I’ve been scrummaging around
for days now, trying to figure out how to write a retrospective on this most
exceptional of years. I am way overdue, but felt at a loss. Then,
just when I was about to give up the whole ordeal, I saw that one of my
spiritual gurus, Anne Lamott, had come out with her latest book Help,
Thanks, WOW, The Three Essential Prayers, and it says everything.
Everything.
Anne is in love with Jesus,
but not reverent, and certainly not theological. She helps me see
things refreshingly. This book, which I devoured the day it arrived on my
Kindle, was a “Yes! Exactly” kind of read.
Anne says, “Prayer is taking
a chance that against all odds and past history, we are loved and chosen, and
do not have to get it together before we show up.” She divides
prayer into three categories, Help, Thanks and WOW. And that has been our
year. It has been a help, thanks and wow kind of year.
Help
On Valentines Day we
discovered there was a problem; a lump. The doctor in Kenya
confirmed a serious and aggressive tumor moving to the margins of my right
breast. CANCER. The rapid-fire series of choices and
decisions that followed resulted in a mastectomy at the University of
Michigan Cancer Center and months of healing and reconstruction.
Mark was uprooted from his leadership at AIU’s Center for World Christianity, and
I literally left a tour group of 18 women eating breakfast omelets at the
university guest house. Anne says, “There’s a freedom in hitting
bottom, . . . in admitting you’ve reached the place of great unknowing.
This is where restoration can begin. . . “
Help included things like, no
place to live, we will need a car, who will assume our responsibilities, how do
you pay when you have cancer treatment? Where do you go? How
does it all work?
Thanks
On November 5, I was declared
cancer-free and surgery complete. Thank you! A course at
Harvard teaches that thanks and gratitude actually make you feel better.
The secret to a happy and healthy life is saying “thanks” and being
grateful. We are grateful for our kids and spouses who welcomed us
into their homes for months on end, and somehow managed to convince us it was
their privilege. We are thankful for a car to use all year, and for
friends and family who traveled from far and wide to see us. We are
thankful for colleagues who picked up our responsibilities at AIU and did them
so well. Anne says, “Gratitude begins in our hearts and then
dovetails into behavior. It almost always makes you willing to be of
service, which is where the joy resides.”
Strangely, this “help” year,
has had more thanks in it than we ever expected.
WOW
“Wow is offered with a gasp,
a sharp intake of breath, when we can’t think of another way to capture a
sudden unbidden insight or an unexpected flash of grace.” WOW means we are not
dulled to wonder. When new wonder cannot get into our lives and
cause light, then, well that is the beginning of death. So,
WOW is life-giving, it truly is. WOW is William Shaw
White, who was born in June, and we were there to see his birth. Having
cancer made that possible. WOW is Christmas with four grandsons under
four years old, and feeling the awareness of being alive in the middle of the
gifts and child-wonder.
WOW, is that little choke
that holds back tears when you are smiling, and think, “It could have all been
so very different this year.”
So, this has been our
Help,Thanks and WOW year, and on January 4th we head back to
Kenya. We hope we will live a help,thanks, WOW lifestyle this year.
My prayer is that I will remember to journal more days than not – and that each
day will have some help, thanks and WOW. Should be a great year.
Love,
Lois for the both of us
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