What if?

What if I hadn’t gotten cancer? I would, anyway, have turned 70 a couple of weeks ago. But I might be lamenting the loss of youth, wasting the wonder of being fully alive today, and failing to grasp the gifts of grace God is offering for this very season of life. Ronald Rolheiser, in The Holy Longing, suggests that the death of youth is like Good Friday. “Resurrection, too, has happened,” he continues. “You have already received the life of a seventy-year-old, a new life, different from and richer than the life of a twenty-year-old. And now you have a choice: You can refuse to let go of your lost youth. If you do that . . . you will daily grow more fearful and unhappy about aging.” However, if we let our youth go, he says, then Pentecost will happen. “We will receive the spirit for the life that we are already in fact living, the life of a seventy-year-old.” Interesting thought.

I’ve been disappointed that after a year and a half of treatment, no remission has come. But I now think I’m just as well off anyway. I know two women with my kind of cancer who recently gained a remission and have already relapsed, and along the way they’ve been more miserable than I have been. Thanks to God’s kindness and your prayers, life with cancer is sweet. I’m grateful. To be sure, I would welcome healing, and that's what we pray for.

My "cancer buddy," whose lung cancer is in remission, got pneumonia this week. Please pray for him.

Today I'll upload the files (text and photos) of the next SIM magazine for the designer in Florida to start working on the layout. After correcting and re-correcting, etc., it's time to let it go.

I'm so thankful to continue to feel well. Thanks for your prayers.

Gratefully,
Carol