Calendars…  There is something magically delightful about new calendars, day planners, and datebooks.  Each empty page awaits new plans, ideas, challenges, and opportunities.  Looking back over the last year, my day planner tells a tale of milestones…

My last appointment with the plastic surgeon after my revision surgery.  I really grew to love that woman.  She would open the door to my exam room looking beautiful, hopeful, and interested.  Interested in not only how I was healing physically but emotionally too. As I thanked her at our last appointment, she smiled and said what an honor it had been getting to know me and my husband. Before she left the room, she turned to me and said, “Someday we’ll party together in Heaven and you will be a size Double D.”  She always made me smile, and I seemed to feel stronger when I left her office.

A year of blood tests with amazingly boring, normal results.  A year of visits with my surgeon, Dr. Brenda, and her staff. They became my friends- although we could have become confidantes in a much less painful way.

The year anniversary of my diagnosis and my surgery.  That date felt empowering and unbelievably peaceful.  The date of my chest x-ray- no more mammograms for me!  Hearing Suzanne, Dr. Brenda’s nurse practitioner, pronounce the x-ray to be “clean” is a date to circle.

A year of Pilates classes and therapeutic massages that soothed my muscles and my mind.  A year of talks with Lynn as I sorted through everything that happened. A year of swallowing 20 mg of Tamoxifen every day with lunch. The first pill taken with trepidation as I researched all that might go wrong because of this small, round medication.  A year later, it is taken almost without a second thought.

And now the last day of 2014…  I am preparing to put my 2014 datebook away.  My 2015 planner is smaller, more colorful, and deliciously empty of appointments.  This year is the beginning of my second year of being cancer-free, anxiety-free, regret-free.

May it be a year of loving extravagantly, forgiving lavishly, and living joyfully…

Happy New Year!!!

I do not believe in coincidence.  However, I do not believe that all events are messages from God- pumping gas, doing laundry, shopping for groceries are mundane happenings that I don’t necessarily view as divine appointments.    But, I do believe that God orchestrates interactions between people.  And last night, I experienced one of those divine interactions- what I like to call a “God-wink.”

The day started out in the most ordinary way.  I went to work, negotiated traffic on my way home, unloaded the dishwasher, and jumped on the treadmill to get some exercise in.  Thursday night is our women’s Bible Study night so I ate a quick bite and left for church.

After our study, my co-leader and I headed for Tim Horton’s.  We had planned to trade ideas for our next Bible Study.  We settled into our booth with coffee and hot chocolate, armed with pen and notebook to “plan” what God wanted  us to study.  It started as noise in the periphery.  It grew in intensity.  I turned around and we were greeted by a man.  He was sitting alone in a tattered jacket with a Tim Horton’s drink in front of him.  He smiled and loudly began to converse with us.  After a few minutes, he came over to our booth and sat next to us.

We learned many things from this stranger.  His name was Mike.  He had been in a terrible automobile accident, suffering  an injury to his eyes and his brain.  He had been in a coma, attacked by someone with a hatchet, and had lost his wife and daughters through a less than amicable divorce.  His father passed away last August and he had worked in his father’s plumbing business.

Mike loves Paul Newman- his all time favorite movie is “Cool Hand Luke.” Mike loves Jesus and believes that unless you are born again, you cannot have the Holy Spirit inside you.  His speech is garbled and his hearing in his left ear is virtually non-existent. People are usually mean to him.  Mike thinks we are very nice ladies.  He asks what our names are, how long we have been married, how many children we each have, and do we have “good lives?”

When our encounter with Mike began, I found myself staring at the clock behind his head.  My Bible Study co-leader and I had been sitting here for 30 minutes.  I had to go to work tomorrow and we hadn’t even begun to look at our Bible Study options.

As I peered into Mike’s face and gazed into his eyes which seemed to literally dance with life, something in my heart shifted.  In my spirit I wondered if God was using our interaction with Mike to whisper to me:

“You are in such a hurry to plan a Bible Study and I’m sitting here- right in front of you. Do you believe all those things you’ve been reading in My Word?  Do you see Mike- really see him?”

I stopped staring at the clock and listened. I watched Mike’s hands, the way he waved them about wildly as he spoke.  I wondered where he lived- if anyone was expecting him to come home later tonight.  I pondered if the scar on his forehead was indeed courtesy of a “hatchet attack” or some other injury.  I marveled at the events that may have taken place in his life, and the odds of Mike sitting down next to two Bible Study girls from suburbia.

My co-leader and I reached for our coats.  We had been sitting with Mike for well over an hour.  Several times he had bid us goodbye, told us how nice we were to him, and offered us the “Cool Hand Luke” handshake.  I have to confess that every single time he started to leave, I managed to omit part of the handshake. Mike found my omission extremely amusing.  Before we left, Mike asked if we would pray for him.  “Sure, we’ll pray for you,” we answered.  “Right now?” Mike responded.  My co-leader and I looked at one another.  “Yes, right now,” we replied. Mike thanked us for praying for him and this time we said goodbye.  As I drove home, I pondered what had just happened.  I tried to explain the evening’s events to my husband.  My words didn’t do our encounter with Mike justice.

Today I find thoughts of Mike invading my space, my senses, my mind.  Our God smiles- He knows ‘Cool Hand Luke,’ and he wants me to know him too…