Diagnosed with terminal cancer just before my birthday in December, 2022 shook me to the core. When I heard, from my trusted oncologist, that he didn’t think it had gone to my brain...I asked for an anti-anxiety medication and really didn’t hear what he said after that.
My birthday is always preceded with excitement and planning for the coming year with joy. Instead I found myself in a hospital in intensive care.
I’ve adjusted rather haphazardly to the realities of my truncated life. I’m starting a blog called The Terminal. The readership I’m aiming at are cancer patients like me, the elderly and those with chronic and incurable medical diagnoses as well as some disable people whose medical problems will not change for the better. I hope that if I live to my next birthday(I’ll be 81 a week before next Christmas) I will have been a source of comfort, compassion and understanding to my readers.
I finally worked up the courage to inquire about an internship with the Joni and Friends Disability Institute which is a leader in disability education and justice. I have been studying the intersection of spiritual abuse and disability for years now, and I am excited at the prospect of working with accomplished thought leaders in the disability realm.
I also connected with another disability ministry that I trust. For so long, I have been speaking about spiritual abuse as a result of poor theology of disability, and my words have fallen on ears unable to hear. I carried the fear that no one understood what I was talking about – that everyone was right and I was wrong. But now I am supported by respected ministries so much so that Joni and Friends typically only does basic internships for college age students but are willing to craft a tailored internship for me.
I am growing in courage to tell my story and use my gift of discernment without a pattern to follow. I can’t be silent or be silenced any longer. 🫶🏼
God delights in strengthening us in our weaknesses to do great things. I am touched by the vulnerability of your sharing, Rachel. I immediately went to sign up for the podcast at (in)courage so that I can connect with you there. I’ve been contemplating getting a small group started in my home…women from various backgrounds to learn from each other and become “sisters”. Baby steps… 💕
I'm actually doing something (getting a cat) that I've always wanted to but have had some fear about.
I struggle to use my voice. I was silenced for a long time by people and powers and forces. Writing, in a way, has been one way to try to take that back. But even reading my poems feels really vulnerable. It's definitely something I feel a need for (using my voice) and it's also so hard and something I keep finding more layers of.
This is so good, and resonates deeply for me. I also always think of the cultural messaging women so often receive about "being too much" and how our voices seem to bring us to the threshold of that too-muchness, where we then have to decide if we are willing and courageous enough to step through that open door. Thank you for this!
Thank you for these words, Rachel. It's so interesting to me how both the force and the fragility of our voice can be so distressing at times. For a good couple of years now I've been playing with that word, fragility, and what it means to show up anyway when you feel so utterly tender. I struggle to get the words out and when I finally wrestle them free I wonder if they were even worthy of being heard or seen. I love what you said: "But there is faith. There is showing up, anyway." The goal right now is to show up somehow - in any manner that reminds me that I am alive, even if it's survival mode - and letting that be more than enough. I'm leaving space that maybe my fragility isn't something to be "fixed" or ashamed of. Maybe it's the living/working/creating through it where beauty resides.
Heyo!! I’m excited about your podcast opportunity. Also, I legit began writing a song at the piano tonight. What! That’s my answer to your question.
Diagnosed with terminal cancer just before my birthday in December, 2022 shook me to the core. When I heard, from my trusted oncologist, that he didn’t think it had gone to my brain...I asked for an anti-anxiety medication and really didn’t hear what he said after that.
My birthday is always preceded with excitement and planning for the coming year with joy. Instead I found myself in a hospital in intensive care.
I’ve adjusted rather haphazardly to the realities of my truncated life. I’m starting a blog called The Terminal. The readership I’m aiming at are cancer patients like me, the elderly and those with chronic and incurable medical diagnoses as well as some disable people whose medical problems will not change for the better. I hope that if I live to my next birthday(I’ll be 81 a week before next Christmas) I will have been a source of comfort, compassion and understanding to my readers.
I finally worked up the courage to inquire about an internship with the Joni and Friends Disability Institute which is a leader in disability education and justice. I have been studying the intersection of spiritual abuse and disability for years now, and I am excited at the prospect of working with accomplished thought leaders in the disability realm.
I also connected with another disability ministry that I trust. For so long, I have been speaking about spiritual abuse as a result of poor theology of disability, and my words have fallen on ears unable to hear. I carried the fear that no one understood what I was talking about – that everyone was right and I was wrong. But now I am supported by respected ministries so much so that Joni and Friends typically only does basic internships for college age students but are willing to craft a tailored internship for me.
I am growing in courage to tell my story and use my gift of discernment without a pattern to follow. I can’t be silent or be silenced any longer. 🫶🏼
This is powerful, thank you!
God delights in strengthening us in our weaknesses to do great things. I am touched by the vulnerability of your sharing, Rachel. I immediately went to sign up for the podcast at (in)courage so that I can connect with you there. I’ve been contemplating getting a small group started in my home…women from various backgrounds to learn from each other and become “sisters”. Baby steps… 💕
I'm actually doing something (getting a cat) that I've always wanted to but have had some fear about.
I struggle to use my voice. I was silenced for a long time by people and powers and forces. Writing, in a way, has been one way to try to take that back. But even reading my poems feels really vulnerable. It's definitely something I feel a need for (using my voice) and it's also so hard and something I keep finding more layers of.
This is so good, and resonates deeply for me. I also always think of the cultural messaging women so often receive about "being too much" and how our voices seem to bring us to the threshold of that too-muchness, where we then have to decide if we are willing and courageous enough to step through that open door. Thank you for this!
Thank you for these words, Rachel. It's so interesting to me how both the force and the fragility of our voice can be so distressing at times. For a good couple of years now I've been playing with that word, fragility, and what it means to show up anyway when you feel so utterly tender. I struggle to get the words out and when I finally wrestle them free I wonder if they were even worthy of being heard or seen. I love what you said: "But there is faith. There is showing up, anyway." The goal right now is to show up somehow - in any manner that reminds me that I am alive, even if it's survival mode - and letting that be more than enough. I'm leaving space that maybe my fragility isn't something to be "fixed" or ashamed of. Maybe it's the living/working/creating through it where beauty resides.