Bearing Burdens

This year, I face a new adventure. I was just diagnosed with primary mediastinal B-cell lymphoma, a very treatable large B-cell type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. We discovered the cancer after a persistent cough turned into pneumonia. It will likely be the only time in my life I was grateful to have contracted pneumonia. (Hopefully it also will be the only time I ever get pneumonia. It's not very fun.)

Lest telling you this makes you promptly freak out so much that you stop reading and pick up the phone to text me, you should also know this: I believe this is part of the plan my Heavenly Father has for me. I have had spiritual impressions and experiences that let me know I can trust Him to be by my side during this challenge. While it will not be easy, I have confidence it will all turn out well in the end. There will be lots of opportunities to learn new things - both nerdy science things that satisfy the biologist in me and beautiful spiritual things that help refine my character and teach me to be more like my Father - and there will be lots of opportunities to be served, which (let's be honest about it) is something my independent self will probably benefit from.

OK. Now you can text me. Then keep reading.

Of course, being told you have cancer is not an easy thing. As I've considered my experience and talked with friends, I have settled on the following imagery to try to describe it.

Picture this...

You and everyone you know (and a lot more people you don't) are all walking along the path of life. Sometimes we make choices that are the equivalent of picking up stones and putting them in our pockets, and we carry around the burdens/consequences of those choices for a while. Sometimes God hands us a stone and suggests we carry it for a while, so we put it in our pockets and keep moving forward. Sometimes a friend hands us one of his stones and asks us to carry it for him for a while, and we do. Sometimes we see a friend as we're walking along the path, and the stones appear to be spilling out of her pockets and her hands, so we volunteer to take a few of her stones for a while. In each of the last three cases, it's a little bit of extra weight, but we take it anyway, because we love the person who gave us the stones.

Then there are times when something big and hard comes along - the death of a loved one, a chronic illness, a really hard educational program, an unhealthy or failed relationship, a cancer diagnosis. It's not like the other stones. It's like being handed a 200 pound boulder. "This is your new best friend." What was the first thing I did? I stopped and put the boulder down. It was too heavy to carry, so down it went, right where I was, and then I sat down to figure out what to do next.

Here comes the beautiful part. People who love me saw me sitting on that 200 pound boulder, and some of them stopped walking and turned back and sat on it with me. Some let me talk as I processed what I was being asked to carry. Some just put an arm around me and sat. And then as each one got up to move on, they volunteered to take a little piece of my boulder with them in their pockets. "I'll pray for you," they said, or "Here's a bowl of soup." Each time that happened, I chipped off a piece and handed it to them, and they continued their respective journeys.

Now for the other beautiful part. Jesus said,

Come unto me, 

all ye that labor and are heavy laden, 

and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; 

for I am meek and lowly in heart: 

and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

For my yoke is easy, 

and my burden is light.

When I seek His help, He gets out the yoke and puts it on both of us. Then, together, we can drag that boulder along and keep walking. The weight isn't too heavy after all, because I have joined forces with an infinitely compassionate and powerful being. His grace gives me strength to pull that boulder along as I continue to move forward. And after a while, I start feeling strong enough that I can even put little pieces of other people's stones back into my pockets, helping them, praying for them, being a good friend.

As I think about what it means to help bear one another's burdens, and to mourn with those that mourn, this imagery is what keeps coming back to me. We keep the covenant we have made with God to always remember Him by remembering His children and helping them carry their stones along the path of life.

For me, having cancer is a beautiful opportunity to grow and share and become better than I was. One very important thing I have learned so far is that a little bit each by a lot of people makes a huge difference. From coast to coast, I have a network of loved ones praying for me. Those prayers give me strength - especially during particularly difficult minutes, like during my bone marrow biopsy, or when I wake up at two in the morning and can't go back to sleep, or on a tired day when I don't know if I can sit up long enough to make it through another doctor visit.

I say unto you, that by small and simple things 

are great things brought to pass...

Although it doesn't seem like much from one person's perspective, the combined faith of all my friends and family has resulted in the activation of grace in my life, and we have seen miracles. 

I believe in miracles.