During the past 7 months while I’ve been going through surgery, chemo, radiation and then pneumonia, I’ve prayed two very simple prayers: “Jesus, heal me,” and “Jesus, you have to redeem this.”   I prayed the former when I was sick or scared, and I prayed the latter when I was frustrated and everything seemed to be going wrong and all I could remember was that God had promised that ‘all things work together for good…’

When I prayed for God to redeem my life and my pain, I was thinking of an intangible and possibly eternal  reward for physical suffering.  But the other day, I had another thought.

This week I’m packing up my apartment in preparation for moving to Portland in January.   I’m limited to two suitcases, so everything in my apartment falls into one of two categories: it fits in my suitcase, or it gets tossed in the Goodwill pile. 

 But there are a few exceptions, a few items that don’t seem to fit into either category.  Since April of this year, when I was diagnosed with invasive breast cancer, I have kept every prescription bottle and every hospital bracelet I’ve gotten.  I took inventory yesterday: I have 52 prescription bottles and 39 hospital bracelets.

But I don’t know what to do with them. 

I keep wishing that God would create a cosmic redemption center, like the one at the local grocery store where you can turn in bottles and cans for 5 cents a piece .  I wish I could take these tokens of how much I’ve been through over the past 7 months and trade them in for some kind of tangible reward — maybe sunny days or free first class upgrades or good parking spaces at the mall.

I want some kind of compensation for the damages I’ve incurred.  I want something to show for all the nausea and muscle aches and bone pain and surgery and fatigue and scars.

Instead, all I have to show for all of this is…well, me.