A lesson learned.

I was reminded this week of a lesson I learned on a gym floor in Quesnel, 25+ years ago.

I was a cocky 18 year old, we were playing floor hockey after a youth event.  While I was out on the floor, I could hear Cal Townsend yelling, "Be tenacious Kim!" 

It was the night I learned what tenacious meant.  Thanks Cal.  You're the best.

When my line was off the floor I sat on the edge of the gym floor with a friend of mine.  I had known him since I was 13 and quite frankly considered him family.

Yes, for years, as a young teen girl I had a BIG crush on him...he played into my crush and would drive me in his car, in very quick circles in a parking lot yelling, "wanna go around with me??"

As the years rolled along, I realized that he would never see me as anything but a little sister.  And when I moved to Prince George, I was so thankful he took a job in Williams Lake.  I got to see him every couple months.

So, on the gym floor.  We got to talking about sin.  He told me how kids in Williams Lake were sinning right out in the open and how it broke his heart.  He said, "we have to get to the place where we hate sin."

We talked for a long time about how, unless we get to a place where we hate sin, we will still play around the edges of it, sticking our toe into it, and justify our allegiance to it and then how can we recognize it's ability to "catch us off guard".

Over the years, that discussion has stayed with me.

I'd love to say that I got to the point quickly of hating sin, but as most things, it is a process.  And I can say, I detest it.  I hate the slow slide, easy fade into it.

Sunday, I went to Walmart.  Dumb move, but in a moment of road rage (against me) I was followed by this BIG woman to my parking spot.  She jumped out of her car and said, "Bitch!"

I ignored her.

She then said, "I was talking to you, Bitch!"

I turned and looked at her and said, "You are mad at me because I didn't move through that green light fast enough for you?"

She said,Yes!"

Then, I said, and I regretted it, "Where you in a hurry to show off your pajama pants at Walmart?"

Her friend laughed.

And I knew, I was in a slow fade.  And sin was imminent.

Monday, I was feeling pretty low.  I have been really tired.  Slightly jealous of people who seem to be away on "yet another vacation" and lonely.

All my triggers for doing something stupid.

I actually thought at work on Monday about how I was feeling and that -- I needed some time with God.  I got home, laced on my runners, got Pippin on his leash, Ipod plugged into my ears and out the door I went.

It took me a very, very long time to shake off my slump and do what was right, instead of just listening to the music, to actually worship.

When I heard Audio Adrenaline sing, "there were times when things were dark and I've been known to miss the mark, but someone fixed my aim"

And I realized He was fixing my aim.  I was submitting to the fine tuning.

Back to the gym in Quesnel.  I even remember what we were wearing.  The Author of that lesson was God, but the teacher was a great man, I thought on Monday about how close he is to paradise, he will be very dearly missed.  Thank you for the years of being a big brother and a great support.

Favoured

I found this in my draft folder.  I thought I had completed this entry....

In have often told people that I am God's favourite.   They look at me like I am simple...but the truth is -- I often feel like I am highly favoured.

It's probably because I chose to see it that way.  I don't like to dwell on the negative...it's a continous life sucking force that once I enter, I have a hard time getting out of.

Today was a culumulation of plans of my new job.  People flying in from Vancouver and Calgary, all of the meeting details went past my desk, flights, hotels, taxi, food, all planned by me.

I feel like I am perfectly suited to this office.

One of the respondants said, I feel like a Rock Star and I prefer Green M&Ms.

I just happened to have a big bag of Green M&Ms that I bought in NYC in January.

I made an arrangement to leave the Green M&Ms at the cafeteria in Victoria General on my way to work prior to the meetings.

I get there and find the cafeteria closed.

Harupmph.

I went and stood by the Island Medical Program meeting rooms and my card won't scan and let me in.  As I stood there a man walked out.  I waited for him to pass when I put my foot in the way and held the door open.

I'm in.

