I had jokingly told friends that I fried my brain while writing the first draft of my book last month, and as I searched under couch cushions and in all my jacket pockets for my keys, and then walked out of the house without my shoes, I thought, “Oh my gosh, it finally happened. My mental screws really did come loose.”

I finally made it out of the house — with keys and shoes — and drove to Starbucks to meet my friend Stephanie before we went to church. I parked my car and realized my stomach was growling. In all my frenzy, I’d forgotten to eat breakfast. I’m morally opposed to paying exorbitant pastry prices, so I looked around my car to see if I had anything edible.

I’d made lunch for a Sunday afternoon dinner party, so in the back seat of my car there was a pot of soup, a bowl of quinoa salad, and a huge bag of rolls I’d gotten on sale from the bakery — two dozen softball-sized rolls for $4.

“That’ll work,” I said, as I opened the bag and put some bread in my purse. As I sat talking to Stephanie over coffee, I reached into my bag and pulled out a roll. “Want one?” I asked.

She blinked. “Did you just pull a roll out of your purse?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “Do you want half?”

“But it’s not even wrapped or anything.”

“I know.”

“And it’s not even sexy, like a bagette or something; it’s a dinner roll.”

“Yeah, I know,” I said. “But it’s all I’ve got and I’m hungry.”

“Do you always carry dinner rolls around in your bag?” she asked.

“No, but I should,” I said. And then I pitched the idea like a Sham-Wow rep on the home shopping network.  ”Rolls are perfect for snacking. And you know how there are always homeless people on the street corners begging for food? These would make great hand-outs. They’re even shaped like baseballs, so they have good aerodynamics. You could just do a bread drive by — you wouldn’t even have to get out of the car!”

“Do you really think it’s a good idea to pelt homeless people with dinner rolls?” she said.

“Yeah, I think so,” I answered her. “That could be my thing, you know? My signature. I’ll be the crazy Roll Lady who throws bread out of moving vehicles.” And then I started giggling, because it was a funny mental image, and my sleep deficit made it seem downright hilarious.

I tried to stifle the giggles as I walked into church a few minutes later. I had a hard time concentrating on the sermon, so I ended up letting my mind wander until it settled on the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000. These poor people had been listening to Him talk for days and hadn’t eaten anything, and they were starving. Jesus told the disciples to feed the crowd, and they balked, because where are they going to get the money to cover takeout for a few thousand people? And Jesus said, “Just give me what you have.”

All they had was a lunch bag they wrestled from the hands of a kid, with two sardines and five little dinner rolls. And the disciples watched in wonder as Jesus multiplied the boy’s Jewish Lunchable into a meal for 5,000 people.

As I remembered the story, I thought of how anxious I’ve been about the book I’m writing. Of how my brain short circuits when it’s missing even a few hours of sleep. Of how overwhelming it is to try to solve the world’s problems of hunger and poverty when I can’t even feed all the homeless people here in Portland. Of how Jesus doesn’t isn’t asking me to be a superhero. He’s holding out His hands and saying, “Just give me everything you have.”

So I empty out my bag and surrender some spare change and a dinner roll. And as I hand it over, I apologize for being a space cadet who’s so easily distracted, I sometimes forget to eat breakfast.

And then I watch in wonder as He loves me anyway, and uses sardines and spare change and dinner rolls to change the world.

My heart sank as I thought of the damage this suggestion would do to the black community –  that a race that makes up less than 10% of Portland’s population would have committed 100% of the crimes.

On my way home, I was waiting on the platform for the train to come.  It was cloudy and cold, and a five minute wait turned into nearly half an hour.  As I was standing there, trying to stay warm, I noticed a black man beside me.  He, too, was blowing on his hands and stamping his feet, trying to ward off the cold.

I complimented his yellow shirt and purple tie.  He said, “Yellow’s my favorite color.  I wear it during the long Portland winters to remind me of the sun.”

“I’m glad you’re my brother,” I said as he boarded his train.

“Sister,” he smiled, “I feel the same.”

The next morning, I prayed for my brother.  While I was praying, I thought of Martin Luther King Jr, who said, “A lie cannot live.”  And I gave thanks to God, in whom truth cannot die.

Even in our disparity, He is uniting all colors and languages and nations in Himself.  He is tearing down the walls — and the billboards — our sinful hearts have raised.  And He is reminding us with glimmers of hope and splashes of yellow that our black-and-white world will soon see the splendor of Kingdom Come.

At the front of Notre Dame cathedral there’s a statue of a cross. 

