It was disappointing given that I was less than two years from the stem cell transplant. I know another Myeloma sufferer who had ten years before further treatment was required. But you can’t argue with the test results and the only response is to prepare yourself psychologically and spiritually. Some verses from the Psalms have been close to me over the past few years:
‘Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him;
do not fret when men succeed in their ways,
when they carry out their wicked schemes.’ (Psalm 37: 7)
The challenge there is to respond in faith when circumstances seem to be getting out of control and there is disturbance within. The problem for me is that I am not naturally a ‘still’ person. Some people would regard that as a badge of honour. ‘None of this sitting about, wasting time, staring into space for me! I need to be up and doing!’ But what lies behind that? What motivates the ‘up and doing’? Someone was once described to me as ‘working on her nerves.’ What might seem to be boundless energy may be the result of some inner disturbance. Anxiety, fear, guilt, obsession, jealousy. These and other impulses can play their part in what the Psalmist calls ‘fretting.’ And it is the opposite of being ’still.’
I have had to work at it, to practise stillness even when it goes against the spiritual grain. Like the other day. Getting ready for the hospital meant remembering to take my pre-treatment medication, making sure my ‘man bag’ had everything I need to pass the time, final conversation with Gabrielle about what to expect from the day. Then in the treatment room I sit for an hour and nothing is happening. That is not a complaint. It’s a busy place and the staff are stretched to keep on top of things. And they do so with such grace. So it falls to we patients to wait. And as I wait I try to practise the presence of God.
Earlier in the waiting area I had met a fellow patient who was quite agitated. It was a bad news day for him and he had waited a long time for a vacant treatment room. At times like this you wonder if you should reach out. Would a word be welcome? I thought I would risk it. And in the end I think he appreciated the contact. We found ourselves reflecting on the appropriateness of being called a ‘patient’. Illness is a time when the quality of patience has to be exercised more than any other. It turned out that this man’s working life had demanded a great deal of patience but in this moment of health crisis he found it to be in diminishing supply.
I can sympathise. I cannot honestly say that every set-back and disappointment has been met with serene acceptance. But the Psalmist does not merely recommend ‘stillness’, he instructs it. That verse from Psalm 37 gripped me so tightly years ago that I was sure it was something that needed to be part of my spiritual DNA. It was even accompanied by a tune! Now there’s a thing. I may have a facility with words but music? Obviously this needed to sink deep. A constant reminder that there is a way through fret, that stillness is possible ‘before the Lord, that we can wait for Him, that His good and loving purpose continues to unfold even through the worst of inner turmoil. This is not achievable through technique but through remembrance of the God revealed in Jesus, the realisation that we are ‘before’ Him, the ‘bearer of our flesh and frailness’, whose Cross proclaims the value God places on each human soul.
I find the way forward in an old hymn ‘O sing a a song of Bethlehem’ in which we are encouraged to focus on scenes from Jesus’ life for our inner strength.
‘O sing a song of Galilee,
Of lake and woods and hill,
Of him who walked upon the sea,
And bade its waves be still:
For though like waves on Galilee,
Dark seas of trouble roll,
When faith has heard the Master’s word,
Falls peace upon the soul.’