I wander through and find room 1912.  Scan the card, BEEP!  Red light.  Agh.  I can't get in!  So I take an interdepartmental envelope and put it on the door so I can write a note to my Manager so she knows what's in the bag.  And the door falls open.

I'm in!

I put the bag of Green M&Ms in the interdepartmental envelope and put it on the conference table.

....and I was dying to be a fly on the wall during that meeting!

I always want to do my best at work, I know that I am marketing the Research Department--and doing my best to be the "hostess with the mostest" and the Green M&Ms--just a happy coincidence?  I don't think so.

Vicki

Some of the hardest parts of last week were due to Vicki.

I have had a number of times in life had an instantaneous friend.  It happened in Elementary School with a beautiful girl named Cindy.  Simply Cindy, kept me from coming loose at the seams when I was a girl and God gifted her to me again as an Adult.  He knew, exactly what I would need--and who could fulfill that role.

In New York in 2003--I met a Sister, a co-black woman who was my soul sister from the moment I met her.  I was a little shocked at the instant connection, but I loved Greer from the moment I met her.

And I met a woman named Vicki....my first night of dragon boating in Kelowna.  I think we were drawn to each other because of our nervousness.  We were paired on the boat because we were the same size.

By the time we got in the boat we were giggling and having a great time.  She was my instant sister.

She and I rowed together a number of times but she found that the exertion was too much--the battle to carve out time difficult and she stopped dragon boating.

We kept in contact through email for a while, but slowly lost contact.  She moved to the coast.  She told me the move was due to cancer treatment and that she and her husband thought it would be easier for his career and to take care of her.

I was sad and life took over.  Kent leaving NAT/Cobham, starting a business, raising teens, working with teens at EC, working full time.  It left very little precious time for anything else.  I did continue dragon boating, the one thing I did for myself in that time.

My mind would wander back to Vicki, I got to see Greer in 2008 and 2012.  I have had opportunity to see Cindy over the years in fact she was the first person I contacted after family about my cancer.  She said she would hop a flight to come care for me and my family.

When I have thought about these women, I have prayed.  Especially for Vicki, I knew she had a struggle ahead of her.

Her blog: http://myjourneyincancer.blogspot.ca/ is open for reading.  She is a true hero--she has fought a good fight.

It's taken me a good week to wrap my head around her post that the Drs have now given her 6 months.  The vivacious, mischievous, smiley, loving woman I met on a dragon boat....I just can't seem to come to grips with her fight being over.  She has been a source of inspiration to me:

"It is VERY VERY difficult to come to this conclusion and half the time I do not handle this well.  I cry like a baby more times that I can count.  Why has this happened to me, why is this happening to my family.  It is just not fair.  Everyday I put my faith in God knowing that he has a plan.  I trust in that.  I do not understand it and often I question it with tears and anger.  This is necessary I believe, to empty my heart of the fear, the anger and the questions to let God in.  To feel his presence of love and to have the faith that I do not have to understand.....and often I will not.......but to believe that there is a plan greater than me gives me comfort to carry on another day.........."

I know this full well, that God has a plan and a purpose to every circumstance He deems that we will be able to handle.

Vicki, dear one:  You have raised amazing daughters, been a loving and caring wife.  A gracious friend.  What I could say if I could, thank you for your friendship--without reservation you loved me from the moment we were put together on row #6.  Thank you for introducing me to Val that night, thank you for the giggles on the boat.  You were my inspiration in my own battle with Cancer, I felt if you could do it--I could too...Including the blogging.  Thank you Sister from the bottom of my heart, you are simply the best.
I

Huh?

It's amazing to me that other people can see such a clear vision of me that I don't see of myself.

My guest blogger is my biggest fan and I knew he had a perspective on my last year that I couldn't express on here--but I felt you, who have faithfully read this blog, deserved to hear.

Last year had its triumphs and depressing lows, but all-in-all, the big picture was grand, the microscopic view was devastating.

