Category Archives: cancer volume 4

Relay for Life… {a father’s post}

Relay for Life… {a father’s post}

It is that time of the year—Relay for Life.

 

I don’t know how it is in your part of the country, but in Garner, North Carolina, it seems like everybody is involved in Relay for Life in one way or another. After all the counting is done, this small town will raise nearly a quarter of a million dollars for the American Cancer Society—the largest contributor in all of Wake County.

 

Jane and I have been involved in Relay for Life through our church, community, schools, and Rotary for years, but this year it was a little different. My daughter, Elaine, came to walk ‘the survivor’s walk.’ She is an 18-month survivor of breast cancer and announced that to the crowd, along with scores of others; and with each announcement came the audience’s applause. It seems as if everyone there was ‘touched’ by this scourge. And each witness became a sign and a hope that one day cancer will be defeated.

When Elaine came near the end of the survivor’s walk, she noticed me standing along the path, applauding. She began to weep, and motioned us to come and walk with her. Jane and I, with our arms around our daughter, walked and wept together—thanking God for all the kind providences that have presided over all our lives. It was a good ‘moment’—a divine moment.

 

And we intend to ‘walk’ as much as we can, for as long as we can, and whenever we can, not only for this cause, but for the love of a daughter who looks to the future with radiance and resolve. And I suspect that all the moments left to us in this journey will be grace-filled moments—and one of them came this morning after church. A lady who was at the event said, “It was so good to see you walking with your daughter on Friday night.” I smiled and said, “Thank you… I have been walking with her in just about every corner of her life’s experiences, and that ‘walk’ was the most precious.”

 

So, walk often with those you love. Enjoy the trip. It’ll last forever and ever!

 

A Little Different

 

When it’s your daughter

out there in the Cancer Walk,

it’s a little different.

Probably it won’t be out there

‘cause you’ll be in there,

holding hands with

your eighteen-month survivor

as her children applaud each mile.

That’s what we do

down in Garner, NC—

walk and run relays

to stomp out disease by any name,

raise $$ by the thousands

to ease the pain of others.

It’s a little different

when the whole town comes out

and says We’ve had it with this disease,

enough already—we are the victors!

People like this stare cancer down,

and when they see a father crying

as he proudly strides

With his 46 yr old daughter,

her mother overwhelmed with gratitude

as the smile on that daughter

swells in pride and profound relief—

like I say, they stare cancer down

down here in Garner, North Carolina,

and restore families

to the thrill of life.

Men and women of faith

see this as a divine parade,

a memorial to the miracle of healing.

The secular world says

No problem with that—

let us help, too—

we’re part of this family.

It was a little different

on this particular Friday night—

you see, it was my daughter out there,

out there a long time,

preparing for this walk.

There were moments

we didn’t know

if the calendar would give us this night.

We were out there—

lost and stumbling—

but on this particular Friday night

we were very much together.

Through my tears

I could see the incredible beauty

on the perfect body

of my holy child-

I was and am

the proudest father in the world.

 

Written by Uncle Bill Killian and Chuck Killian

For my daughter and niece, Elaine Killian Olsen

Garner, North Carolina

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

 

 

Rediscovering Your Song…

Being a survivor isn’t about defeating the cancer. Being a survivor is about defeating the silence.

That’s what I told a group of cancer survivors last Sunday night at a Relay for Life banquet. It’s what I’ve come to believe. To survive cancer is to survive the silence—the deafening quiet that creeps in alongside suffering in hopes of suffocating the song that once sang its melody so gracefully, so faithfully, so willingly, so naturally.

There is a great price that often accompanies a great suffering. That price? A great silence. A time when the previous witness and words of a great faith are stifled by the traumatic strain of simply staying alive. Singing isn’t a priority when suffering steps to the front of the line. The song often gets buried, cast aside and forgotten, to simmer beneath the weightiness of pain and of what once was.

But here is the truth of the eternal song. Once the music has made its way into a heart, no amount of throwing and crying and denying its pulse can keep it buried forever. We can go to the grave refusing it a voice, but in the end, the music remains. It will find its chorus, even without our participation, because the King’s music is meant to be sung (peace for the journey: in the pleasure of his company,” 2010, pg. 7). 

Some songs don’t die. Some songs are just that strong, certain, truthful, and demanding. Some songs, God’s song, your song and my song, are still singing. Maybe you haven’t heard it in a long time; maybe, like me, it’s been buried beneath a season of grief and suffering. I want to encourage you today to not give up on the reality of the music that’s hiding deep within your heart. The melody remains, and whether or not you’ve been victimized by cancer or by another soul-eating something, you can know that your survivorship isn’t solely dependent on a pill or a program or the best resources available to you by doctors. The best of all of these remedies will only carry you so far in the process of healing. In fact, none of these may help you as it pertains to defeating your cancer.

