In the waiting.featured
I’m not a marathon runner. At best, I’m a dreadfully slow sprinter. At times I can summon a heroic burst of energy, but sustaining it over miles and hours seems like an insurmountable task.
This past month has often seemed insurmountable. Four chemo treatments scheduled and cancelled because of insurance and doctor’s office delays. Phone calls begging for expedited processing, reminding anyone who would listen of the urgent prognosis I’m facing.
And today, once all the hoops had finally been jumped through, a drive to the oncologist’s office with a desperate in-person plea to be put on the schedule tomorrow.
Another delay. Not enough nurses. Not enough time for medication to arrive.
Another week until my hard-won treatment that I am dreading with every ounce of my being. Another week of summoning courage from my depleted stores to show up and face the trauma of my last chemo treatment head on.
Another week of pleading with God to make all of this unnecessary.
I want to be healed. The thing is, I don’t want to be healed over a decade of excruciating treatments that slowly chip away at my cancer while leaving their traces irreversibly in my body. I desperately want all of this to have been for something dramatically world changing. I want to be Blessed Carlo Acutis’ second miracle, confirming his sainthood. I want Saint Padre Pio to lay his hands that carry the wounds of Christ on my tumors in a healing so miraculous it brings doubters to belief.
What I tend to forget – what is easy to ignore – is that lives of saintly heroism aren’t lived solely in the tidy snapshots of deeds written about long after their death. They are lived in the suffering, the sacrifice, the stretching and surrendering that come from faithful discipline in the small things. A faithfulness without which they would be wholly unprepared for the heroic tasks asked of them.
When I remind myself of this grace infused into the mundane moments of even the most earth shifting stories, I quickly realize that these agonizing days of waiting are far from wasted. They were filled with rocking babies through the end of a sickness. Nights relaxing with Jeff. Flashcards and history and reading and writing. Cool fall breezes. A deep heart to heart with a child who needed my undivided attention. A tearful dinner with a friend sitting in the shared heaviness of grief. An afternoon tea with best friends. A visit with a family member recovering from surgery. A day at the pumpkin patch. A book signing for a brilliant writer and friend. A birthday celebration.
As a dear soul recently said so poignantly, “Love is never a waste.”
While I continue to long for a dramatic shift in my story, I am not stuck in the waiting. The in between is not wasted. It’s where the real work of saint-making happens. Living faithfully in the little things. Doing the work of the present moment. Walking patiently and gently through suffering without minimizing its effects or distracting from its depth. Searching for the grace and joy in each day with inexhaustible devotion and confidence.
Clinging to the truth Tolkien expressed, “it is the small everyday deed of ordinary folks that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love.”