 But unlike other crucifixes, Jesus is not hanging on this cross.  Instead, his lifeless body is lying in the arms of his mother Mary, who is kneeling at the foot of the cross weeping over her crucified son.

 It’s easy to remember Mary as the virgin who received the good news from the angel…

    witnessed the arrival of the Word made Flesh …

     who knelt by the Manger watching Emmanuel take His first breaths… 

 But Mary’s life was not always so enviable. 

 For the rest of her life, people who didn’t believe in the Immaculate Conception accused her of lying about her relationship with Joseph or, worse, of selling herself to Roman soldiers.

She listened to people call her Son a charlatan and a lunatic.  And finally, she watched as her Son was killed by the ones He’d come to rescue.

 Mary was the conduit through which God poured His love for the world. But that love cost her everything.  And, as she watched the world reject her Son, it broke her heart.

 When God appears in our lives, we anticipate the blessings of joy and hope His presence will bring.  But the Notre Dame statue of Mary reminds us that God’s work in our lives also brings conflict and struggle and pain.

Today – in our joy and in our sorrow – we worship the Messiah in the manger.

 We kneel in awe of the God who is Love.

And we remember that this Love cost Mary dearly, and it broke her heart.

                                But in the end – it saved the world.

   My birthday is in December, so it seems only fitting that I celebrate it like the miraculous oil of Hanukkah – I make the celebration last for at least a week.  Dinner parties, coffee dates, spa treatments, game nights, and marathon writing sessions combine for a great seven day blitz. 

Two nights ago I met my friend for dessert to continue my birthday bender.  He asked me how I felt about my age, and I told him that unlike most girls, I don’t care if people know how old I am (for the record, I’m 33.)  I don’t dread birthdays like I used to; instead, I celebrate them with deep gratitude, because every year I live past my cancer diagnosis feels like a major feat.

As we chatted over chocolate cake and peppermint tea, the conversation turned from living to dying, and he asked if I’d regret dying without ever being married.

I’ve never been asked that question before, but I didn’t have to think long about my answer. 

“Nope,” I said.

“Why not?” he asked.

I thought back to earlier this week, when my 84-year-old neighbor invited me over for cookies and tea, and showed me all the yellowed photographs and handmade quilts she’d amassed in the hope chest her husband made her when they were courting. 

We sat on her bedroom floor packing all of her treasures back into the chest, and she got teary at the memory of her deceased husband and her adult children who have all moved away.

“I’d like to adopt you,” she said.  “Could you use another grandma?”

“Absolutely,” I said, because my biological family members (whom I love dearly) all live thousands of miles away, and because you can’t ever have too many grandma’s.  

As she carefully arranged everything in the trunk,  she asked me to tell her about the book I just finished writing.

I described the plot of the book, which explains how my life intersected with a family of Somali refugees last year. I told her I was proud of what I’d written.  “When authors write about their lives, they often fudge the facts, but this is 100% true,” I said.  “There aren’t even any composite characters.”

She asked me what a composite character was.

“It’s when you take traits from different people and combine them into a single character in a book,” I explained.

She still looked confused, so I tried a different explanation.  “You know how you use different pieces of fabric to make a patchwork quilt?” I asked.   “Sometimes writers create patchwork people.”

“Oh, I see,” she said, and with her wrinkled fingers she gently smoothed the quilt she’d made for her husband when they were first married.

As I considered my friend’s question about why I wouldn’t regret dying single, I took another bite of chocolate cake, and washed it down with a sip of tea.  “I feel like my life partner is a composite character,” I said.  “Different traits from different people in my life combine to make me feel valued and challenged and known and loved, and that’s enough for me.”

As I drove home that night,  I thought about my elderly neighbor who has adopted me.  I thought about the guys in Portland who are like my brothers, and the close female friends who are as dear as sisters.  I remembered the Somali girls and my friend’s two kids (whom I’ve nicknamed Lewis & Clark) – and how I love them as if they were my own children.

And my heart welled up with thankfulness for birthdays and chocolate cake and peppermint tea and cancer anniversaries and biological as well as adopted families –  and for the grace God has shown me through the beloved patchwork people in my life.

*

When I told Karina the news I’d gotten from my ob/gyn, that my ovaries had shut down and he wanted to do a hysterectomy, she sat down on the couch next to me and gave me a hug. “Sarah, my heart is just breaking for you,” she said.