But if you can defeat the silence that surrounds your cancer? If you can dig deeply to retrieve the melody that once sang so beautifully through your lips? Well, then you’ll have survived your disease in a way that yields eternal value. For our pain to matter, our pain needs a voice that is surrendered to the process of renewal. It’s a slow process that walks its own timetable. Silence doesn’t turn into song over night. But over night, a step in the right direction will yield a few notes… one or two or ten at first. One verse building on another until the music makes a melody that takes what once was and sings it more gracefully, more faithfully, more willingly, and more naturally. Almost as if that’s what God had in mind all along—a better song, refined and renewed through suffering.

To get there? Well, I don’t have the perfect strategy for curing your silence, but I have a few thoughts about how you might begin the process of rediscovering your song.

Remember. Take time to review the melody of your yesterdays—the days before your suffering began. Remember your voice, your faith, your hope. Reflect on the beauty that once was. Write it down, retrieve those memories, and linger upon them long enough until the refrain finds its way to your lips. And then, with that old song fresh in your memory…

Resist thinking that your old song was your best song. Refuse the enemy’s lie that the best has already been. Your best song is your next song—the one tempered and refined by the trials of life. God can and does write new notes into your musical score, not in an attempt to cover up the old ones, but rather to enhance them. To energize them. To fully empower them with the truth of his Spirit so that when you sing, you sing with understanding and with the certainty that all has not been lost in the suffering. God has been gained in the midst of great peril, and you have lived another day to sing the witness of his grace. And then, once you’ve made it past your remembering and your resisting, by God’s grace and with his permission,…

Rehearse. Start practicing your new song. A few notes today; a few more tomorrow, until you get the melody down, until it starts sounding familiar. Sing to yourself. Sing to your kids. Sing to your spouse. Sing to your friends. Sing to the mirror. Sing to God. Don’t worry about your voice. You’ll probably warble at first, crack your voice a time or two and turn a few heads in the process. Who cares? Songs of faith aren’t written to shame you. Songs of faith are written to reframe you. It doesn’t matter your performance with the melody. What matters is your willingness to try—to be so bold as to believe that you were meant to sing and that nobody, not one single person, can sing your new song as beautifully as you can. And finally, if you’ve made it this far with your remembering, resisting, and rehearsing, then…

Rejoice. Thank God for the gift of the song. Thank God for the gift of the song. Thank God for the gift of the song. Over and over again, rejoice in the gift of the song, because the song begins and ends with God. In the beginning, he wrote the melody. Through his Son, he retrieved the melody from the depths of the deepest grave. And through the power of his Holy Spirit, his melody still sings through flesh—through you and me. What a gift! What privilege! What renewal is ours because of the song!

Being a survivor isn’t about defeating the cancer. Being a survivor is about defeating the silence.

Are you willing to do the hard work of soul-survivorship? I pray so, because no one can sing God’s song through you better than you. I believe this with my whole heart, and by God’s very good grace, I’m endeavoring to live accordingly. Remembering, resisting, rehearsing, and rejoicing all the way home to heaven. As always…

Peace for the journey,

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safely through till morning

“Because the LORD kept vigil that night… ” (Exodus 12:42)

 

A few weeks ago, our elderly neighbor, Mr. Jim, called us in the middle of the night. We’d instructed him to do so should a need arise. It did. His bride of sixty years plus had fallen in the bathroom, and he couldn’t get her back on her feet. Billy was able to help out and to save our neighbors another 911 call.

Since that time, I check on them every morning. Not with a phone call or a visit but, instead, with a single glance out my window. I look for the familiar lamplight in their den. If it’s glowing, I breathe a sigh of relief. The lustrous warmth from behind their window pane tells me one thing.

They made it safely through the night till morning.

In many ways their certainty serves as mine. I, too, made it safely through the night till morning. Seeing their light reflects back on that fact that my lamplight is also burning… lit and fueled by a night’s worth of resting. I cannot see it as it’s happening—this collection of rest that gathers in the folds of my flesh as I slumber in the dark. But each new morning, I’m reminded that what I cannot see happening in the dark—cannot manage nor manipulate while in an altered state of consciousness—is often the strength that carries me through the daylight hours.

God is the Keeper of that darkness. God superintends the gathering and collection of strength as I rest. I’m not always comfortable with the conditions of that rest. Many have been the nights when I’ve fought the constraints of my darkness, wrestled with the unknown realities of nighttime, only to arrive depleted by dawn’s arrival. Rather than giving in to a normal, nocturnal cycle, I rally against it. I burn a candle in defiance, refusing to let the night do its work in me. Those are times of lesser faith… lesser trust in the God who keeps vigil for me.

