Five years ago this week I rang the bell and walked away from treatment. I took a step towards the other side of cancer. The side where they say you are NED and you celebrate!
You live freely.
You see clearly.
You listen deeply.
You walk purposefully.
You love courageously.
You are alive and well.
Yet if I am being real with you, over time as you move away from the firey furnace of affliction where the key to perspective is unlocked,
You eventually feel bound in ways you’d never thought you’d be again.
Your vision can get cloudy.
The noise grows louder.
You walk in circles some days rather than with with purpose and determination.
You continue to love yet other things distract you from loving being your main purpose.
You’re grateful to be alive yet wrestle with remaining well within.
This is my reality.
I don’t share it for pity but to open the door to reality for many on the other side of a trial. Our trials are hard yet often with them, when there is no place else to turn, we turn to God, with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. God helps clear away the layers of life and brings us to a thin space where it is just Him and us.
This thin space is the most beautiful place I have ever experienced. There is a rest in one’s soul that can only come from God. There is a lightness within that has let go of the burdens of the world and fully trusts all is, and will be, well, even if death is the outcome. The thin space is where “the peace of God that transcends all understanding” is experienced.
Yet when the trial passes and layers of life return, it’s hard to stay in the thin space as one was able to before. Instead of experiencing that peace consistently, that peace is consistently challenged. Even as I continue to seek God daily I admittedly do not do so wholeheartedly as I did through my walk with cancer. Other things distract me, as they call for my attention where God waits calmly for me to give him my attention. That’s how loving He is and also what makes the challenge real. We need to pursue Him while everything else pursues us.
If you too seek to meet God in the thin space consistently as I do, I invite you to join me to…
pause. breathe. pray.
For these past five years I have been trying to get back to live in that thin space consistently. Yet what I am learning is maybe we aren’t to remain there for if we did we wouldn’t be able to relate to others as most of us typically live in the thick space. Instead I pray we continuously seek God to help us through the thick layers of life and we receive the gift of experiencing the thin space when it’s His will for us to do so.
Five years ago I was in the thin space as walked away from treatment. Today I am walking away from judging myself for not staying in the thin space consistently these past five years, and am praying you do the same if you need to as well.
God’s love for us doesn’t change whether we are in the thick or thin space. May we absorb that truth and choose to be loving towards ourselves as we move forward in this day, and towards our next five years.
With love and hope,
Shawn