That night as I laid in my bed alone, staring at the ceiling, I asked God, “Is Your heart breaking, too?” Since my initial diagnosis the year before, I’d had dueling images of God in my head, and I couldn’t reconcile the two. There was the God that Paul wrote about as a commanding officer, “Endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ,” and then there was the God that Matthew described as a Father who wanted to give good gifts to his children.

When God seemed to be silent, I couldn’t tell if He was military officer who was pushing me until I either broke or became stronger, or if He was the loving Father who was aware of every tear I cried, whose heart was breaking for me.

But if He was that loving Father, and if He did know the pain I was in, why wouldn’t He do something? I’d posed that question to the hospital chaplain when I was in sepsis, and she left the room and never came back. A few days after the chaplain left, an oncology social worker from the hospital came to my room to see how I was doing. I was choking on tears before I could finish asking the question, “If God loves me, how can He let me hurt this much?”

“What do you think?” she asked.

“I have no idea,” I said. “I’ve decided that either God doesn’t exist, or He’s terribly angry with me, or there’s something I’m missing about His character that lets Him love His children but let them suffer at the same time.”

I asked her what she thought, and she launched into her own theory. “I think God is like a giant and we’re like ants,” she said. “I think He tramples some of us, but not because He’s mean, it’s just because we are unfortunate enough to be in His way. I think suffering is a random accident,” she said. Then, honest to God, she patted my hand and walked away, leaving me to wonder what comfort I was supposed to find in randomness.

About six months after I got to Portland, I was kneeling at the communion table at the front of the church asking God the same questions I’d been asking for months. “Who are You? Where are You? And how could You do this to someone You love?” As I was kneeling there in silence, I remembered a night years before, when I was working as a phlebotomist to earn money for grad school.

One night I got called to Pediatrics to draw blood from a 5-year-old girl who was being admitted with newly-diagnosed diabetes. The nurses called me so I could draw blood off of her I.V. instead of having to stick her with a needle a second time. I walked into the room to introduce myself to the patient and her parents, and I immediately recognized the patient’s mom, who was sitting in bed with her little girl. She was a physician on the hospital staff that I had often seen rounding on her patients while I was doing blood draws on the floors.

As the doctor stood against the wall watching, we strapped her daughter onto a papoose board, and started her I.V. When the needle went into her arm, the little girl shrieked. As I collected her blood into vials to take to the lab, she kept screaming. After a few minutes of crying without seeing any results, she lifted her head off the table and screamed, “MOMMY! I’M IN PAIN!”

I watched the doctor’s face, and noted the tears that welled up in her eyes as she watched her daughter continue to struggle against the restraints. But, to her credit, she kept her distance and let us finish the procedure. The moment we were done, the doctor undid the restraints, scooped her daughter up in her arms, and rocked her until she fell asleep. I thought about the paradox of that doctor. The mother in her loved her daughter more than anything, and wanted her child to be healthy and pain-free more than anyone else on the medical team. But the doctor in her knew that the very best thing for her child was an I.V. that could provide life-saving insulin and fluids.

And so, even though it caused her child pain, because the doctor knew it was ultimately in her child’s best interest, she allowed us to inflict pain that the little girl could not understand. But at the soonest possible moment, she was there to pick her daughter up and carry her away from the pain.

And then I thought about the paradox of God. How was it possible that He could seem so far away and yet promise, “I will never leave you or forsake you”? How could life hurt so much when He promised to give me “a future and a hope”? In the light of the woman who was simultaneously a mother and a physician, I began to see God as both my Father and the Great Physician. He was the infinitely loving, infinitely wise Father standing against the Procedure Room wall of life, watching me suffer as tears welled up in His eyes, waiting for the moment when the trial had finished its work in my life, ready to pick me up the second it was done, waiting to carry me home.

That was the last time I asked, Where is God when I’m hurting? Because that day I heard the answer. He’s right here. And He’s been here all along.

I took communion and then walked back to my seat. With hope and relief rising up in my chest, I lifted my hands to heaven as the worship band sang,

The love of God is greater far than tongue or tribe can ever tell

It goes beyond the highest star and reaches to the lowest hell

For two years I had been waiting to be found. And now I realized that all this time, in this lowest hell, through every heartbreak, and in each cry of pain, I had never been lost.

                                                                      *

Two months after I met the Somali family, the older girls came home from school and told me they’d started learning about the American holiday Thanksgiving at school, and asked me to tell them more about it. The first explanation I thought of – that every year Americans kill 45 million turkeys to celebrate that half of the Pilgrims who came to America didn’t die during the first winter– sounded ridiculous. So instead of trying to explain it further, I said, “How would you like to celebrate Thanksgiving with me this year?”

