Only Stand and Wait

…They also serve who only stand and wait.

~ John Milton, Sonnet 19

Those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength

They will soar on wings like eagles,

They will run and not grow weary,

They will walk and not grow faint.

~ The Prophet Isaiah from the Bible

What better time to send a long overdue update letter than now – the season when Heaven came down and changed the future. The health journey continues. A little quieter. A little stronger.

Over two years ago, our lives were changed by those words.     You have cancer.

From diagnosis in September 2021 through major treatment in March 2022 through slow recovery and returning to pastoring in weakness to now walking in weakness, I find myself repeating these whispered words that Christians have whispered for thousands of years: Those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength.

 This update has taken much longer to write for many reasons, but two are: the time of frame by frame action is over and there’s been some confusion this past year about health.

I first started writing updates right at the beginning of this journey. It was a year of tests and treatments and tears…and somehow always hope. The things you never know how you could face, you face. Not through the indominable human spirit rising up, but through the God of power coming down. We have had major things going on. And heaven has answered. Clearly. Our lives that first year were met time after time with what we know as grace… that strengthening goodness that breaks through from heaven to find us. Those big moments that called for soaring, God answered with soaring grace. He showed up in major moments with major grace…through friends, through family, through strangers, through marriage and children … but most clearly through Jesus being a near, near friend.

But now… now, we are living after.

 I still get a chemo injection every two weeks.

I still take chemo pills daily.

I still am in a body that has fewer gears than it used to. Noticeably.

The crisis and unrelenting timetable of treatment in year one gave way to ambiguity and a new normal and a new way of being a person in year two. The Mayo Clinic is overseeing my treatment while I’m being locally treated in Sioux Falls. For the first four months of 2023, this led to great confusion.

The Mayo Clinic was saying that my cancer had vanished. (Divine healing?).

Avera was saying my cancer had returned, way ahead of schedule. (Reminder: The cancer I have is not ‘curable’ only treatable).

So we walked in the tension of the best or worst news happening. Turns out they were both wrong…and things are stable. New normal. Later in 2023, we found a small leak in a valve in my heart due to the treatment. There’s nothing to do about it except monitor it. But I can’t replenish oxygen as quickly as I could pre-treatment. New normal.

Clearly, life has been less getting-back-to whatever life was and more finding-new-life-after everything has happened. Even if I wanted to (and I would often like to), you can’t go back.

Before is a chapter closed.

As astonishing as the soaring part of the journey has been through the high-highs and low-lows, a different wonder marks this past year, the second year of cancer and the first real year after. If year one was marked by lighting strikes of goodness and friendship, year two has been a quiet and constant rumble from deep down. Strong. Clean. Smiling – like an inside joke.

That wonder is called sustaining grace. Heaven’s answer for daily life after. How do you walk…after?

When you are no longer in charge of the chapter headings of your own life…

When you have a low-grade terminal…

When you are often a little tired and a little fragile…

How do you walk after?

I’ve said before in this space and I say it again now: If I could not have cancer, I would choose that option every time. (Insert: Many reading this do not know Jesus and may be skeptical or cynical of his ability or willingness to heal. I’ll write more about this in the future, but for now, just know I have no skepticism about his ability or his willingness.) If God heals me, that would be most welcome.

But there are blessings that belong to the one in the story that are just for him or her.

How do you walk after? With help.

Jesus helps. And not just to get through each day but to see somehow, somehow Jesus take bad things and bring good.

One of the hardest parts of the story this past year has been re-learning my own voice as a pastor. I’ve never had a stroke and lost my ability to speak or walk or think… but I feel a kinship to those who have. For life or trauma to distort and change you. To become an after person, … yet undiminished. Dimmed, yet brighter? I’m still trying to name this. For now all I can say is this: to know Jesus is to know that the very real things that death and dying take from you never outweigh what he can give.

It is quiet, happy work that sustaining grace brings to bear.

I found a close friend this past year in John Milton (1608-1674), an English poet who went blind in his forties. He was a man made weak when he should have been thriving. And in Sonnet 19 about his blindness, he asks: What is the role of a man whose heart is to serve God, but who has been made useless right at the point of his gifting? And he answers his own question, before God:

They also serve who only stand and wait.

Surely it is good for all of us to stand and wait on occasion.

But to the ones who can only stand and wait – this is indeed good news. Whatever after is going to be, there is a great deal of standing and waiting. And I am glad.

So what’s going on these days?

in Health:

As stated above, I continue to get chemotherapy injections every two weeks. I’ve been doing this from June 2022 and will continue at least through June 2024. At that point, they often dial back injections as the toxic overload on your body begins to outpace the benefits. The goal of these injections is to keep the cancer levels in my blood at a miniscule level. While I am not healed, my cancer levels continue to diminish which is good news! I also take chemo pills for 3 weeks on and 1 week off. They are a bit nastier than the shot and will be a part of the medical solution for a good long time yet.

The next big marker comes in June 2024 when my Mayo Clinic doctors will determine what the course of treatment looks like going forward. Yes, that means bone-marrow biopsy #5! Multiple myeloma is a cancer that usually comes back between year two and six, so they are beginning to anticipate that in blood tests and check ups. March 1st will be 2 years. Thankfully I have few side effects other than tiredness and some brain fog. Grace abounds.

in Life:

 Family life continues to surprise as little babies become little boys become more and more little men. Charles is nearing six and Owen is nearing three. And it’s fun. Amy and I continue to learn how to walk and care for one another as we raise these guys.

in Church:

The show goes on! For reasons only heaven knows, we began planting Christ Our Hope in Sioux Falls (605hope.org) at the same time as this cancer journey started. Two years in, and we have remarked much lately in our house that something new and good is afoot. As I begin again to write while I stand and wait, I am eager to see what God has in store for this church and for the Church in the years ahead. Perhaps, as you read this something new is happening for you … and you need to come join with us. Crazier things have happened. Think about it.

Where do things go from here?

Turns out, we’ve never really known the answer to that. It is for the Abels family to follow.  Not at all sure how this little story ends, though we have great confidence in the big story of God. And to those who are living in the after in your own story, who have been made dim… wait on Jesus.

Heaven leaves no one behind who wants to come. So, come find us. Sometimes the help that God gives comes through others.