For months, I’ve said I would love to go away by myself to have time to think and write and read and pray without anything distracting me. Some time for me, and time for God to wrestle with some “stuff” I don’t usually want to wrestle with. This weekend, due to a change in a friend’s travel plans, I got that time. Found myself with an Airbnb rental I couldn’t get a last-minute refund on and thought, why not use it for a personal get-away? So, here I’ve been the past two days in a cozy little rowhouse in a lively neighborhood of Pittsburgh, just a couple blocks from the Allegheny Cemetery.

Earlier this week, during a church gathering, I realized that I am struggling with doubt and questioning so much of what I believe about God. And in this season of living with cancer—and all that’s wrapped up in that reality—I am angry. Angry at God. REALLY angry.

I went for a long walk through the cemetery to enjoy this clear, breezy, spring day. I set out planning to chat with God as I walked. I tried to pray the “right” things. To invite God into my heart, to reveal thoughts and feelings that are destructive or counter to growth in this season of my life. To help me feel stronger in my faith. I even took out my earbuds so I could listen for God.

After walking awhile among the tombstones and monuments, I passed a stone bench near a large tree, right in the middle of things. I felt a strong voice in my head say, “Stop,” but I didn’t want to stop walking. I turned the corner and kept going. “STOP!” Fine… I turned around and sat on the bench. I started to pray but all that filled my brain were angry words. Not fair! What kind of God…? Why not heal my cancer? Why not cure cancer for everyone? How is it OK that I might die young and leave my family? I want to believe, but none of this makes any sense. Prayer doesn’t seem to fix it. Do miracles even happen anymore? Where are they? Where’s mine?!? If you’re able to create whole planets and new animal species and calm storms, how hard can it be to just remove the cancer cells from my body? People say there’s a purpose in suffering—but why does that have to be part of the story????

In my mind’s eye, I shook my fists and kicked my feet at God. I wanted to literally scream at the top of my lungs in anger and frustration and sadness—but being in the middle of a public cemetery with others around, I thought that would be a bad idea—so I screamed in my mind while I imagined beating my fists at anything and everything nearby. As I did, I heard the words, “There it is.” And I envisioned a child thrashing about while her father held her close, taking the hits of her small fist on his chest. I’m not going to say there was comfort in that image. Truth, perhaps. But not comfort. I still feel very far away from God. Or maybe, more honestly, I still want to keep my distance from God—to keep him at arm’s length or on the other side of my emotional fence line.

And I realized on that walk that I’m tired. My heart is profoundly tired from carrying feelings of grief, uncertainty, fear, and more grief related to my disease. My spirit is tired from grappling with these doubts about God and anger at him—and the guilt that comes from the doubt and the anger. I don’t know quite what to do with those feelings or how to get past them or how long it might take if I do. Or if I even want to put in the work right now to do so. So what does that make me? Lazy in my faith? Weak? Willfully disobedient? More guilt….

This morning in the quiet of this little house, I looked back through my past blog posts. Most have ended with a promise remembered, hope restored, questions I’ve found some answers to, or thoughtful questions to ponder further that may lead to greater understanding and growth.

I wasn’t going to write this post. And if I write it, do I publish it????? (if you’re reading it, I guess I decided yes). Because I have no answers. I don’t even have what I think are the right questions. I’m still as angry as I was a couple hours ago. Nothing is resolved. There’s no neat, little bow on this package. And how do I post something like this and then go to church Sunday and sing about God’s grace and hear a sermon about praying God’s will be done when at this moment I don’t really like what that will appears to be for me?

One could say that I have greater awareness of my state of heart, that I’ve opened up and been honest about how I feel, and that’s a good start. Maybe it is. I don’t know. I’m not willing to say I don’t believe at all—the fact that I felt God speaking to me in my mental temper tantrum is evidence that some part of my heart is still connecting with my Creator. There’s just so much that doesn’t seem to make sense—or that doesn’t seem to align with who I thought God was… or, more accurately, who I want him to be… or what I thought my life was supposed to be in Him. (Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief!)

Last week, I took a friend for chemo treatment. I felt some apprehension leading up to it. Caregiving is not one of my top gifts, and I expected to feel some sadness in witnessing my friend’s suffering at the effects of the drugs and in remembering when I took my late mother-in-law for her treatment.

So I asked some others to pray for me, and I too asked God to give me peace in this small act of service. As I picked up my friend, I really did feel at peace, and that sense of calm remained through her appointment and the return drive home.

The moment I walked off her porch, however, tears welled in my eyes. I fought them as I made my way to the car and shut the door. My inclination was to wipe the tears away (along with the feelings behind them), drive home, and go on with my day. But they were pretty insistent, so I gave in to the waterworks and had a good cry for a few minutes.

