Waiting tensely for the verdict
– a wrenching time before the answer,
“You have cancer.”

The way of suffering is my chance for life.
I do not want to bear the cross.
I feel lost.

I choose the surgery that’s offered,
then wake with terror in the night,
fighting, faltering in my fright.

Finding comfort in my friends
and loved ones standing by,
but feeling stabbed with grief, I cry.

I do not bear it all alone.
My friends will walk with me
and share the cross life’s given me.

Feeling wretched after chemo,
they come and hold my hands and face.
How hard it is accepting grace.

I want to do it all alone,
not feel so fragile, weak and needy
– my independence falling, bleeding.

Many share my pain with me,
and some have shared my weeping.
My heart is in their tender keeping.

It takes such courage to walk this path.
I stumble, fall, get up again.
What caused this all? What wrong? What sin?

It strips away so much of me,
bravado, and false modesty.
I’m so exposed from day to day.

Hear the pounding of the nails.
See the needles sticking me,
both pain and cure infusing me.

Something’s dying deep inside,
old fears still hanging from the past,
exposed and brought to light at last.

The cancer cells are carried off.
The Spirit-Mother mothers me
and holds me tight, embracing me.

I lay my life down in my faith.
The Lent of the Cancer days are ending,
my soul and body slowly mending.