They were ecstatic. They had a poor concept of time, so every time I went over to their apartment in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, they’d race to get their coats and shoes, yelling, “We go to your house TODAY?” Every time I’d shake my head and say, “Nope, not today.”

On the morning of Thanksgiving, my housemate Betsy and I drove over to their apartment to pick them up – we needed two cars to transport the six of them.  When we knocked on the door, the girls all came running. Hadhi undid the locks and opened the door, and motioned for us to come inside. I held my arms out and called, “Who wants to go to my house today?” They screamed and clamored to get their shoes on. I brought a bag filled with hats and mittens, and once they had their shoes and coats on I handed out the items – partly because I thought they might like the thought of getting “dressed up” to come to my place, and partly because they didn’t own any winter gear.

We piled into the two cars, and drove to my townhouse. My other housemate Karrie had made the turkey, and when Betsy and the family and I got home, a bountiful buffet of turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, green beans and bread was waiting for us.

We made each person a plate, then sat together in a circle on a blanket in the living room. We gave a quick thanks for the food and for each of them, and then dug in. Some of the girls ate the new food without question, but Lelo was skeptical. She kept holding up each piece of food and asking, “I can eat this?”

I nodded at each morsel and said, “Yes, it’s okay to eat that.”

Then she’d hold up the next piece, “I can eat this?”

Chaki had finished antibiotics for an ear infection, and was back to her normal self. She ate well until she caught a glimpse of ice cream in the freezer when I reached in to get some ice cubes out. For the rest of the meal, whenever I encouraged her to eat, she looked at me hopefully and raised her eye brows. “Ice cream?” she asked over and over. “I eat your ice cream?” When everyone had finished eating, we cleared away the dishes. My friend Karina and her husband Dan came over with their two little boys, and we all had dessert together. The girls devoured “bumpkin pie” and vanilla ice cream, and then played together with their new American friends.

Some of them colored together at the dining room table, while some of them played with a wooden doll house and chairs that were donated by some families at my church. When it got dark, we decided to pack everyone up and drive them home. It was getting near the girls’ bedtime, and we still had a surprise for them.

I had spoken about the family to my church two weeks before Thanksgiving. When the congregation heard about the family, there was a huge outpouring of donations and support. I took all the donated money and bought everything the family needed for their sparse apartment – a futon, a reading chair, a rug, clean clothes, closet organizers, more blankets, pillows, bath towels, cleaning supplies, silverware, and food. To make the new household supplies more exciting, I decided to give everything to the family on Thanksgiving night, like a small-scale version of Extreme Home Makeover.

My housemates and Karina and I piled Hadhi and the girls, as well as all of the new supplies, in our cars. We drove the caravan from my house to the apartment, and began to unload everything. It was humbling to watch little girls shriek with excitement over silverware and bath towels. A few hours later, we’d helped Hadhi clean the kitchen and bathroom with the new cleaning supplies, set up house, bathed the girls, and put everyone in clean clothes. Four of the girls sat together on their new living room rug in their clean pajamas, wrapped up in their fleece blankets, watching The Incredibles.

I went into the bedroom to finish putting their clothes into the closet organizers we’d bought for them, and I found Sadaka sitting in the corner, holding a large, ratty Michael Jordan jersey against her cheek. “You can’t keep that shirt,” I said as I tried to gently take it from her. “It’s stained, and it’s way too big for you.”

She looked around the room, making sure that her mom and sisters were out of earshot. When she saw that we were alone in the room, she motioned for me to come sit next to her. Then she cupped her hand around my ear, leaned in close, and whispered, “Can I tell you a secret?”

“Of course,” I said.

“This shirt is my dad’s,” she said. “I kept it when he went away.”

Still holding the jersey, she climbed into my lap, and tears welled up in her big brown eyes.

“Do you miss your daddy?” I asked her. She nodded, and her tears spilled onto my shirt. I kissed the top of her head, and held her for a long time, until she’d finished crying.

When she was done, she wiped her eyes with her sleeve, then leaned close to my ear and whispered, “Can I tell you another secret?”

“Of course,” I said. “You can tell me anything.”

“I love you, Sahara.”

“I love you too, baby.” I hugged her closer. “I love you, too.”

As I drove home that night, I thought about the meaning of the original Thanksgiving, how its participants celebrated that natives were willing to help foreign settlers who’d come to a new country without the means of surviving its perils. I thought about the mixed emotions the Pilgrims must have had that day – the joy that half of their group had survived, and the sadness that half of their group had died.

