It is a bold thing to hope.featured

August 26. 9 AM. CT scan.

These words scrawled on a small appointment card elicit a thrill of excitement followed by a plunge of dread. These will be the first scans I have had since starting treatment.

My practiced ability to focus only on one day, one treatment at a time suddenly fails, and a million scenarios rush through my mind.

Have the tumors shrunk? Are the 1,000 things that need to line up for the minuscule chance of surgery to eliminate the cancer starting to happen? Or am I not responding to treatment? What then? Can I handle the crushing weight of month after month of chemo for all the remaining years of my life?

I take a deep breath and return to the approach I learned in therapy long ago. I name the best and worst case scenarios and recognize that the reality is most likely somewhere in the wide middle.

During the next week, the same process plays out again. And again. On repeat.

Over the past three months, I am slowly learning to sit with these times of sadness and worry and discomfort. To embrace them as an opportunity to release my frustration and anger and weariness.

To rest in the truth that these moments do not indicate a lack of hope or a lack of faith. They are instead opportunities to rest in the arms of Christ and under the mantel of Mary, who intimately understand my suffering because they have walked these paths themselves.

Hope is not a feeling. It does not wax and wane with my emotions. It is a choice to live in faith accepting the uncertainty of  what that will demand. To work tirelessly in love regardless of whether I’ll see the fruits of that work.

It was an act of hope to have a baby. And then another and another and another. To bring children into the world without knowing what their future will hold. To trust that even though we cannot protect them from every pain and danger and disappointment, the world needs their wildly unique and beautiful souls.

In parenting, some days hope looks like crawling into bed exhausted at the end of the day only to crawl out minutes later to care for an unmet need. Some days it’s scrubbing dried yogurt out of the nooks and crannies of the high chair at 10pm after the toddler finally drifts to sleep.

In everything, it is trusting that the long days and nights of often mundane sacrifice are planting seeds that will grow into a recognition of love poured into all the nooks and crannies of our family bonds. And that the life we craft as a family will give our children deep roots to develop their own courage and faith and fortitude.

In cancer, some days hope looks like celebrating the end of a treatment. The first day I can manage a cold drink again. The first time I can walk a mile to our favorite spot on campus. Some days, like today, it’s simply the choice not to run away. To sit in an infusion chair furiously drying my eyes as the anxiety rages. Some days it’s hanging on by a thread stubbornly refusing to fall into despair.

In both situations, I have found that it is rarely glamorous or newsworthy. It happens in the little in-between moments. In the seemingly small decisions. Each step a choice to continue. To be patient when progress seems stagnant. To accept that the fruits of these choices and actions may not look like I want or happen on my timeline. To keep going anyway.

Indeed, it is a bold thing to hope.