8
Embrace the Journey
EVEN THE DETOURS, DIVERSIONS, AND DEAD ENDS
Uh-oh! Mud!
Thick oozy mud.
We can’t go over it.
We can’t go under it.
Oh no! We’ve got to go through it!
Squelch squerch!
Squelch squerch!
Squelch squerch!
We’re Going on a Bear Hunt
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens: . . .
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance.
Ecclesiastes 3:1, 4
Breaking the surface of the waves, I gasped for air, my lungs burning. Before I could take a breath another wave crashed, dragging me under, tossing me around like a pair of undies in the spin cycle. I’m a strong swimmer, but I was no match for the riptide sweeping me out to sea. I fought to get back to the beach but couldn’t.
We’d stuck to the rules: swim between the two red safety flags right under the nose of the Baywatch-esque lifeguard who perched above the sand on what looked like an oversized high chair, clutching his red buoy and scanning the waves. Terrifyingly quickly we were way out beyond the surfers, our towels mere specks on the distant beach. I focused on the lifeguard stand and kicked hard against the rip, but eventually I waved my arms, frantically signaling for help. We weren’t getting closer to the beach; we were being dragged farther out to sea. Each time a towering breaker tumbled me I kicked for the surface, hardly able to take a breath before the next one broke. I didn’t think I could hold on much longer, and it dawned on me that I might not make it.
Unfortunately, playing by the rules doesn’t mean life won’t sweep us out to sea and threaten to drown us, and no amount of fighting the tide will take us back to the safety of where we started.
My cancer riptide swept me out far beyond anywhere I’d been before. Way out of my depth, fighting to breathe, terrified I wouldn’t survive, I fought with every ounce of strength to swim back to shore. I just wanted to make it back, for it all to stop and go away.
Who hasn’t fought against their pain and grief, desperate to return to life as it used to be? Maybe you’ve tossed and turned at night, wishing you could go back to the days before you knew about your husband’s affair, your mother’s Alzheimer’s, or the rejection letter from the adoption agency. We fight emotions by burying them, we swim against the truth by welcoming the anesthesia of denial, and we cope. If we can’t get back to shore we try treading water until it’s over. Isn’t that better?
Eventually a young woman on her surfboard rescued me, and once safely back on the beach, I learned my mistake: I had fought against the rip. It’s counterintuitive, but if you swim with the current, parallel to the shore, eventually it will bring you back to dry land. Ironically, had I known what to do, the same riptide that took me out and nearly drowned me would also have been my ticket back to the beach. Not the same stretch of beach where my towel lay waiting, but farther down and further along—a new and equally beautiful place.
What if we didn’t fight the suffocating tide of our broken relationships, financial pressures, and family dysfunction, but embraced them and what God is doing in us through them, allowing him to carry our exhausted, anxious bodies somewhere new? We may not have been this way before, but he knows where we are going (Josh. 3:4).
Joy in the Journey
Rather than being dragged under by a sudden devastating diagnosis or the loss of someone close to her, Joy found herself being swept out to sea slowly, one day and one bag of cookies at a time. Her fears of getting older and remaining single mixed with the insecurities she’d carried since childhood, and she found comfort and certainty in food. Over time it became a compulsion.
The weight she gained was one thing, but the shame, unhappiness, self-loathing, and sense of being trapped weighed far more. Over a coffee and a large cinnamon bagel that sat enticingly in front of her, Joy shared with me how she continues to find healing for the damaged thinking responsible for her disordered eating: she embraces her journey with food by leaning into the daily choices set before her.
As we hugged and said our goodbyes, I noticed her half-eaten bagel still sitting there. I was brought up to clean my plate at every meal, and being full is rarely enough reason for me to leave a perfectly delicious bagel half eaten. But not Joy. As she embraces the bumpy road to freedom, she’s learned to listen to her body rather than her emotions. Does she still open the fridge when she’s upset or bored? Of course. She’s not Superwoman. But she leans in—to her emotions not the fridge—and listens for the lies they’re whispering. Then she goes for a walk, recites God’s promises, or squirts dish soap on her daughters’ leftover mac and cheese, all in an act of defiance and truth, and that’s where she finds joy in her freedom.
We Must Grieve to Grow
When our kids were little we loved the book We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury.1 In verses that repeat the same playful, cheery refrain, it’s the humorous story of a family much like ours on an adventure to find a bear. Along the way they encounter all sorts of obstacles, and with each one we would join the chorus, shouting, “We can’t go over it. We can’t go under it. Oh no! We’ve got to go through it!” before acting out squelching through the oozy mud or stumbling and tripping through the forest. Once we found the bear, we’d turn and run back through the cave, the storm, the forest, the mud, and the river before collapsing in a heap of giggles.
