Butterflies dance around in my stomach every time I walk into the Comprehensive Breast Center. As I park my car, I throw out popcorn prayers.
I’m asking God for a little more time to love.
I’m asking God to let this cup called breast cancer pass me by one more year.
I finish with “Not my will but yours be done.” Then, “Amen”. So be it.

The nurse calls for me, Hope Webster, and I don the pink gown that ties in the front and wait silently in a room full of women, all wearing our uniforms, waiting to be exposed, squeezed and imaged.
And I wonder how many of these ladies might be branded squarely across their chests with a capital “C”.
And I realize that I could be one of them.
As I reflect on the complex interweaving of stories that results from any cancer diagnosis, the patient is the main character, but there are so many other characters too—physicians and hospital staff, other patients, spouses, children, parents, friends. And in God’s sovereignty, whatever that means, He’s completing a mega jigsaw puzzle with all of humanity, each person contributing their piece to the whole and all interconnected.

After the deed is done, I’m told to anticipate results by mail or call tomorrow.
And I remember the times my letter arrived and notified me that my results warranted additional testing.
And the times it didn’t. That’s the letter I’m hoping for this week.

I always detour into the chapel to meditate on the icon of the crucifix on my way out.
Jesus asked to have the cup of suffering pass from Him too but ultimately surrendered His life to the will of His Father. He knew that His piece in the cosmic puzzle fit bulls-eye center and the picture could never be completed without it.
And so I sit contemplatively, gazing at the image of His body. Open handed, he entrusted His life into His Father’s plan.
I image Him every time I board an airplane and extend my hand on my lap, quietly offering it to God to take in His.
And I do it every time I wave to my girls’ backing down the driveway behind the wheel out of range from my care and protection.
I’m doing it right here and now before the radiologist reads this year’s 3-D mammogram. “Not my will but Yours be done,” I whisper again. And then I wait.
Until tomorrow.
And then I call.
“Your mammogram results are unremarkable with no masses identified.”
That’s the official word and it’s today’s fresh mercy.
I smile wide as I inform my fam that I dodged the bullet of breast cancer another year, thanks be to God.

I’m turning 52 this week and I’m walking on a Lake Michigan beach this perfect, almost 80 degree summer day. The breeze blows my hair back, away from my face. Wildly, the lake talks and the seagulls answer. My tribe is lounging on a beach blanket.
I’m mesmerized by the waves, their chaotically methodical crashing over each other, it’s hypnotic. Today, I notice the moments just before the water somersaults on top of itself. There’s a building up of tension under the surface that requires a release, a breaking free.

On the Enneagram classification of essence and personality, I’m a Six. I’m wired to threat forecast about potential harm, to protect the ones I love best. And I’ve been hypervigilant on the job. Everyday. Always. And the pressure of the anxiety, the fear and the self-protection, it’s felt a lot like that undercurrent, just before it erupts. And on this day, each pounding breaker seems to shout “FREE”.
And I realize that I am living….well…. “free”-er too.
Maybe it’s maturity, the silver lining of growing older.
Or the absence of cyclical hormonal swings post menopause.
Perhaps it’s the anxiety medication I’ve been taking for many years.
It might be that I’m anchoring myself more to my inner courage as I embrace my identity in Christ.
Whatever is responsible, in this moment, I am feeling peace and it’s such a RELIEF.
“God” I whisper gratefully “if this day was my last, it would be enough.”

And my mind meanders through memories. I’m watching a homemade iMovie in my head, with snippets of relationships and experiences stored away in my mental library shelves. And my holdings are as many as the grains of sand under my feet. Some are beautiful. Others are severe mercies. I’m glad that my shoes are off as the waves lap against my toes because I know I’m standing on holy ground.

Just a few weeks ago, my friend, one of my besties, she called me with her diagnosis. Cancer with a capital C. Like a slap in the face, that word, it took my breath away. I tried not to cry since she wasn’t. I could hear peace in her voice, real and authentic, proof positive of that day’s mercies.  I listened as she mused about her life, her husband, her 4 children, and her 7 grandchildren. “They all love Jesus. It’s enough. He’s enough. He is always enough.” She spoke it like a benediction. And this afternoon at the beach, her blessing has settled deeply over me too.

I’m reflecting on the gift of life today, that fragile yet tenacious privilege to move and breathe and think and feel, to live and love in and amongst the people and places God’s  set me these 52 times 365 days. Every fresh morning, all 18993 of them, the mercies have been new. And as I celebrate another year of multiplied goodness, extreme faithfulness and excessive abundance, it’s enough because He is enough.

And so my chapter 51 concludes like this:
Thanks be to God, I’m grateful.