I cannot imagine. As always when I pray for people with big, scary stuff, the words seemed so inadequate. I have to trust that God speaks through them because the words seem so small, such tiny points of light to hold in a very dark space. Like trying to light the way through the woods with a laser pointer on a night with no moon. Healing does not always mean cure, and God's outcome is not always the one for which we've hoped. Please, God, speak hope through the words that are too small to carry such a huge burden.
When I was a junior in college, my mother got cancer the first time. My brother and I found out at Christmas break that she was going for an appointment to learn what it was. I remember the day I got the call saying that it was indeed cancer. I think it was a Sunday. I don't even know how I got there, but I was wandering around in the street outside the old dining hall at Sewanee and I bumped into my friend Giles. I think I told him. He invited me in to the Banana-mobile, his big yellow station wagon that often let us know where he was on campus, and he played music for me. Might have been Enya. I remember being numb. I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to be alone that semester. But I didn't want to talk. I remember that I didn't tell my dear sorority sisters at first. It seemed like I might crack under their love and concern. I kept trying to hold it together. I didn't know how to feel. Though my head knew it was so, my heart had not considered that my parents were mortal.
I wished. And wished. And hoped. And prayed. That my mother would live.
And she did.
I remember going to the rooms of friends and just sitting so that I could be close to them. It was hard to focus on anything, and it was a very challenging semester of work. I went home one weekend after my mother had her surgery, and all I can remember is how irritable I was. I don't think I was very helpful at all. I wanted my mother to be my mother. I didn't want to take care of her. I wanted her to take care of me.
Today I was inside again for the prayer station, under the Into the Woods sign. I went to see the movie last Friday. "Sometimes people leave you, halfway through the woods..." I am grieving for the people who leave us. My mother battled cancer a second time, and she came out again safe on the other side. I continue to be grateful for the extra time with her.
It was very hard for me to cope with my mother's cancer when I was 20. I cannot imagine what it would be like to HAVE cancer while in college. I pray that God will lead the student I prayed for through her time in the woods and give her the comfort and strength and courage and support and healing she needs. I wish...
We are not alone, but sometimes it feels like it. I wish for this student that she would not feel alone, that she would feel God with her and that all who are struggling right now may feel the peace of God's presence. There were two prayer requests today, two very big prayer requests, one at the prayer station and one from someone who saw our sign outside the chapel and came in for Eucharist. "This is how you can pray for me," she said. Please pray for them.
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| Prayer Station goes Into the Woods |
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| View of the Student Union from the Prayer Station |
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