.003 |  THREE SIMPLE WORDS TO SET YOU FREE

FEAR.

The villain strangled me as my first day of chemotherapy approached. My hands slipped on stair rails from palm sweat. Sleep either eluded me or was accompanied by terrifying dreams. Prayers disintegrated into a whirlpool of tears and mumbles.

God, I know you know what I mean.

I feared the sickness I knew would come. The moon-shaped face, the jaundiced complexion. The disappearing eyebrows. The way children would stare at me in the produce section. I stopped being scared of the original lumps from the ultrasound. Now I dreaded their offspring—those residing as mere cells, the brood burrowed in the reefs of my veins.

What I didn’t know frightened me as much as what I did. I heard scores of chemo stories, but what about the ones never recounted? The ones too gruesome to say aloud? What horrors might be lurking around the corner to ravage my body?

Leif and I prepared for everything imaginable, battening down the hatches and driving the anchors deep. We shopped for pesticide-free fruits and vegetables. We picked up bags of prescriptions. Knowing my immune system was about to be wrecked, I disinfected light switches, doorknobs, and faucet handles, then washed every sheet, blanket, and pillowcase.

The first morning of chemo, I flitted around the house wishing I could do more to prepare. The fridge was stocked. Folded pajamas sat on the foot of our bed. Even a pair of bright red boxing gloves—a gift from a friend—rested on the nightstand.

Nothing left to do.

I stood over the empty kitchen sink, deprived of the comfort of busyness. A wiry string of spinach dried to the corner of the stainless steel basin caught my eye. I scrubbed furiously. If I scour hard enough, maybe the vegetable remains and all my cancer will wash down the drain.

Leif’s hands pressed on my shoulders, muscles turned to slipknots. “We will get through this,” he whispered.

If anyone else dared speak such words I would have snapped back: Are we? Are you sure? You’ll stake my life on it, but would you stake yours?

Leif’s presence stilled the churning. He slipped his hand in mine, our fingers entwined, as if we were in junior high.

We packed our hospital bag for surgery. I needed a semipermanent device, known as a port, inserted into the left side of my chest. The tubes attached to the device would thread through the veins near my neck and carry the chemo straight into a large vein under my collarbone.

As we waited to enter the operating room, a nurse showed me what a port looked like. She held a half-inch thick triangular piece of plastic tubing. The diameter stretched a smidge wider than a half dollar.

My eyes bugged.

“Do you mean to tell me that in an era when we send rovers to Mars and we know what Ashton Kutcher had for breakfast, no one has invented a smaller device?” I asked.

“You should have seen the ones from twenty years ago,” she answered.

Gulp.

After an hour-long surgery, a medical assistant wheeled me into the infusion center, the plastic port protruding from underneath my skin.

Still lightheaded, I joked to the assistant, “The aliens got me. The aliens, I tell you, they’re tracking me.”

She erupted into a big laugh.

Four more hours passed as a stack of syringes and bags of liquid were emptied into my bloodstream.

Steroids pulsed through my veins on the drive home. I felt I could rip a phonebook in half or smash a cinder block with my bare fist during the ninety glorious minutes after treatment. Then … crash. A dizzy, woozy powerlessness replaced the initial energy boost. Nausea and exhaustion dulled my senses.

I clawed my way into bed.

To be fair, the principal round of chemo wasn’t as horrific as I imagined. It did not leave me with a gaping jaw staring out the window, too weary to wipe snot from my upper lip. My first treatment did not turn me into a shell of the person I once was or land me at the base of a toilet begging God to let me die.

That came later.

Instead, I felt like I’d contracted the flu. Not the ordinary strain a third grader collects from the water fountain but one of the nasty kinds you hear about on the news—like swine or avian. My body was hijacked by a hybrid of aches and pains, nausea, and exhaustion.

When I absentmindedly kissed Leif good night, his lips burned for hours afterward due to the stinging poison. I felt like the Human Torch.

I imagined chemo would knock me to the ground, then I’d pop back up like an inflatable punching bag. Rather than one concentrated, accelerated blow, the assault happened in slow motion. It took days for me to hit the floor and even longer for my strength to return. Rather than recovering, I felt pinned at a fifty-seven-degree angle. I was upward but not upright. My strength plundered. I ached to do all the things I did prior to chemo.

In the past, I wrestled with comparing myself with others—the temptation to look at another’s achievements, status, and possessions with lenses that delivered fast but false test results. Now I discovered that the only thing worse than comparing myself to someone else was comparing myself to my former self.

Trying to push through and kick against such constraints is human. Life constricted with my deteriorating health, and I raged against the confines. I created a deficit column in my mind and added all the ways my body betrayed me. The grand total robbed me of joy.

