I will begin with a prayer: thank you, God, for getting us through to the other side.

Thank you for the things we know, but also for the things that we don’t know.

You prepare us for them all, and you grant us joy in the midst.

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This time last year, my family and I were waiting in the hospital while my mother was undergoing surgery. She had been diagnosed with an early stage of invasive breast cancer in June, and the surgeon and her medical team moved quickly with her treatment plan. 

This was not her first bout with breast cancer. Surgery was more arduous, the recovery more taxing, in 1993.

No treatments were necessary, but she had suffered terrible pain. 

What would this time be like? We already knew that chemotherapy would be a part of the follow-up plan, but would the surgery be just as hard as that first one, so many years ago?

My father, sister, and I waited. Hospitals are often cold, antiseptic places, seemingly devoid of feeling, warmth, and light. I had brought some reading material to pass the time, so I settled in for the wait.

“Hello! And what a blessed day! How is everyone today!” 

I looked up to see a large lady in colorful clothes wearing comfortable tennis shoes, walking slowly through the waiting area, dignified in her bearing.

She wore a hospital badge with the title of “chaplain.”

“I’m just coming through to say good morning and to check on everyone.” She proceeded to travel the room and speak with each person or family group.

And then she was with my family. My dad gave the reason for our being there.

The chaplain’s response: “She’s in good hands. Everyone’s going to take great care of her.” 

We began a conversation with her. She had worked in ministries at local churches for several years, but it was her time as a chaplain that brought her the most joy.

“Yes, sometimes things are hard for people,” she said, “but we keep going and finding joy every day.” She smiled at us, a big toothy grin. “I try to spread it wherever I go.”

She was like spring sunshine that warms cold, brick walls, leaving you wanting more.

She left us, continuing on her daily rounds, but the mood in the waiting area had shifted: people seemed a little more filled with hope, and a little less anxious.

It wasn’t long after that we got the call from the surgeon. Everything had gone well, just as expected.

It wasn’t long after that we went to the floor of the hospital where Mother would be spending the night and I with her, my sister and father retiring to a local hotel. 

It wasn’t long after that she was giddy with thinking of people to look up on my social media accounts, to see their pictures, activities, and posts. I lay in the hospital bed with her as if it were a sleepover party instead of a hospital stay. Still, I observed the nurses stripping her drain tubes. I heard the post-surgical care instructions given.

It wasn’t long after that the doctor came in the next morning, clearing her to be discharged.

It wasn’t long after, three days in fact, that we sat around a table and silked corn. Mother cooked the scrap remnants for her beloved cats to enjoy.

She said, “This time is not nearly as bad.”

And it wasn’t long after that I too experienced a diagnosis of breast cancer. I had a bilateral mastectomy, with the same hospital stay, the same kind of drain tubes, and the same type of incisions as my mother.

I’d be lying if I said the past year has been all roses. There have been hard moments. 

But when I look back on it all, what I see the most, coming in like light to illumine the scared and broken places in my soul, is simple:

It’s joy.

It’s never long before joy shows up: in a text from a friend or a family member, in the dog curled up against my legs, in a Bible verse that comes to mind.

Joy is found in hospital rooms, where I snuggled in bed with my mother, while we enjoyed photos from our friends and relatives: vacations, new babies, and birthday parties.

Joy is found in cooking corn remnants for your cats.

Joy is in the holidays, in the everydays, and in the hard days, in the renewed realization that the best thing we have is not presents, or money, or even our health.

The best thing we have is each other.

And it’s holding on to the hope, when our thoughts are dark and our fears have trapped us, that it won’t be long before joy walks in to release us.

Sometimes joy might be a large lady in colorful clothes, moving slowly in wide tennis shoes.

She would say we’ve got to keep going.

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I will end with a prayer: thank you, God, for getting us through to the other side.

Thank you for the things we know, but also for the things that we don’t know.

You prepare us for them all, and you grant us joy in the midst.