I chose the grand view, to volley from triumph to triumph....and I know that this is not my nature, but rather the nature of God manifested in me.

I am so thankful that I have learned to lean on Jesus.

This week, I was in my new job, as the "Administrative Assistant to the Director of Research".  Sounds impressive, and it is, but I actually have found that realistically I am the admin for 23 people.  It's true, I've counted.

It's an interesting place, where the higher the education the shorter the pants and I am not kidding.  They also have this amazingly anti-God attitude, and anti-organized religion.

I have not said a lot, I have been the social organizer, the coffee/tea maker, but I have stayed back and observed what the office politics are like.  I have to say, there really isn't any....

This week, I was sitting at my desk, plugging away at work--my desk sharing a wall with the staff room and the staff room door was open.

I realized as I was listening to conversation that I was glued to my seat.  I was afraid to go into the staff room.  My heart heavy with what I was listening to.  They were openly bashing Christians, Christianity and poking fun at church.

I thought, if I walked in and made comments like that about:  homosexuals, environmentalists or the SPCA in front of this group they would probably draw and quarter me.

My chest was heavy--and I knew I was just not brave enough to eat my lunch and listen to them talk, so I ate at my desk and I talked to God.

One of the things that I just don't think I will ever understand is why, why, why did He think leaving His message up to us was a good idea.

We fail so often and listening to the hurt of the people in the next room, made me ache.  As tears started to form--I walked to the bathroom--I needed an escape.

I don't know what the answer is for the situation I now find myself in, but I do know that I have been placed here.  There is no way I could have had this job and functioned over the last year, the Switchboard was perfect for that.....but now, Sunday night I am pulling on my big girl pants, getting my salad together for the St. Patrick's Day Potluck that I have coordinated for tomorrow -- and I am going to show those people the love of Jesus, to show them that not all Christians can be lumped into a single category.

To be real, to be loving, to be authentic.

And to be brave enough to eat lunch with them no matter what the topic of conversation.

Guest 5: Don’t Wear Out the Welcome

Hi, Kent here again.  

Like all guests, I must eventually depart, or Kim will be forced to do the kinds of things that a homeowner does when an invited person overstays his welcome.  Perhaps this would include: cooking without salt or spice, turning down the thermostat to uncomfortable levels, encouraging the dog to bark, or putting rocks betweent the bedspring and the mattress.  Not that we would ever do that to anyone who ever stayed at our house.  Just saying.  But I’ve got to go soon.

Perhaps the best way to close is to repeat some words from the true blog author.  These are a few paragraphs selected from among many, but they reveal her heart.  The first set are from a day or two after Kimberly had given everything she had in her to give to make my birthday last July a wonderfully memorable occasion:

So, the Pet Scan is positive.  I was incredibly disappointed.  That means more treatment.  I was really hoping that this would be the end of it all. 

I will do my next round of chemo starting tomorrow, then I meet with the Radiation Oncologist July10th and at some time in the next 5 weeks they will start with a 5 day/week radiation schedule.  I am not sure for how long this schedule will be for--that is to be determined by the Radiation Oncologist. 

My heart is hurting.  My chest is hurting. 

I can see that this schedule is amazing--the radiation will start AFTER Melissa's wedding--according to the Medical Oncologist. 

There is always a silver lining -- sometimes it's harder to see than other times, but I have to say I am so incredibly disappointed. 

I am thrilled that they are working toward a cure.  Not just to prolong my life.  I am submitting to their knowledge that there is some more things to learn, more dependence to gain.  Yes, I said dependence.  I have spent a lifetime trying to be independent.  To be a strong, courageous woman of faith.  This whole sickness has taught me that it's ok to lean on my family for support, to be weak and to be cared for by them. 

It really has been a significant time of growth for me.  I am thankful for that, but I am so, so ready for this to be over.  