I suspect I am not the only one who feels defrauded when her capabilities slip away. Some limits sneak into our lives when we’re looking elsewhere. Perhaps you remember a time before sunspots dotted the back of your hands; crow’s feet didn’t circle your eyes; your lower back felt no pain. The long-lost days when you could stay up all night without needing time to recover or when you could take the stairs two, even three, at a time without becoming winded.

Most of what limits our life is far more abrasive than those slow, sneaky changes. The accident that leaves a body in crippling pain. The stock crash that crushes a portfolio. The layoff, downsizing, or whatever slick word the higher-ups select to say you don’t have a job anymore. The grown daughter who moves back home, grandbaby in tow. What you wouldn’t give for One. Night. Of. Sleep.

Sometimes we choose our confines, like the budget that prevents overspending or the diet that sheds unwanted pounds, but more often we awake wondering where the restrictions came from.

Much of my work, my relationships, my life was stripped away. The silly temporary body art I’d scribbled on the side of my breast had been replaced by indelible scars.

How do I find joy in this?

I bet the apostle Paul could empathize. This was a man who lived on the brink of death. Multiple beatings left him in chronic pain. Shipwrecked not once, not twice, but three times. He endured toil and hardship, cold and exposure. And he did it all with a “thorn in the flesh.” Perhaps a mysterious illness? Crushing migraines? An eye disease? Multiple sclerosis? Malaria? A herniated disc? We don’t know.

Paul feels the sting of prison’s limitations—the tasks he was able to do before confinement—and likely wonders if freedom will ever come. Yet even in shackles, Paul encourages the Philippians to lay hold of an inner exuberance that transcends circumstances.

His letter to the church at Philippi abounds with spine-tingling delight. Paul uses the word joy almost two dozen times. What is this man’s secret? What does he know that eludes me on my darkest days?

Tucked into the closing chapter of his dispatch on joy, Paul writes, “I rejoiced greatly in the Lord that at last you renewed your concern for me. Indeed, you were concerned, but you had no opportunity to show it. I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”

This deserves a nomination as the worst thank-you note ever. Paul could have expressed gratitude for the mission money and then darted on. Instead, he wants the Philippians to understand that he would fare well with or without their gift. Even when expressing thanks, Paul intends to teach this church (and us) a deeper lesson about a contented life.

If Paul cracked the cryptic code to being content, then why doesn’t he spell it out? What is this hidden truth he keeps classified? I had to reread the passage dozens of times to see through the camouflage right before my eyes.

Paul isn’t defined by the additions or subtractions in his life. Whether he feasts on fine foods or his belly grumbles makes no difference. The quality of his day doesn’t hinge on sleeping on a feather bed or on a grimy floor.

“I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.”

For Paul, accepting his circumstances is the secret to being content in them. Such relinquishment frees Paul to glue his attention to the opportunities before him rather than focus on that which has been stripped away.

The journey to joy begins with acceptance.

We tend to resist that which inhibits us. We pull away—physically, emotionally, spiritually—or simply deny the existence of hardship. Worse, we spin in the comparison trap of what our lives used to be. None of these leads to the contentment Paul describes. Such ongoing resistance handcuffs us to pain and unhealthy habits as we focus on the negative experience.

Acceptance acknowledges our helplessness and requires us to loosen our grip, slow our pace, and reorient our focus on God in the situation. Paul does not find contentment in bucking his circumstances but in surrendering control of them.

The journey to joy advances through adaptability.

Once Paul accepts his situation, then he adapts to it. He can rise above because circumstance no longer masters him.

Paul could have beat his head on prison bars or given up on helping the churches. Instead, Paul does something courageous—he adapts. No longer able to travel to the fledgling congregations in person, he sends letters.

Within the ancient world, the price of ink and papyrus as well as the difficulty of delivery made these written expressions a valuable gift. Such letters were considered a manifestation of the physical presence of the person writing. The messengers who delivered them gave updates to the recipients and helped communicate the sender’s sentiments. A personal appearance by the sender was most desired, as Paul expresses many times, but a letter was the next best option.

Paul never expected that the words he penned would skip like rocks for thousands of years. We owe the existence of the majority of the New Testament to this man’s ability to adapt. Through it, he changed the course of history.

We rarely choose what is subtracted from our lives, but we can choose how we respond. How we reorganize our lives in order to move forward.

The journey to joy leads us to greater dependence on Christ.

Paul concludes, “I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”

If we stop after accepting and adapting, we leave out the most crucial element. Our constrictions may worsen. Aging cannot be reversed, illnesses often compound, and financial constraints tend to tighten. But Paul’s words brim with hope.

When he pens “content” in his letter, Paul uses the Greek word autarkes, a term used by Stoic philosophers that means “self-sufficient.” Paul isn’t suggesting that he derives satisfaction from himself but, rather, from Christ. Whenever we turn to Jesus as our source of strength, we don’t lean on the wobbly crutch of self.

