I’ve been trucking along nicely with life. I’m on a break from chemo, because a couple of weeks ago my blood counts were very low. My doctor told me to hold off on the chemo pills, but to still get the intravenous treatment so that is what I did. Man it’s felt good to feel good.

In fact, I feel better than I have in…years. And that’s with still getting the intravenous chemo! Goes to show how intense and how much chemotherapy takes a toll on your body. It’s like I had forgotten what good feels like. I can only image how much better I will feel when I am completely done, with everything. (Looking at you 2025🥳!)

I went on a run the other day. A two mile run. It felt great. I was able to breathe deeply (without a giant tumor in my chest), I was able to move my legs (without wobbling from chemo damage), and I was able to process (if for a moment) just what exactly has happened to me.

I’ve been in, let’s face it, survival mode for so long, it’s just now “hitting me” as to what has even happened. How my world was turned upside down.

Some days I am completely fine, and I don’t really think much about cancer at all. Other days my three year old will start pretending that her Barbie “doesn’t have a mommy” and I can only imagine what her little brain is trying to process through play. And then it hits me like a ton of bricks again.

Cancer.

A cancer that interrupted my world.

As young as I am, sometimes I feel as if I am the only one, the only “brave warrior” out there who has fought such a fight. I’m the only one who has faced cancer pain. I’m the only one in the world who is suffering. Me. Me. Me.

I recently attended a class at the YMCA for cancer survivors. It’s a free program to help us regain our strength and get back into living in the world. I wasn’t emotionally prepared for what I was going to face the first meeting.

It was (I imagine) like straight out of a scene from AA. We all had to go around the room and share “our story.” Yikes. My biggest fear is public speaking, and as much as I have gone through, and as strong as I have been—there’s no doubt my voice was shaky when it was my turn.

As people began to share their stories one by one, my heart got heavier and heavier. Tears rolled down not only my face, but almost everyone’s in that meeting. These people were vulnerable and brave. Some were still hurting physically and mentally. There were about 15 people there, and every single person spoke about how God had been with them and kept them during their journey.

Wait a minute. Wait just a minute now.

You mean to tell me I wasn’t the only person fighting cancer, giving God the glory, and looking to him as my strength?

I wasn’t the only person in the world who God had carried throughout a terrible diagnosis.

If I’m honest. I wasn’t sure how I felt about this. Had I been making everything about me? Was I making this whole cancer thing my platform? My identity?

I don’t know, it just got me thinking about BIG God is, and how so many people have testimony after testimony, not just me.

And then I got to thinking more–about how honest and raw everyone sharing was.

What if the church was able to be this vulnerable and honest with their struggles? Imagine what that would look like if we were all real, raw, honest.

What if we allowed each other to carry one another’s burdens as Paul so eloquently encourages us to do in his letter to the church in Galatia?

And why were these people in this cancer survivor program so ready and willing to share their stories? Why was I, a person who hates public speaking, able to stand up impromtu, share my story, the deepest most painful parts of my story, to a room full of strangers?

Is it because we all knew it was a safe space? Is it because we were encouraged to do so? I think maybe it’s because those who have walked the path of cancer, often feel alone–or at least I have. But in this moment, in this rectangular classroom at the YMCA, we had a space to let it all out, to people who would listen, and “get it.”

At the end of the day, unless you’ve faced cancer yourself–people just don’t understand the hell you have been through. There’s so much I want to say, so much I want to share, but I don’t really have many people to share it with–not people who would fully understand.

Shout out to my one friend, Codie–love you girl.

I had another friend I had met during this cancer journey, her name was Elizabeth. She lived in my same city and she was a young mom as well. Time to time we would message each other, and share in our woes of the pain that is cancer. And then she passed away, from cancer. Elizabeth, you were wonderful and such a blessing to me in this season of life. When I think of you, I lift up a prayer for your son. I know how much you loved him and didn’t want to leave him.

Anyway, back to the topic of church and vulnerability.

I don’t know what the answer is. How do you make people share their burdens and deepest feelings with one another? How can we make the church a safe place, a place where people will feel comfortable going to the altar for prayer instead of fearful for what people would think of them?

Maybe the first step is within ourselves. Maybe we have to stop judging or wondering why people choose to go to the altar the first place. Maybe it’s the individuals job to take a deep, hard, looking inside themselves to realize that, hey, they are human too. No one is perfect–this is why we needed Jesus after all.

My husband and I had an amazing premarital counselor. He taught us that we are all just messy humans living messy lives. Point being that, my husband wasn’t perfect, nor I. And to forgive endlessly, and grow and learn –together.

We’re all messy. We all have pain. Maybe it’s not cancer, but something else. A past trauma. A child with addiction. A constant fear of failure, or the need to make every body happy.

Maybe it’s the tiredness and heaviness of motherhood. A prodigal child. Maybe it’s debilitating anxiety or depression.

We’re only fooling ourselves if we aren’t willing to admit our weaknesses. We weren’t meant to do life alone.

I think this is exactly why God created Eve for Adam “in the beginning.” It’s why he has given us his Holy Spirit to comfort us and be with us at all times.

The devil loves for us to be isolated. He loves to lie to us and tell us that we are alone in our weakness, sin, fear, grief, whatever.

And then, even worse perhaps, he loves for us to stay in that place of isolation, instead of sharing with a friend or getting help.

And so, I don’t know, these are just my thoughts. And I guess I am trying to take the first step, and be vulnerable in sharing.

It’s okay to struggle. It’s okay to go to the altar for prayer. It’s okay to be weak. It’s okay to feel alone. It’s okay to go to counseling. It’s okay to “dump” on someone that you trust. It’s okay to scream, and cry, and ask people to pray for you. Chances are, you will show others that asking for help is okay–good even.

People want to help. Humans are compassionate.

You are not alone. I am not alone. And that, feels good.