us to follow. Not at all sure how my little story ends (if you want follow along, see my blog), though we have great confidence in the big story of God. And to those who are living in the after in your own story, who have been made dim… it is not nothing to wait on Jesus.
Heaven leaves no one behind who wants to come.
Not made to walk alone
While this journey is intensely personal, we are not made to do this alone. Even standing and waiting is truest when it happens among the family of God.
Perhaps, as you read this, something new is happening for you … in your circumstances or in your heart. And it’s time.
We need each other. As a pastor, I have learned how deeply I need the family of God around me. But I’ve also learned how important it is for the family of God to have those of us who are weak. Those who can only stand and wait.
Perhaps it’s time to find that family of God and take your stand. And wait.
For more about how to begin a relationship with God, see Knowing God Personally.
For more help on your journey, see Find Hope Now.
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