This simple yet profound story whispers a truth we’d rather ignore when life sweeps us out to sea. Yet, no matter how much we stick our fingers in our ears and scream, “La la la la la! I can’t hear you!” this truth remains: we can’t go over it, we can’t go under it, we have to go through it. There’s no quick fix. No getting around it.
So we might as well embrace it.
As we stop fighting the often-terrifying waves of our broken life and instead lean into them, we uncover unexpected beauty, joy, and richness we may never have discovered otherwise.
When we do the hard work of grieving, forgiving, or just admitting that life stinks right now, there will be moments of peace where there was once only anguish, flashes of hope in the darkness, and joy snuggling in with our pain as our wounds begin to heal. Embracing the journey is a gift—to you, from you, with love—because it’s there we meet God.
We have to grieve to grow and move forward. Allowing ourselves to experience the breadth of our painful emotions is the only way through them and on to the waiting healing. As our friend and pastor, John, said in the days after we lost Al’s mum unexpectedly, “The only way to screw up the grieving process is to not grieve.”
Not long after my surgery, as I wrestled with the practical and emotional struggles of having an ostomy bag with the willfulness of a small child, we were given a week at a cabin in the heart of West Virginia. I sat on the porch, breathing in the mountain air, healing physically but not so much emotionally. I watched the kids swim, bike, and build forest forts with the boundless energy of puppies, resentful I couldn’t join in. I wanted to stop the world and get off. I didn’t want to be sick, I hated being an invalid, and I wished more than anything to be me—the fit, healthy mum who was game for anything and could hold her own in capture the flag.
One afternoon we tried renting two extra bikes in addition to the three we’d crammed on the back of our SUV. All five of us wanted to ride the Greenbrier River Trail, an old railroad converted to a bike path that winds peacefully beside the river. It was to be the perfect gentle day out as I gathered my strength. Unfortunately, being in the middle of nowhere, we failed miserably to find any extra bikes. So Sophie and I dropped Al, James, and Emma at the trail and drove a couple miles farther on to meet them for a picnic lunch.
We parked the car in the agreed spot and let Chester escape the confines of the boot before heading along the path, expecting to see the others any minute. It was hot—too hot for my English, medically induced menopausal internal thermostat. The mosquitoes were relentless kamikaze pilots, and my bag rumbled, threatening an explosion at any moment. It wasn’t the most relaxing river walk I’ve been on.
The hot, sticky bikers finally appeared and devoured their sandwiches before leaping from the branch of a tree hanging invitingly over a deep pool. Chester ran up and down the bank barking, desperately trying to herd his people as they jumped and splashed before finally giving up and launching in after them. I sat alone on the picnic bench feeling sorry for myself.
Soaking up the laughter and joy, grieving my old life, the old me, and all I’d lost and could still potentially lose, I let the grief in without a fight. I felt it arrive and then, to my surprise, it slowly began to move on like the flow of the river in front of me. I felt a little bit lighter. I looked up and decided I didn’t want to miss this moment. Leaving the remains of my grief and resentment at the table, I picked up my phone and started snapping shots of swimsuit-clad kids leaping for joy and one very happy, soggy dog in the midst of it all. Their shouts of delight were infectious, and although I couldn’t join them in the river, I could join the fun. It didn’t look like I had imagined or hoped, but it was still wonderful.
Did I deal with every last ounce of my grief and resentment that day, leaving it behind to be ravaged by mosquitos? No, but I certainly walked away lighter and fuller. I’d let some of it fall away and other parts of it heal a little, and as I did, leaning into the sucky stuff I never asked for, I discovered chief photographer and cheerleader aren’t such bad roles after all.
If we are to breathe again in the midst of our mess, however imperfectly, we mustn’t circumvent the healing process, no matter how much we’d like to. When we live with the pain of an unfair story, we grieve the lack of a happy ending. Yet if we rush to the end, our lives and our healing aren’t nearly as rich as God intends. By the Greenbrier River I learned we must grieve to grow, and grieving the loss of our could-have-beens always helps us breathe.
Show Up
When my world is all hunky-dory and sweetness and roses, I’m more than happy to embrace the journey. But when life’s fragile and uncertainty slaps me around the face, I’d rather not, thanks all the same.