On the familiar route from the apartment to my house, I thought about how I would explain Thanksgiving to someone if they asked me after tonight. I decided I would show them the joy of new hats and gloves, a ride in my car, plates of turkey and stuffing eaten by Somali refugee children on a blanket in my living room, and an apartment filled with new clothes and enough supplies to get an African family through a Pacific Northwest winter.

And I would show them the sadness of a little girl holding a tattered shirt against her cheek, weeping at the memory of the one who didn’t make it.

This, I would say. Thanksgiving is this.

Last week I was travelling in France.  I speak a little bit of French, and decided it might be fun to explore Paris on vacation.  I went to Notre Dame on my first day there.  Even though I’m not Catholic, the architecture of the cathedral and the solemn reverence of mass inspired me – so much so that at the end of mass, I decided to take Communion.

The problem is, I’ve never taken Catholic communion before.  My friend told me later that you’re supposed to go through Confirmation before you do this, but I didn’t know that at the time.  I grew up as a Baptist preacher’s kid, and at our church anyone who wanted to take Communion could – as long as they understood that if they weren’t saved or had unconfessed sin, God would strike them dead.

I watched other people in the line in front of me walk up to the priest, hold out cupped hands to receive the wafer, put it in their mouth and chew, and then walk back to their seat. I swear I did exactly the same thing everyone else did, except when I held out my hands, the priest barked something at me in French. He said it again, and I realized he was asking, “Do you want Communion or not?”

“Oui. Oui.  S’il vous plait,” I said, still unclear about what I was doing wrong.

He motioned that he wanted to put the wafer directly in my mouth instead of in my cupped hands.  So there I stood at the front of Notre Dame cathedral with my mouth gaping open in front of several hundred people, thinking, “I’ll bet they just do this to gullible Americans.” 

The following evening I visited the Eiffel Tower.  My friend and I stood in line for an hour to buy tickets, and then were directed to wait in a two hour line to take the elevator to the top.  But we had drunk a carafe of wine at dinner, and there was no way I could go three hours without using the bathroom.  I tapped the security guard on the shoulder and asked if I could use the bathroom and then get back in line.

He scowled at me, so I said in French, “I need to use the toilet.”

“Why?” he shouted.

“Because I have to pee,” I said.

“Why?” he shouted again.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” I said, resorting to English.  “Because I’m a girl.  Because my bladder’s the size of a pea.  Because I just drank some wine and a bottle of water.  Because I can’t hold it for three hours.”

As I rattled off the reasons why I needed the bathroom, I realized that everyone in line was listening to me, and some were even laughing at me.  Shoot, I thought as I stood there pointing to my bladder, resorting to charades to convince the burly guard to let me run to the restroom.  I look like an idiot again.

When I boarded the return flight, the seat next to me was empty and I breathed a sigh of relief that I’d have the benefit of extra leg room on the 8 hour flight.  And then, just as they were closing the doors, a large girl with horrible acne, greasy hair and three carry-on bags scurried onto the plane, bumping everyone on the head as she stumbled down the aisle with her bags.

As she plopped herself down in the seat next to me, I got a whiff of the worst body odor I’ve ever smelled.  During the flight, she chattered incessantly “because it makes time go by faster,” walked up to the First Class cabin several times to steal some water bottles and a piece of chocolate cake, and warned me that she was going to lay across my lap and take photographs out the window if she saw an asteroid go by.

Mother of Mercy, I thought as I closed my eyes and tried not to lose my mind. Why do these things always happen to me?

And then I thought about how boring life would be if these things didn’t happen.  The awkward moments at the front of Notre Dame, the bathroom charades at the Eiffel Tower, the asteroids and stolen chocolate cake on a transatlantic flight – these are what make the subtle but important difference between having a life and truly living it.

Last week I picked up 6-year-old Lewis and 4-year-old Clark so their mom could have a free afternoon.  First we went to my house and read Curious George stories, drank lemonade and played hide-and-seek.  And then I took them to lunch at Red Robin which, they informed me, is their favorite restaurant in the whole entire world.

When we walked in, the hostess offered the boys balloons.  Lewis declined, informing me that he was too old for balloons, but Clark could hardly contain himself when the hostess handed him a white balloon tethered by a long white string.

We sat down in a booth and ordered our lunch. When the food came, Clark struggled to hold onto his balloon and drink out of his cup at the same time.  I offered to tie the balloon around his wrist so he didn’t have to hold onto it, but he wouldn’t let me.  He kept trying to eat and hold it at the same time, but half-way through the meal he lost his grip, and the balloon floated up to the ceiling.