When I stopped, I chided myself for the lapse in my calm demeanor. My tears, runny nose, and red face served as accusers—God had answered our prayers and had given me peace, but had I allowed it to slip away. Once again, I thought, I’d taken my eyes off God and focused on the bad and the sad. Shame on me.

As I’ve thought more about my reaction that day, though, I’ve wondered more broadly about my understanding of what it means to be “at peace.” Is it really just feeling calm in a storm? Contentment in the midst of sad things? Feeling A-OK when something is most definitely not OK? Saying “it’s all good” when facing tough situations? I think that’s how I’ve always viewed peace: as an absence of—or perhaps, on some level, an ability to deny—any emotion that’s not a warm, fuzzy feeling.

But God gave us the full spectrum of emotions, so it seems strange that in granting us a “peace that surpasses all understanding,” God would disconnect us from some of those emotions as though they were invalid or unnatural. Perhaps, instead, his peace comes amid those feelings—not replacing or cancelling them out. And perhaps I’m focusing on the wrong word all together. Maybe instead of asking God for peace in a stressful circumstance, I should ask God to help me be aware of his presence in it, to help me authentically feel all the resulting emotions, and yet be assured that, in the words of Julian of Norwich, “All will be well, and all manner of things will be well.”

We’ve just celebrated Easter… but I’m left thinking about Maundy Thursday and the word God spoke to me during our church’s service that evening.

I really didn’t want to go to the service, with its focus on Christ’s final days, his death, and burial. Anything related to death makes me uneasy lately, and I often land in a place of sad contemplation about my own mortality, which I’d prefer to avoid, thank you.

I was ready to skip the service, but thanks to a rain-out of my son’s sporting event, I had no excuse. Out of duty I went, fully expecting to become emotional at some point and leave feeling burdened and depressed. When I arrived to find the only light was from candles that we’d extinguish one by one throughout a tenebrae service, my sense of dread intensified.

Instead, what I experienced was a release. During a time of reflection, I felt God illuminating within me an understanding that I’ve been focused for too long on death—my own, that is—and it was time to lay that down. I felt suddenly quite at peace, and somehow lighter.

When I got the diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer, I mentally and emotionally packed up what I thought I knew of my eventual demise into a tidy pack, and I’ve carried it along with me every day since, sometimes adding to its contents along the way. Some days that pack has been just a subtle weight pressing on my mind and emotions, some days it has been heavier than I can bear, and some days I’ve almost forgotten it was there. But it has been an ever-present accessory.

In our gathering, it was as though God was asking, “Will you let me carry that for you?” In that moment, I let him take it.

And by the end of the service, I was convicted that Jesus did not go to the cross and rise to new life so that I may waste time pondering my own end. He died and rose again and filled me with his spirit so that I may have abundant life—now and until the moment I draw my last earthly breath and even into eternity. And as for the last breath part, I don’t get to know when that will be or what it will look like, and any energy I spend contemplating that is energy I’m not spending living fully.

I’m sure I’ll wrestle the metaphorical pack away from God and insist on carrying it myself again. I’m stubborn that way. But maybe the realization of what I’m doing will come more swiftly each time I snatch it back and feel its weight. And maybe one day, through prayer and practice, I’ll fully surrender it.

Our church recently held a retreat to begin a season of exploring the concept of pilgrimage. Our speaker defined pilgrimage as an intentional journey with God to find God, together. After hours of prayer and discussion, we were given the task of making a mini-pilgrimage around the building and grounds. We were instructed first to pray—to get in touch with God’s loving presence with us—and then to walk around, looking for something that spoke to us of God in our surroundings, keeping our eyes and heart open to see or feel what God had to say to us. Once we found it, we were encouraged to talk to God about it and what he had for us in that object or space.

I wandered around the fellowship hall, noticing signs and scripture verses on the walls. I stood looking out the window, regarding nature—the bright sunshine, the snow on the ground, the bare trees.

And then I saw it—a painting of a rocky path with the verse from Proverbs 3:6 underneath: “In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will direct your path.” I’ve always liked that verse, so my eye stayed there a minute. And then I looked at the path. It was covered in stones and looked really hard to walk on. It also went uphill, leading to a destination around a bend that was not visible in the painting. Everything about that path spoke to my heart in this season of learning to live with cancer. It made sense that God would draw me to that image, as though saying he understood how I felt. That was comforting. I rested in that idea for a moment.

God being the good and loving Father he is, though, he had so much more for me in that painting. As I stared at it, I shifted my focus ever so slightly, and then I saw what God really had for me. Reflected in the frame’s glass was the stained glass cross in the sanctuary behind me, which by this time in the afternoon had the sun beaming through it. And where I was standing in relation to the painting and that cross put the cross directly on the path. THAT was God’s message to me. He is with me on this cancer journey—in fact, he is going before me on it, he knows each stone I’ll encounter, and he’s preparing the way.