To me, those are incredible statements of humility, faith, and strength.  Statements for me to ponder and learn from.  Those words were said when even the near future was still very much a question mark for my wife.  These next are recent, looking back on a tumultuous and triumphant year.  They also are precious to me, as they show what kind of determined, authentically faithful heart is at the center of that girl, and I will leave them to speak to you and me:

During the sermon, Pastor Al said, what if you did something outrageous with your 2013.  My first response was, God, how about a "normal" 2013, a work-for-a-living-ho-hum-ordinary life?  That could be really OUTRAGEOUS! 

But as I listened to the sermon, I started talking to God, that if 2012 was outrageous, ridiculous, stretching, breaking, restoring, fulfilling year, then make my 2013 absolutely outrageous... 

My resolution though was set.  I said over and over again, wreck me Lord, call me to your higher purpose, I will go where ever do whatever. 

My life is yours.  Do what you will.

Guest 4: The Joy of Distractions

Kent here again.  Having the whole family here, together, during the majority of Kimberly's chemotherapy treatment was an unexpected but welcome boost to us both.  Melissa finished up the year's university classes at UBCO in Kelowna, and moved back in with us for 3 wonderful months while she worked at Murchie's Tea House and socked away money for the next year.  Melissa is a honey bee, and she was always buzzing around industriously, either creating something artistic or doing something to encourage another person.  Also, we had expected Max would hit the ground running to some other place following his high-school graduation, but he also decide to stay home and together, in part, I think to support his Mom.  It meant so much.  To be sure, those months would have been rather quiet and uneventful without  Max's soundtrack of double-pedal drumming and screaming guitar licks resonating from the basement.  Ahh, nothing like recovering in a bubble-bath with candles, a good book, and...heavy metal!  Incidentally, I'm a shower, not bubble bath kind of guy - that was Kim I was referring to.

And we had another reason for joy in those months - a focal point and a goal to take our minds off sleepless nights and agonizing days.  Jonathan, our now-son-in-law, sneaked into town at the end of April to surprise Melissa, present her with roses, take her on a horse-drawn carriage ride, and propose marriage to her near the ocean.  It was a great night of celebration, and a good launching point for their short engagement period.  As it happened, and not likely by chance, Jonathan had some work in town, and so he borrowed a bedroom  and refrigerator from us and stayed for much of the next 3 months while he and Melissa and Kim planned their wedding.  It was perfect, as we grew to appreciate his excellent qualities more over that time.  Kudos to his parents.  True to the kind of life priorities they agreed on since they first began dating, Melissa and Jonathan embraced simplicity in daily life, in their plans for their big day, and in their preparation for a future together.  No fancy dresses, no extravagant ceremonies, no expensive wants, just simple and earthy and comfortable...everything.  Even the table decorations were courtesy Value Village and beachcombing the local waterfronts.  After their season of preparing and spending a good courtship of talking, walking, biking, kayaking, singing together, and praying together, we all got to enjoy the day when family and friends came into town and we witnessed the joining of two lives, forever as one.   We couldn't be happier to welcome Jonathan into our family, and we have seen firsthand how warmly Melissa was embraced by Jonathan's extended family.

Just a few days before their August wedding, Kim was at the point of best recovery from her final round of chemotherapy, but then had to begin daily radiation treatment.  It was arranged just that way, so the negative side effects of radiation treatment would not be in full swing on the wedding day.  It was a good 'tweener day or two, and we are thankful for doctors who cared enough to take it into the plans.  While struggling with energy levels and the Victoria heat (somewhat of an oxymoron), and sometimes unsteady as she held my arm, Kim really was buoyed by the excitement of the day, the culmination of the planning, and the honour of being Mother-of-the-Bride.  It was a wonderful day, one we both will remember forever in our hearts.  And the hinges on the refrigerator are still breathing a sigh of relief.