“Oh no!” Clark cried.  He jumped up onto the seat and stood on his tip-toes, trying to reach the string.  When he saw that it was out of his reach, he climbed up onto the table top and jumped for it.  “Come back!”  he yelled at the balloon.  “Come back!”

I pulled him down onto the seat next to me.  “It’s okay,” I said.  “Finish your lunch and I’ll get it for you before we leave.”

He climbed up onto the table and jumped for the balloon a few more times before he finally resigned to a balloon-less lunch.  He sat down next to me and hugged his knees to his chest.  “I feel small,” he told me.

I scooped his petit frame into my lap, kissed the top of his head and said, “You are small.  But I love you.”

He rested his head on my chest and sighed.

*

This past week was unusually difficult, even by my standards. 

I found out that someone I cared about very much had died unexpectedly.  I’ve continued to have conversations with my financial planner and attorney about Unum, trying to untangle how the payments got so messed up.  And I’ve been dealing with some other things that I might not be able to write about for a very long time.

In the middle of this, I went to church with a friend.  After the service, we walked down a hallway behind the main sanctuary that leads to a small prayer chapel – a simple space that’s been filled with leather couches, throw rugs, and lots of white candles. 

When we walked into the chapel, she caught her breath.  “God’s here,” she said.

I nodded.

“No, He’s really here,” she said.

I laughed.  “I know!” I said.

We sat down on cushions on the floor, and she said, “I feel like I’m supposed to pray for you.  What do you need?”

At first I said, “I can’t think of anything.  I’m fine.”

She raised her eyebrows, and I shrugged. We sat in silence for a while.  And then everything I’d been dealing with the past few weeks welled up and I rested my arms on my knees, put my head down, and cried.  “I’m so tired,” I said. As she prayed for me, I prayed my own simple prayer. 

God, I feel small.

*

A few days later, I had an oncology appointment.  I dread those visits more than anything.  It’s unnerving to sit in a quiet waiting room with balding, pale, bruised patients, listening to the clock on the wall tick away the seconds of our lives.  And then there’s the blood draw in the lab.  And then the wait in the cold exam room while I’m wondering what the lab tests are showing, praying the tumor markers are staying put, wondering what I’m going to do if they’re not.

My oncologist came in the room.  He’s a tall giant of a man, but he’s soft-spoken and gentle. “How are you?” he asked.

I nodded.  “I’m okay,” I said.

“You lost five pounds since your appointment six weeks ago,” he said.

“I’ve been under a lot of stress,” I said, making a mental note to remind myself to sleep and eat – two things I don’t do very well when I’m preoccupied or sick.

We talked about my labs, my treatment plan, the treatment side effects and my medication doses. Then he said, “Anything else?”

“One more thing,” I said.  “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and I wanted to ask you to stop checking my tumor markers.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Well, checking markers hasn’t been shown to impact survival,” I said.  “And I’m not up for another long fight.  If my cancer recurs, I just want to go Home.”

“Okay,” he said quietly, and drew a line through that blood test in my chart.

A few minutes later, I was in the chemo room, an IV in my hand, a clear bag of chemicals dripping into my arm.

I closed my eyes for a while and prayed that the medicine would work, that the side effects wouldn’t be as bad as they usually are, that God would give me all the grace and strength I need – because I need a lot right now.

My last treatment of the day was an injection into my abdomen with a 14-guage needle. As I layed on my back on the exam table, ready to get stabbed, I closed my eyes and told God again, I feel small.

*

This week one of the pastors at my church asked if I’d write something for Advent.  I thought about Mary getting the news from the angel that she was going to bring the Messiah into the world.

Most people say Mary was surprised because she was seeing an angel, because she was a virgin, because she wasn’t one of the religious leaders. 

But I think the biggest surprise was that God was speaking – because no one had heard from God in 400 years.  He’d spoken through the prophets for centuries, and then suddenly He went silent. 

I wonder what was going through the Israelites’ mind during that time.  What gave them the faith to keep celebrating the Jewish holidays and feasts, to keep praying, to keep offering sacrifices, to keep anticipating the Messiah when Yahweh seemed to have forgotten all about them?

But God hadn’t forgotten.  He had the perfect plan and the perfect timing, and when He came back into the picture, ending the dark ages of the intertestamental period, He told Mary, “Stop waiting; start expecting.”

