A bit of a health update.

Test results, terrible math, and a flicker that burns.

I’m writing this from the parking lot outside the doctor’s office, one day after filming the video below.

A video in which I somehow did not cry.

A video that’s been a long time coming.

A video underneath this same sky and above this same parking spot, a now-familiar path in front of me leading to a glass door I’ve walked through dozens of times this summer.

I’ve been waiting on new test results, hope-full but a bit cautious, reminded of another summer of visits, another sidewalk I paced and memorized, another rhythm that became the new norm in search of answers, in faith for healing, in belief that it could get better.

It got so much worse, this time two years ago.

What do you do when the thing that brought some hope, that really seemed like it could bring healing and relief, wounds you deeper?

What do you do when it alters your brain, when it was supposed to subtract pain but only adds to the struggle, multiplies the daily ache?

My hope needed time to heal before risking again, before walking into another waiting room, before handing over my card and my body and my hope that this, maybe this, could it be this, that offers an answer of some kind? Brings information, even if it doesn’t bring relief?

You may have caught a few Instagram Stories this summer, a mention here and there about a new doctor, a new set of tests, a new rhythm that risks hope.

How many times can I include the word hope here, I’m thinking to myself right now… But in some ways, that’s what felt like it was on the line. It had crashed and burned and I couldn’t forget it, couldn’t undo or deny the addition and multiplication that haunted every day.

Hope never fully disappeared, but it shrank small, a flicker in the dark.

A flicker is still a flame, though, a candle in the night.

And so I drive hours and hours every week. I park in this spot. I open the glass door. I check-in and I sit down under the literal word hope and I wait for my name to be called.

I show up, which is another way of saying I get my hopes up.

Showing up⁣
can be an act of hope.⁣
Walking through a door⁣
can be a step of courage.⁣
Making an appointment⁣
can be a quiet declaration,⁣
a brave decision, a kind choice,⁣
a beautiful belief that perhaps⁣
there’s more to the story.⁣
⁣
You are seen by the One who is still writing. There is a friend who walks beside, who goes with you through every door, sits with you at every appointment, holds you close and hears every cry, wipes every tear, knows all that it took to get here and all that is to come and still stays with you in the now, carrying you through to tomorrow.⁣
⁣
You have a witness.⁣
Your step toward hope,⁣
no matter how small,⁣
is seen.
written summer 2022 💛

This is me, as real-time as can be, filmed thirty seconds after walking out the door with new test results in my hands.