Guest 3: Living Creeds

Kent again.  Following her return from NYC and her surgery on March 22nd, her next months were a blur of almost daily tests, treatments, and trials.  As I touched on before, perhaps the most difficult part of the process involved the cocktails of treatment drugs and the drugs used to counteract the negative side-effects of the first drugs  Fighting the fog was a daily battle for her, and I admired her determination to stay sharp.  Some days, though, it was a losing battle, which provided many humorous moments caused by inappropriately mixed-up speech - funny to her later, but frustrating and embarrassing at the time.  Kim called it 'lack of filter'.  She was good at finding funniness in her foibles, and she kept us in stitches as we would sit around and relive the offending moments.

Some of our family creeds come to mind after my last thought, most of them grounded in scriptural truths.  Kim's journey has proved they are not just talk, but are profitable for life. 

'Attitude is everything' - it's not what you do in life that matters, it's the motivation in your heart and the attitude you carry that count.  She nailed this down, always doing her best to be encouraging to others, cheerful, and not to complain. 

'The end does not justify the means' - it's not whether you finished, but how you played the game.  The little details along the way do count; the attitudes and the motives are important.  Integrity matters...except in Settlers of Catan or Scrabble, naturally.  By all means, pass cards under the table with your toes, or make up nonsense words to push for the win.  Crush the 8-year-old!  Right, Kim?   Ahem, despite her philosophy about family games, she fought the good fight, and finished with respect.

'It builds character.'  Our kids groan at this one.  We emphasized this for a whole year once, and they heard it too often.  Romans 5:3-5 all the way.  Kimberly took this to heart right from the start and daily lived it out.  She is an example of what I hope someday to become.  She was constantly looking for the silver lining, for the personal lesson, the opportunity for growth, and the way to be an encouragement to someone else, within each negative challenge.  And she found it because she searched for it.  It is easy for me to say that she is not the same as she was, but better now.  As Starfield aptly penned, there is Beauty in the Broken: ' So everything is beautiful. / Even when the tears are falling / I don't need a miracle to believe.'

Guest 2: NY and Thoughts

Kent here again.  As far as impacting blog entries go, Kimberly’s New York chronicles in March 2012 also hit me hard because of a dichotomy: the postings are mostly light-hearted and really focused on the work and antics that the team was doing there from their Queens Borough base; however, our text messages back and forth really painted a different picture, a dark one.  I wish I still had some of the texts, but on second thought, I'm glad they're gone, erased from memory.  As an aside, and a little humorous now that the bills are square, there was a miscommunication between our cellular carrier and ourselves before that trip, such that when the next month's bill arrived, it was...nearly $700!  After some fight, they agreed to knock it down by several hundred, but it was still a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, knowing how preciously essential that back-and-forth had been for us.  That's another reason we are glad those texts are gone.  Only Bell Mobility knows the suffering they have caused.

Kim really is in her element in the Big Apple.  She loves everything about it, down to the last little rat-infested, windblown-garbage-strewn piece of chaotic asphalt and all the labyrinthine underbelly known as the subway.  Yes, it is amazing to me that the whole metropolis hasn't just come to a screeching, grinding, rusted-out halt one day, but instead somehow keeps lurching along, courtesy of patches and fixes half-heartedly applied at the last possible moment by city work crews.   It truly is a living organism - it has soul, and when you look beneath the bravado and the crusty exterior, you find the heart of the people.  Inexplicably, in a short time it grew on me almost as much as it grew on her.  Victoria is great, but I believe we would be living in the city that never sleeps if the opportunity arose and the choice were solely in Kimberly’s hands.  I think it is because of the amazing characters she has met and events that she has been a part in on multiple visits to the city, while sharing it with and seeing all the wonderment again and again through the eyes of a new batch of students and leaders from Emmanuel Church in Westbank. 

But in the 10+ days of this trip, the fears began to snake their way through her optimism and faith as she was no longer sleeping and her body was badly misbehaving.  From our home in Victoria, the picture wasn't looking promising, and I began to allow myself to think I was seeing the beginning of her end, and I wept.  And I heard songs that made me weep.  And I thought of her children without her, and I wept.  Thinking back to those weeks is still very painful for me; I was terrified, and I can't imagine what it was like for my outwardly tough but inwardly soft Kimberly.