Start having hope – not just for heaven, but for now. Start expecting redemption – not just on gold streets in eternity, but here on the dusty streets of Nazareth.  Start experiencing the Promise – not just as symbols and shadows, but as the real thing.

Last night I went back to the prayer chapel to pray and work on the Advent piece.  I’d been there for about half an hour when a church security guard rushed in with his badge and a Maglite © and said, “The building’s on lockdown.  Don’t leave until I tell you it’s clear.”

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“There are armed police with dogs surrounding the building.  They’re on a manhunt.”

“Okay,” I said.  “I guess I’ll pray for that, too.”

I texted a friend to tell him what was happening.

He texted me back, asking if I had my pepper spray handy.

I told him it was in the glove box of my car.  “But it’s okay,” I wrote to him.  “Because I’m surrounded by hundreds of candlesticks.” I eyed a 6-foot-tall silver candlestick with a sharp metal cross etched at the top.  I pictured myself running toward an intruder, holding the unwieldy candlestick above my head like a sacred harpoon of sorts.   I decided it would probably suffice.

I sat in the quiet chapel for another hour before the guard came back and told me it was safe to leave.  As I walked to my car, I started laughing. Because I can’t even go to a quiet space to pray without attracting some kind of drama.

Because even on my best days, I am not in control. 

Because on my worst days, I am also not in control.

Because even when God seems silent and far away, He is always near enough to hear me whisper, “I feel small.” 

And He’s always waiting to pull me onto his lap and remind me, “You are small.  But it’s okay – because I love you.”

UNUM, the company that paid my short term disability policy when I had to reduce my work hours a year ago, sent me a letter this week telling me they overpaid my claim and they want their money back.  I have two weeks to decide if I want to write them a check for thousands of dollars, or provide them with my bank account information so they can withdraw money over time.

How do you people sleep at night? I wondered as I read the letter, thinking about what a despicable thing it was to demand repayment a year after they made the mistake on the claim - especially when it was their own fault.

I took the letter to a knowledgeable man at my workplace and said, “Can they really do that?”

“Absolutely not,” he said at first. 

Then he read the letter again.  “At least, I don’t think so.”

Then, “Well, maybe…”

Oh boy.

*

That evening I was too anxious to eat, so I took a walk to the market to pick up a few things. When I checked out and started for home it wasn’t even 8 p.m., but it was completely dark, and a light drizzle had started to fall.  I was two blocks from my house when I heard a woman’s voice screaming from inside a parked Bronco.  I stopped walking so I could listen closer and see if she was calling for help.

As I was standing there under a street lamp, listening to her scream, the Bronco roared to life and pulled up to the sidewalk where I was standing.  The passenger door opened, and a girl about four inches taller and 75 pounds heavier than me jumped out and started pelting me with raw eggs.

“You f—ing b—ch!” she screamed as she pummeled me with eggs.  “You stupid f—ing b—ch!”  

A few seconds later, she got into the car, and it roared down the street.  But a MAX train was coming down the tracks that crossed the street.  The alarm bells started clanging, and a solid white arm dropped down, blocking the road.  So the Bronco was stuck there at the intersection just half a block away. 

When I realized what was happening, I grabbed my phone out of my bag and started running towards the vehicle so I could get the license plate and report it to the police.  The girl saw me coming, jumped out of the back seat again, and started running towards me. 

“You wanna piece of me, b—ch!?” she screamed.  “You wanna piece of me!?”

For a split second, I considered her question.  My stubborn self kind of did want a piece of this obnoxious girl.  But then I realized that the train only came every 15 minutes, leaving the platform abandoned for long stretches of time.  It would only take her sitting on my chest for 4 minutes to deplete my oxygen supply, and leave my lifeless body on the tracks.

No, I decided, slowly backing away, I don’t want a piece of you.

She got more raw eggs from somewhere, and suddenly she was running after me, chasing me down the sidewalk as shells were breaking at my feet.  And then the guardrail went up, the alarm bells stopped clanging, and she ran back to the car and hopped in as she and her posse roared away.

I called 911 to report the incident, and the dispatcher told me to stay where I was.  “The police are on their way,” she said.

I stood there in the rain for 35 minutes, waiting for an officer to come take the report.  About 20 minutes into it, I thought about giving up and walking home, but then I worried they’d think I’d prank called them.  My story was implausible to begin with – they’d never believe me if I disappeared before completing the report.

Finally two handsome 30-something-year-old cops who were 6’ tall with dark hair and broad shoulders climbed out of their squad car.  They were both sporting bullet-proof vests over their short-sleeved uniforms, and I wondered why they didn’t have jackets.  But they stood there in front of me -  forearm muscles bulging, thumbs hooked through their belt loops –  staring me down.