The second day of the retreat, we were each given a little stone (seriously? a stone?) as a token to remember that we are all pilgrims, and God is with us.

Living with this disease is not anything I’d choose. But I can choose to make it a pilgrimage—to journey through it with God, seek to find God in it, and do it together with those I love around me. I don’t even have to look very hard to see God in this experience–he makes himself pretty obvious, if I’m at all attentive. A few days after the retreat, I received a card from a friend who frequently sends me notes of encouragement. On the front was a path that looked similar to that painting. Further affirmation of what God had spoken to me at the retreat.

Fall has always been a time of contemplation for me, and it tends to stir a mix of emotions each year related to change and loss and beauty and grace.

This fall, I’ve been feeling something decidedly different, as the cancer diagnosis of this summer has me pondering my own mortality. Being told that you have a disease for which there is no cure, and to which you will likely succumb in a foreseeable time frame, can skew your thinking quite substantially. These days, my brain flip-flops often between the extremes of “I have to do everything I’ve ever wanted to do and become the best person I can be and leave a positive impact on all humanity” and “What does it really matter? If I’m going to die, I might as well just live comfortably and coast to the finish line. How much can I really change in a potentially short time anyway?”

A couple days ago, I received a tremendous gift in this regard that has helped me land (at least for the moment) in a place of hopefulness for this season. On a mini-retreat with a church group at a local farm, we had the opportunity to spend an hour in solitude and silence, to spend some “quality time” with God. I found a large stone on the property next to a bright yellow tree and decided to just sit and stare at nature around me for awhile. I emptied my mind as best I could of myriad distractions and asked God to talk to me. Within a few minutes I heard a gentle voice telling me it was OK to let go of the tight hold I’ve kept on my emotions, that I needed to face them to move forward. I was suddenly overwhelmed by deep sadness and gripping fear.

Now, I have allowed myself to feel fear and sadness and anger over my cancer diagnosis before, but only in short little snippets. I’m a busy women with work to do, family to care for, life to live; I don’t have time to sit for a long spell with my emotions laid bare. But there on that stone, knowing I had nothing else to do, no one to interrupt me, nothing demanding my attention, no one to explain myself to, I curled up into a ball and wept. And I began to let God into that space that I’ve tried so hard to avoid, to keep hidden even from myself.

God and I had a long conversation through my tears. And then he used my surroundings in nature to teach me a few lessons about this time in my life.

I looked again at the golden tree next to me. Its yellow leaves danced in the breeze, intermittently catching the sunlight and becoming even more vibrant. And I realized those leaves were nearing their end. They’d lived through their life cycle–as buds, as bright new leaves in the spring, as hearty green leaves enduring the summer heat, and now as autumn’s golden leaves, some them already drying around the edges, waiting for their turn to return to the earth. And those leaves were beautiful. More beautiful, in fact (at least to my eye), than when they were green and lush. It is in the journey toward their death that their beauty is most notable. Lesson number 1: Transition, even death, can be a time of beauty and wonder.

I picked up a few leaves that lay near my feet and looked at them closely. One had a little tear on the edge. Another had some tiny parasites on it, causing the surface to pucker and feel bumpy. But each of those leaves had done its job for the tree, providing respiration and creating energy from the sun, despite its imperfections. Lesson number 2: We are all broken, but all still have a role to play. In my case, part of my brokenness is my disease. But I still have a purpose here. I can still serve my family, my community, and my world, and do whatever work God calls me to.

Then I watched several leaves flutter to the ground. How poignant to think that I was witnessing the moment of death for those leaves as they separated from the tree. What struck me was how quietly and gently they fell. Lesson number 3: Perhaps in the transition from life to death, there can be peace.

While sitting a little longer with these thoughts, I stared at the ground, and my eyes fell on a single blade of grass moving as the wind hit it. I remembered that it is God who made the wind that moved that tiny blade of grass. In fact, God made that blade of grass. Indeed, he formed the seed it grew from, made the soil it lived in, and provided the water and sun it needed to grow and survive. Lesson number 4: If God cares for even the grass, and is in control of its tiny, temporary life, how much more does He care for me. (OK, that revelation is not my own–that’s pretty straight from Scripture.)

I left that morning feeling drained… but in a good way. I had emptied some of the bucket of grief I’ve been carrying around–not only about my own situation, but about some significant losses we’ve experienced recently–and it was cleansing for my soul. I also left with a greater sense of peace than I’ve had in quite a while. My circumstances have not changed one bit. But I received assurance of God’s presence in them. And perhaps more importantly, I was reminded of how powerful and positive (even if a little scary) the practice of making space to bring myself fully open and vulnerable before God can be.