Embracing the journey means getting up close and personal with our pain, and that’s the last thing we want to do when life’s already as fun as a root canal. When we’re tired and exhausted from fighting a battle we didn’t start, leaning into all those dark, threatening emotions and saying yes to unwelcome changes in our lives sounds like torture. As you know, I’d rather get a bikini wax than hang out in a room full of feelings. And despite normally loving change, I’m not quick to accept the tough, uninvited consequences of hard seasons.
Just as I should have embraced the riptide’s strength and direction, finding healing and life requires us to swim with the current of our emotions. As hard as it is, we must wade through the squelchy mud and wide river, or tiptoe gently and patiently through the long dark cave, because only then will we discover the beauty buried in the poop pile.
Susan David has dedicated her life’s work to the topic of emotional agility, the concept of being flexible with our thoughts and emotions. To help us respond well to situations, she encourages us to show up to them, investigating what they show us without needing to be driven by them. In my humble opinion, her TED talk should be compulsory viewing for anyone with a pulse.2 What if we do what she suggests: notice our thoughts and feelings, name them accurately without labeling them “good” or “bad,” and ask what they are telling us and what action will take us toward our values and purpose?
Is it possible to see grief as neutral—neither good nor bad in itself? Can we acknowledge that grief feels bad but isn’t inherently bad, merely a signpost to our next step on the journey? If we can, won’t that help us own and embrace the very emotions we are shying away from?
What if we show up to all our emotions? What if we own them, experiencing their depths and heights in all their Technicolor variety—refusing to label them as positive or negative—and instead use them to listen for God’s next step and healing voice? If we were having a cup of tea together now, I’d whisper Susan’s words into your fragile heart: “Courage is not an absence of fear; courage is fear walking.”3 And as we fear-walk through our journey we begin to breathe again.
Will you choose brave and trust God with me so we can fear-walk hand in hand with him? Will you embrace the journey, owning all its emotions, letting them be signposts to point out his abundance along the way?
Friend, as we fear-walk with God he says, “Do not fear for I am with you. I will never leave you or forsake you. I will be with you to the very end of the age.”4 And then, with the warm, safe, caramel-coated voice of Aslan, he calls, “Come further up, come further in.”5
Although emotions may not be good or bad in and of themselves, they can still make the here and now a tough place to live. I often find myself setting up camp in the past or booking tickets for the future because it feels safer or easier than facing the yucky stuff of today.
When life’s no picnic but we have warm, safe memories of our past and the future holds the promise of freedom from our current pain, it’s no wonder we’d rather not deal with today.
I’m no quantum physicist, but I do know the physics of time itself mandates our presence in every single moment of every single day. Ask me what time it is and the answer will always be the same: now. Yet despite the limitations of the laws of relativity, many of us avoid or numb our “nows,” not wanting to feel their broken places, but in doing so we cheat our todays of God’s fullness and healing.
Unfortunately, when I hear talk of “living in the present” and being “mindful in the moment,” my cheesy New Age kumbaya detector sounds the alarm. My hackles rise in anticipation of overly fluffy rhetoric that promises “you can heal your life by noticing the butterflies and the tingle of the earth beneath your toes.” However, it’s not all waffly nonsense.
I’ve never met someone more fully engaged in the present or alive to their now than Jesus. He wept, got angry and frustrated, and loved deeply. God’s very name, “I Am,” tells us he’s the God of right now and invites us to be with him this very moment. He didn’t call himself “I Might Be” (sometime in the future) or “I Used to Be” (a long time ago). His name is I Am (today, here, now, this very second).
Jesus forgives and heals our past and gives us hope for our future, but the empty tomb also means it’s not just pie in the sky when we die, but cake on our plate while we wait! He set us free to live fully in the present, to find his abundant life today. Now.
When our world crumbles it’s easy to forget how to giggle, or to wonder at life’s small precious moments, or to enjoy a luxurious bubble bath and a good book. It can feel inappropriate in our current circumstances, or we simply don’t have the energy. Yesterday’s pain, today’s stress, and tomorrow’s anxiety swamp us, leaving us unable to climb out of our thick oozy mud to giggle with the kids, breathe in the beauty of the sunset, or (God forbid) enjoy a large glass of Pinot Grigio.
I figured this out at the end of a chemo “off week” when I was relatively free from the side effects of treatment. Remarkably, I didn’t want to throw up or hide under my duvet feeling sorry for myself, so we bravely invited a couple of friends over for a drink on the porch. The fresh spring evening mingled with good conversation and a rare sip of wine.
But I couldn’t fully relax. The relief at finally feeling human again sparred with the guilt of enjoying the company of friends. Shouldn’t I be catching up on emails, doing the laundry, or more importantly, playing a board game with the kids? Was I being selfish?