I started to tell them what happened, how I stopped to see if the girl was calling for help and ended up running for my life down the sidewalk while she chased after me with handfuls of eggs and strings of obscenities.  I wanted these officers to get the full experience, so at one point while I was giving report, I set down my shopping bag and purse so I could act it out. 

I took a few steps backwards, then took a running start and came at them waving my arms and yelling, “You wanna piece of me?  You wanna piece of me?”  I expected them to express shock and concern.  But instead, they laughed.  First in subtle, chest-shaking giggles, and then with bold guffaws, drops of night rain splashing off their perfectly-whitened teeth.

*

The following evening, I had dinner with a cute guy I just met.  

I followed all my first-date rules to a T.

Arrive on time – not eagerly early or lackadaisically late. 

Don’t order hard alcohol (which signals, “I’m a party girl”) or beer (“I’m just one of the guys.”)

Don’t order finger food (too messy) and never, under any circumstances, order pasta (because, let’s face it, there is no graceful way to eat it.)

First we ordered drinks.  He asked for a beer, and I asked for a glass of Chardonnay. The server asked for my I.D., and I fished my license out of my purse. She inspected it, then said, “Wow, when you walked in here I thought you were 15 or something!  But you were born in 1978!?  You’re way older than you look.”

After that auspicious beginning, we ordered our entrees.  He got a burger, no onions, and I got a salad, dressing on the side. 

“We can toss the dressing with the salad if you’d like,” the server said.

“No thanks,” I said.  “On the side is great.”

When our meals came, we were engrossed in conversation and I didn’t realize that my plate was half-way off the table. As I was talking, I picked up my knife and fork and pressed them into the pile of butter lettuce on my plate.  And then the plate flipped over onto my lap, and lettuce leaves, sunflower seeds, and a cup full of thick brown salad dressing spilled onto my white shirt and denim skirt.

I did not jump up or throw the food off of my lap to minimize the damage; instead, I sat there absorbing the impact of the worst disaster I’ve ever had in the past decade of dating.  Never, ever, have I spilled an entire plate of food on my lap.

My wide-eyed companion recovered quickly, gave me his napkin, and said, “I had a friend who spilled food on himself on all of his first dates, just to break the ice.”

“Yeah, let’s go with that,” I said, realizing as I excused myself to go to the restroom that this particular ice-breaker looked more like brown, sticky vomit. 

As I was walking down the hall towards the restroom, I ran into our server.  She grabbed my elbow, pulled me close to her, and whispered, “That’s why I said you should get the dressing tossed into your salad rather than on the side.”  She winked at me with satisfaction, released my arm, and walked away, leaving me to tend to my ruined outfit and my wounded pride.

*

Tonight on my way home from a long day in the clinic, I stopped at Walgreens to pick up the refills of the medications I take as part of my breast cancer treatments. I opened the paper bag to make sure I had the right medicines, and realized that the orange bottles were topped with pink, rather than the usual white, lids in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month.

You’ve gotta be freaking kidding me, I thought, annoyed at the illogical gesture – because if you’re taking breast cancer medicines, chances are you’re very well aware of the disease.  Walgreens, go raise other peoples’ awarenesses and leave mine alone, I sputtered.  Because most days I’ve got more cancer awareness than I know what to do with.

As I drove home, I thought about the five years that have passed since my original cancer diagnosis.  I thought about how the words, “You have breast cancer” that fell out of my surgeon’s mouth sounded like a death sentence at the time. 

I remembered how hard I fought to get through the treatments and the pneumonia and sepsis that followed.

I thought about the high points I’ve experienced since then – dancing with my brothers at their weddings, getting a call from an MSNBC.com reporter about my blog, feeling my patients relax when I tell them I’m going to take good care of them, hanging out with homeless people, feeling the sun on my face, watching the sun set across the Pacific Northwest sky, sitting in my pajamas with a cup of chamomile tea and my laptop, writing my heart out.

I also thought about the low points, especially this week.  Dealing with the disability disaster, getting laughed at while raindrops and egg yolks were dripping off of me,  and feeling like a ridiculously clumsy girl.

I thought about how I still put up with hot flashes, joint aches and sometimes debilitating fatigue, willing to do (almost) anything to prevent the cancer from coming back. 

Willing to suffer all of it for the chance to live this complicated, messy, embarrassing, scary, beautiful life.