Oh to be a woman of faith who doesn’t run from the darkness but, instead, who believes God to see her safely through till morning. A “kept” woman—kept safe, kept warm, kept closely, kept wholly by the Father who draws his children closely to his heart and who uses their darkness as the growing field of a tremendous, unshakeable trust.

I’ve been through a dark night, friends. A long, drawn-out season of nocturnal growth. As the dawn approaches, I don’t feel as rested as I’d like. Some night seasons require more than others. But of one thing I am certain…

I am stronger for the night I have known, because God has kept vigil for me.

A dark night with a vigilant God grows a stronger spirit. God is the candle that stands in the shadows of our sleep and that keeps our hearts fueled for the arrival of dawn. A new day, a new season to live as a certain witness to the night’s growth that has preceded it.

Today, I’m a witness. You are as well. We’ve made it through another night, and our candles are still burning. You may not be aware of it, but you have a few neighbors—a friend, a family member, a co-worker, a stranger—who are looking through their windows into yours this morning to make sure that your lamplight is on. Your light is important to them. It shines as a testimony to a night’s rest, a night’s trust, a night’s growth, a night’s vigilance by a loving God. He kept you then; he keeps you still.

Thanks be to God for the keeping, reaching hold of grace! God is growing his kingdom in you and through you… even in the darkness. The light from your window strengthens me. Thank you for allowing me a look inward from time to time. As always…

Peace for the journey,
elaine

moving past the unknown..

I’ve been thinking about the conversation we had back in August. The “I’m going back to college, and I still don’t know what I want to do with my life” conversation. Not an unfamiliar conversation between us. It surfaces on occasion, more so now that he is mid-way through his junior year at the university. Certainly, he has some thoughts and is working his way through a degree program, but there’s a nagging confusion that lingers in the shadows.

The unknown.

The unknown can be paralyzing, especially when you’re twenty-one and many in your peer group already have their five year goals in place and their resumes written. So often the unknown can foster paralyzing fear over adventurous faith, crippling insecurity over settled confidence. The unknown can keep a life stuck right where it is, walking in circles with feet shackled to the comfort of uncertainty. Yes, comfort. Sometimes it’s more comfortable to stay stuck in uncertainty than to move forward.

I’m not so unlike my son. I’m forty-five, and I’m still wrestling with what I want to be when I grow up. Some days, the unknown overshadows known truth, and I get stuck. Fear and insecurity creep in and the shackles around my feet seem an easier fit for me than the faith and confidence that is mine in Jesus Christ. Instead of progression, I regress. One step forward and two steps back isn’t in keeping with God’s growth plan for my life. Certainly, any forward movement is a gain, but at forty-five, I need to do more. With age, comes wisdom, and it’s time I started acting my age.

Acting. Action. A verb, not a suggestion. And so, I go back to that conversation I had with my son nearly six months ago, and I remember those few words I spoke into his confusion.

Try something new, son. Get out from behind your computer, get out of your dorm room and try something new… even if it’s uncomfortable. What’s comfortable isn’t working for you. It’s limiting your vision and keeping you stuck. Getting out into the world, meeting people face-to-face instead of on the Internet, is going to re-connect you to life. People and places—that’s where you’ll find it. Your dreams, your goals, the pulse that will move you forward into your “next.” It’s not in our DNA to stay put, to live inside. You’re a Killian… at the heart of it all, you’re a Killian. And Killians know that the best part of life is found in people. Go to them, son, and you’ll find your focus.

I’m pleased to report that my son has taken some new risks this year. He’s growing and maturing, moving into his own as his junior year unfolds. I see more confidence in his gait, more wisdom in his words, and I can’t help but think that just a few simple steps outside of his familiar are partly responsible for this ever-emerging transformation. He’s moving forward, and so must I.

Time to try something new. Time to get out from behind this computer screen and re-connect with life… face-to-face. As I look at my future, there are a multitude of unknowns looming on my horizon. The unknown could easily keep me shackled to my familiar. And while I cannot see much beyond today (and I’ve come to firmly believe this is a very good thing), I can take a few steps forward that will alter the course of my tomorrow. Just one or two baby steps to grow my confidence, to extend my faith. And then just one or two more beyond those initial ones. Before long… a lengthy accumulation of forward progression that will more fully transform me into the woman God intends.

A woman of adventurous faith and settled confidence. Oh to be her… even one little bit!

Movement wins, friends. With the cross before us, movement always wins. Keep to it. As always…

Peace for the journey,
elaine
PS: What steps are you taking to move yourself forward?

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