The dog’s bark announced the arrival of my friend Noelle with dinner for our family. I panicked: If I’m well enough to enjoy a glass of wine and catch up with friends, surely I’m well enough to make dinner? She shouldn’t have to make it for us! She mustn’t see me relaxing on the porch when she’s slaved over a hot stove! I’m meant to be recovering from chemo, not sipping vino.
I needn’t have worried. Noelle is grace itself, and her delight that I was well enough to enjoy a relaxed evening with no dinner preparation gave me permission to sit back and breathe in the moment. It allowed me to leave the past behind and the future with God. Grateful to be alive, I realized something profound happens when we live in the present, and with the cool porch floor tingling under my toes, I tasted some of the abundance Jesus has for me just as a butterfly fluttered by.
Where we are right now is often both the last place we want to be and the very place we need to be to uncover his fullness in our lives. By giving ourselves permission to live in the present we grab hold of life in all its (pain)fullness and refuse to let go.
Travel with God
We may be surrounded by people who love us—safe people to share our deepest fears with—but at the end of the day suffering is a lonely place. You’re the only one who sleeps next to that empty pillow each night after losing your husband. You’re the only one who battles with your anxiety or wrestles with your looming fear of never conceiving.
Every time I read the book of Ruth, I’m gobsmacked by Ruth’s decision to stick with Naomi. Surely she’d already endured enough? Why on earth would she leave her homeland in the midst of her grief, parting from her extended family and the safety of all she knew, to head off with her mother-in-law to a place and people she didn’t know?
I love my mother-in-law, but if we were still living in England and Al’s father died, leaving her a widow, and then Al and his two brothers kicked the bucket as well, I’m not convinced I’d be so quick to follow if she decided to return to her homeland—a place I’d never been. No ma’am. I’d be with Orpah, Ruth’s sister-in-law, plonking a quick peck on Naomi’s cheek before staying put. She had Naomi’s blessing after all, and grief persuades us to cling to what we know, not embrace the unknown road ahead.
Ruth must have felt the waves of grief sweep her out to sea, the loneliness of widowhood crash in on her, and the fear of the famine sweeping the land take her breath every time she came up for air. But she didn’t fight. She leaned into the hunger pangs, the social pressure to stay with her people, and the ticking clock inside her belly telling her to seek another husband. She let them guide her like road signs from God. She turned and clung to Naomi and Naomi’s God, who she’d made her own. She swam parallel to the shore of her grief and let the tide take her to solid ground where she found life and a husband.
God met Ruth on her journey and he will meet us on ours too. It’s only with him that we can breathe his life and fullness as we journey on. Ruth couldn’t run from the loss of her husband, but she could have run from Naomi’s invitation to a new land. The trouble was, through her husband’s family and faith Ruth had discovered the one true God and the life he gives. Could she turn away now? She’d rather head into the unknown with God than back to the familiar without him.
I wanted to run from my cancer like Usain Bolt sprinting for Olympic gold, not embrace it or sit around long enough to learn what it was teaching me. I didn’t want to look for the beauty in the ashes; I just wanted to sweep the ashes away. I wanted my cancer to get cancer and die because I liked the beauty of my old life, thanks all the same. I wanted to stand and fight, be strong, then lie down and go to sleep.
People often say life’s a journey, but this girl never bought a ticket—someone must have drugged me, tied me in a mail sack, and thrown me on the cancer train. But I was on that train whether I liked it or not, and there was no emergency brake. I could go with it or fight it. I could go with God or fly solo. Either way the train had left the station.
God is here in the midst of our pitiful todays, and when we fight the journey we fight against him and reject his goodness. By traveling on with God, accepting what we cannot change, leaning into our emotions, reading them like signposts in a desert, we land in an oasis of freedom and hope rather than a dry, dusty wasteland of bitterness and resentment. And nothing thrives in the desert outside an oasis.
I am a Thriver.
I believe life doesn’t have to be pain-free to be full.
I reject the lies of the world about who and whose I am.
I embrace the truth that I am loved, seen, and enough, and that God loves me, isn’t mad, and will never leave.
I’ve got this because God’s got me, and together we can do more than I could ever do alone.
I choose brave, knowing it doesn’t need to be big, just intentional.
I trust God, even when I don’t want to and can’t sense his presence, because I’ve checked his credentials and can let go of everything I’ve been clinging to.
I lean into community because thriving is a team sport and no one wins alone.
I step into vulnerable spaces with God and others, aware that my strength can be my biggest weakness.
I embrace the good, the bad, and the ugly of my journey, knowing the only way out is through and there’s life and healing to be found along the way.