One Year Later

Today marks one year since I finished treatment for breast cancer.

It’s been one year since the start of a global pandemic.

One year since I’ve had a hug, been to church, or seen my co-workers. One year of attempting to heal while navigating an impossible landscape.

One year of wondering when I’ll acknowledge an anniversary that doesn’t have bitter surging through sweet.

It feels like some things are meant to remain.

Cancer’s grit is like sand that never completely washes off. I’m still finding remnants of it, even in the next season.

When I hear someone has been diagnosed – and it takes me back to that first day.

When I read the statistics – and I’m reminded I am one of them.

When someone tries to find the lesson – and I explain that cancer isn’t a life coach or an enlightenment program.

When I reach for something and feel the all-too familiar twinge under my arm where the surgeon made that first cut.

There is still so much I am sifting through, but neither cancer nor coronavirus gets the final say, as messy as this healing is.

God has a magnificent way of rewriting parts of our story we’re convinced are not worth retelling. So now a day I remember one year ago as frightening, confusing, and empty is replaced with a day that represents life and hope and rebirth.

God is still writing my story.

God gets the final say.

And he says today, exactly one year later, is the first day of spring.

Isaiah 43:19 - For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.