Guest 1: Be My Guest

Hello, this is Kent.  For those who are unaware, I am married to the most amazing and very much alive Kimberly.  I've been invited to be a guest poster on this blog, and I am honoured to do it.  The invitation has been open for months, but I have been hesitant to pick up the pen (or keyboard) and write until there was some way to say something that is worthy of the quality that is seen in the rest of the posts.  Still not sure that that is the case, but here it is:

Kim has never counted writing among her strengths.  Nor has math been something she ever has opened her eyes to in the morning hoping to see, but thankfully blogs are usually about words, and we‘ll set aside the numbers as much as possible in the following paragraphs.  In fact, these things have taunted her and worried her and caused her to sweat.  Sorry: men sweat; women perspire.  So when she told me she going to journal her journey through her cancer fight, I was all at once nervous for her, excited and interested to read her thoughts, and broken because of the circumstances behind the text.  I’m happy to say, and somewhat jealously so, that Kimberly is now an accomplished writer, and words flow much more freely from her head to her keyboard than they do from mine to ...mine.  There is no need for her to be afraid of words any more.  Now, to tackle numbers!  En Garde!

Every blog post was absorbed deep under my skin, and I know for a fact that many other people were intensely impacted because Kim's blog content has been real, transparent, tragic and triumphant, and relevant.  In many ways, she was writing under duress.  The phrase 'the fog of war' is well known in military circles.  It describes the loss of situational awareness and certainty, that leads to confusion and wasted responses on the battlefield.  She was compelled to continue her story, yet I can attest that many days she struggled and fought through pain, nausea, panic, and the mind-altering effects of medication, to complete her posts.  Not everything was clear.  There was no guarantee where or when or how the battle would end; a thick mist shrouded the path forward.  Partly for that reason, she did manage to offend several people over the months, but I stand behind her, knowing that each entry in her blog was a snapshot of her moment in battle, and it was her story to tell.

A most poignant post for me was her very first, "And so it begins..."  An aptly-chosen moniker: simple, but ringing with ominous dark implications.  And yet, from the 1st, the theme that Kim set was openness and faith in the face of uncertainty.  She couldn't have known at that time how closely God would walk with her at every step, nor how terrifying it would become at times, in spite of that fact, but she found the faith to believe even at the start.  Astounding to me. 

Kenya-bound

No, not me.

One of our most precious youth is headed to Kenya this summer with a program called "Me to We".

She has been on several humanitarian trips with us, Kent and I can tell you that she is an amazing woman who is going to do some fantasmigorical things.

It's time to get behind her.  She needs to raise about $5000.00 to get to go on this trip.  For more information and to help with a donation please click this link:

- See more at: http://www.gofundme.com/1zjfi8#sthash.bgoZTwNX.dpuf

Kirsten, (Africa-bound), Kim and Baylie

I sure wish I could remember what was so funny--we had just been denied by Mickey Mouse....

Great minds think alike

Yesterday on my way home from work I was thinking about a wine bottle I have in my kitchen.  It reminds me to pray for a dear friend of mine.

I was thinking that I needed to put something out to remind me to pray for M, J, M and J.  I was thinking about writing a scripture on the mirror in the bathroom.

What came to mind was I Thess 5:16-18  Rejoice Always. Pray continually  give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will for you in Christ Jesus.

When I got home I found a precious girl, on the #bondingkitchen floor, listening to worship music...in tears. and on the mirror in the bathroom I found this:

I am not sure if you will be able to see what she wrote on the mirror, but it states: For our struggle is not against flesh and blood.

What a great reminder that we don't have to battle out life on our own.  

I have been accused of "blaming everything on Satan", and I stand by that.  On my own, I am nothing, but when I see the fight for what it is, and how much bigger than me it is, I can rest in the knowledge that God has my back.  Always.