We were not designed to fly solo, to face limitations alone. In fact, we shouldn’t. Only through Christ can we find joy in the midst of them.

In weakness and limits, Paul discovers Christ as the source of his strength. Paul wants us to walk in the confidence that God is our Tower of strength when we feel toppled. Our Advocate when we feel abandoned. Our Comforter when we feel crushed. Our Grace Giver when the thorn in our flesh won’t budge.

The severity of our hardship increases our opportunity to depend on God. In those moments divine grace seeps through the ruins, softens our wills, and takes us to deeper places than we could venture on our own. Our weaknesses become ripe opportunities for his infinite power to be displayed. We radiate God’s glory.

Prison guards shackled Paul’s body, but not the spirit of Christ living in him. With feeble and calloused hands, he clutched joy.

And we can too.

With each treatment, I missed my former life more and struggled to embrace my new normal. I solicited the help of a wise, Christian counselor to understand how to begin the process.

“I can accept that I’m battling cancer,” I told him. “But I don’t accept the cancer if that means allowing any of those renegade cells to live in my body. I want it gone, gone, gone.”

“No one is asking you to accept the cancer in your body. No, we want you to fight, fight, fight,” the counselor corrected. “But to move forward you need to accept that your life has changed. It’s never going to look the same. Some of the things you once did may be impossible for a while or ever again. Through acceptance, you will uncover new opportunities.”

I returned home that afternoon to dirty clothes piled on our bedroom floor. Everything in me wanted them clean. I knew my to-do list needed trimming. I stared at the colorful clump.

“Accept,” I whispered. “Accept.”

In those choice syllables, I granted myself permission to leave the laundry undone. Gradually, one little choice after another, I began to give myself the time and space I needed to be sick and allow my body to heal.

I slipped into the pajamas I’d worn the night before and slinked into bed. Somehow I hadn’t just accepted; I’d also adapted. In my old life, I would have insisted on fresh, hot-out-of-the-dryer jammies after a long day. Now any pair would do.

Following this path of acceptance and adaptation, I realized that stepping into this new life was teaching me to depend on God. My mind quieted. The last thing I remember before falling asleep to the white noise of the air conditioner was feeling, well … happy.

When life begins to shrink, opportunities for joy are magnified.

It seems counterintuitive that less translates to more, but when you have fewer resources—less time, less energy, less of you—you are forced to reorder priorities. I had spent much of my life concerned with the nonessentials, the trivial.

When you can’t stand upright and have a narrow emotional bandwidth, most everyday activities need to be reassessed. And is replaced by or. My to-do list no longer consisted of catching up on e-mail and bathing the dog and calling someone back, but answering e-mails or washing the dog or returning a phone call. I could only pick one. Once I chose to accept this, I began assessing which was most important.

Some days the priority became eating a hot meal; other days, sleeping in clean pajamas mattered most. I didn’t always make the best choice, but I became more intentional.

Perhaps like me, you have a natural bent to kick against or resist limitations. On the day you discover the rickety bridge to your old life is destroyed, consider pulling out a scrap of paper. Create your own permission slip for joy. Write three words:

Accept. Adapt. Depend.

Carry this permission slip with you. Tell your friends you’re working on becoming more content, more joyful. Take a nap. Live with a messy house for a time. Order takeout. File an extension on your taxes. Stare out the window. Linger in the company of a friend. Breathe in the fullness of life. Use those words to fight back with joy.

Know that even within the limits, great joy is waiting to be unleashed.

This practice revealed how much, in my previous life, I exerted enormous amounts of energy over less important tasks: A clean house. Making sure dinner was timed well when guests arrived. Worrying about what so-and-so thought or how I was perceived. Concerns over leaving dog poop in the grass (sorry, neighbors!).

As life slowed, I practiced acceptance, adaptation, and dependence as if they were spiritual disciplines. Along the way, I noticed more pauses that I’ve dubbed “everyday commas” inserting themselves into my life. Each contained a hidden burst of joy. I played with my blueberries at breakfast before popping their sweetness in my mouth. Leif and I developed a rhythm of pausing throughout the day to sit, my temple resting against his shoulder. Even our poodle, Hershey, was getting more scratches and kisses atop his head. Though productivity and efficiency had shrunk, everything and everyone in life received more attention.

Stripped of my self-sufficiency, I found myself rediscovering God as Sustainer. My next breath depended on him. Upon receiving a gift—no matter how miniscule—I paused to recenter myself on gratitude. Though my stubbornness often resisted, joy crept in.

In weakness, I was becoming more alive.

I had much more to learn. To be honest, this worked some days, but not every day. Fighting back with joy requires a variety of strategies, a wide range of holy habits, and accept, adapt, depend were just a few of the first.

And I was learning that chemotherapy is erratic. If I had known the toll those toxins would take, I would never have traveled across the continent so soon.