Locked Out, Welcomed In (#32)

[A note from our Managing Editor: Tim Shorey, pastor and author, is one of our Gospel-Centered Discipleship staff writers. Tim is also currently battling stage 4 prostate cancer. On Facebook and CaringBridge, he’s writing about his journey. We’re including some of his posts in a series on our website called “The Potter’s Clay: Faith Reflections from a Cancer Oven.” To preserve the feel of a daily journal rather than a published work, we have chosen not to submit these reflections to a rigorous editing process.]

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Dear Journal,

Just the other day, we made our move into a new home. Just about everything we own is now tucked cozily and beautifully inside of our 650-700 square foot patch of ground on planet earth—and we love it!

But the process was exhausting, which is not at all abnormal for me. I live exhausted. Case in point, I’ve been so depleted by my cancer, its treatments, and my various other conditions that the vast majority of our contracted work and move was planned and carried out by my wife, Gayline. She was our Project Manager from start to finish, a role she jumped into with energy, skill, and joy. That was so, even though mid-way through the process, she had some major surgery and recovery of her own. If she wasn’t packing and preparing, she was recovering from surgery and coordinating help for our move.

But as for me, I was just exhausted. I’m not talking about normal aging fatigue. I’ve experienced normal aging fatigue, and I am now experiencing cancer treatment fatigue. If there’s one thing I know, it is that that is not this. Yes, I am still able to drive, do a few dishes, take out the garbage, and accomplish a few other small tasks along the way, but physical exertion of any sort leaves both my body and mind feeling as limp as a wet dishrag. Add in stress, and I’m a mess.

Locked Out

It didn’t help the other day that, in getting used to our various new locks and keys (with a head fogged with fatigue and pain), I started the day by locking the keys to both our house and our car inside the house when we stepped out into the cold morning air. There we stood in our driveway, unable to get into either house or car. All I could foresee for the day was a very long delay, a negating of all our plans, much disruption of Gayline’s hard work, a very expensive locksmith bill, and literally nowhere to sit (which always means almost instant screaming  pain for my ailing back).

I can tell you that in my already guilt-filled shame (as a weakened man ashamed over not being able to help much with our move) I was crushed. In my fatigue and pain-filled state, with my blood pressure issues, with my concern for anything that adds stress to my dear Gayline, with my med-induced exhaustion and brain-fuzziness, with my aversion to standing out in the cold, and with my complete lack of any place to sit, I was beside myself with exhaustion, grief, and emotional self-flagellation for my own stupidity.

I should say that if memory serves, that is the first time I have called out anyone's “stupidity” in about 50 years. Some may think it silly, but in my mind, and I think our Lord’s mind, too, such degrading insults are taboo (Matt. 5:21–23). But the fact that I would use a degrading word, intentionally long-banned from my vocabulary, in yesterday’s self-flagellation says something about how low I felt.

It was my lowest point in the nearly four years since I was diagnosed with cancer. In fact, it was one of maybe two moments in my whole life when I felt like I was going to totally lose it and melt into a puddle of self-perceived uselessness. Not only was I of little help in our move, but I had now also created a barrier to getting it done. I was distraught over my incompetence, and would have wept almost inconsolably had circumstances allowed.

Some might suggest that I should have chilled. But that’s the point. I didn’t chill. After all, there I was, standing and staring at a dead bolt-locked door, frustrated by a mere two inches of wood sealed shut by a little bar in a lock that stood between home and me. And as I stood in motionless despair, that door looked and felt as impregnable as a twenty-foot-thick fortress wall, forbidding entrance to all. Masada and the famous wall of China came to mind. I stood and stared, while calling myself names.

I’m still not over the trauma, and won’t be for a while. In part, that’s because it is pretty much a lock (pun fully intended) that yesterday’s trauma is going to recur. The whole episode reminds me that my meds cause, along with extreme fatigue, consistent brain fog, distracting hot flashes, and everyday cognitive and concentration challenges.

There is some minimal help in that reminder. It tells me that many of my limitations are not all matters of personal incompetence. So I can blame it on the meds. The meds made me do it. Stupid meds. But still, it’s all kind of scary for the long haul, since, unless God intervenes and heals, I’m pegged to take these meds for the rest of my life in order to battle my allegedly incurable cancer for the rest of my life. I may not like it, but so it is.

Putting it bluntly, I don’t like it. But to put at ease friends and family who might worry over my state of mind, I want you to know that I still stand by the old hymn:

“Whate’er my God ordains is right: His holy will abideth; I will be still whate’er He doth, and follow where He guideth. He is my God; though dark my road, He holds me that I shall not fall:
And so, to Him I leave it all.

“Whate’er my God ordains is right: here shall my stand be taken;
Though sorrow, need, or death be mine, yet am I not forsaken.
My Father’s care is round me there; He holds me that I shall not fall:
And so to Him I leave it all.”

Welcomed In

There is a happy ending to this debacle. It wasn’t long before we saw a neighbor as we stood rather aimlessly in the driveway. Thankfully, she invited us in to get warm, figure out next steps, and settle in for the long wait. What a God-send she was!

But Providence wasn’t finished. By a further stroke of amazing divine intervention, we were able to make quick contact with our son, who knows a locksmith, who literally dropped what he was doing to come to our home (nearly an hour from where he was). Once he arrived, he had our lock picked in minutes and let us in! Shockingly, what looked like it would be a few-hour ordeal was over in around 75 minutes.

But even more amazing was that the wait in our new neighbor’s home gave us time to truly get introduced to them. Through an hour-plus of sitting and talking in their nice warm house, they learned of our faith and we of hers. We met her husband, who has been ill. She found out about my ministry past, and got a glimpse of Gayline’s and my love under stress (which she even mentioned).

Plus, she and her husband saw us ask for and receive their aid, which can have the helpful effect of disarming people who think that Christians are know-it-alls. By asking for their help and humbly receiving it, we showed that we need them like they need us—even if in different ways.

One might say that this turned into a first foray of explorative missional reconnaissance and discovery in our new neighborhood mission field. God got more done in our relationship-building with neighbors in 75 minutes than we’d have been able to achieve in six months.

Now make no mistake: I still feel like an idiot. But at least God can make something good come out of that idiocy, which is what he’s been doing for millennia.

And that, O my soul, has the power to comfort and console. So rise up with hope to face another day, no matter what it brings.

* You can read all the posts in this series here.