Sing for the joy that's found in setting up the pins and knocking them down

Monday, December 3, 2018

Bracing Myself for Impact




Simon is learning to drive.  This process puts me back in the passenger seat, attempting to predict every thing regarding other drivers, road conditions and an inexperienced driver's reactions.  It puts me on edge and I long for the day when all my children are far better drivers than me.  So this is the scene.  Each time that traffic is slowing unexpectedly or I see the tail lights go red ahead of me, I fear that he's certainly going to run directly into the car ahead of us.  In order to stop this from happening or at least save myself and him from harm, I raise my right arm to the arm rest, grip the arm rest and brace for impact, absolutely certain that this small bodily action will keep us from peril. Just for the record, it probably won't. 

This time of year has me doing the emotional equivalent of strategic but useless clutching of the armrest alongside my passenger seat.  I see everything turn red in front of me and I brace myself once again for anniversaries, holidays, and all the milestones that come with this season. 

I was diagnosed with breast cancer on October 24, I had my first chemo on November 17 and Eric died on December 4.  Those are the tail lights that I see each year, lighting up and coming toward me.  You would like to think that by year five those lights would dim and maybe, just maybe, not light up at all.  I'm telling you that you that they still do and likely always will.  

In some ways this leaves me in a hard realistic place.  Secretly I had held desperately to the idea that at 5 years there would be no more useless gripping of the arm rest.  That at 5 years, my life would be uninterrupted or at least less interrupted by grief.  I know I've said this before and I'll likely say it forever, but as an eternal optimist and I hoped this would be true.  

Five years ago, I had to start over.  I had to figure out a new me and, sadly, the old me is never coming back.  Not at 5 years, 10 years or any amount of years.  I have adjusted to Eric's loss. I spend precious little time wondering what it would be like if he were suddenly dropped into our day to day lives.  I'm letting go of the hard work of trying to measure each life decision against what he would have wanted.  And yet I've spent so much time trying to uselessly brace myself for the unknown.  

On the eve of this December 4, I'm going to try to let go of the armrest.  I'm going to think of all the tender ways that my heavenly father has loved me, comforted me and grown me in these last 5 years.  We have accomplished things that I never dreamed was possible. And now more than ever I'm certain that He didn't create me to be a passenger grasping for some kind of imagined safety. He didn't create me to live in fear of what's to come. He created me to live fearlessly in Him--even when all the lights turn red.  He is all I need to face this year and all the years to come. 


To each of you who supports our family--who loves us from near or far, who prays for us regularly, who blesses us with your friendship and offers us a tissue and embrace when the tears fall--thank you, thank you, thank you.  You are a gift, and we are grateful and humbled. 



Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.  Joshua 1:9

Monday, April 2, 2018

Our Hope, Our Story




Our church has started a 6 week series of member stories and testimonials.  Bart asked if I would be willing to share our story on Easter morning.  It was a privilege to be able to share how God has grown and sustained us over these past 4 years. 


My name is Dawn Rynders and I’ve been a City Life member for a little over 7 years. I’m the mom to Henry off in college, Beatrice who is a junior in hs and Simon who is a freshman. Some of you know our story because you walked through it with us but others of you are new enough to City Life that you maybe know very little about our family. This is our story of hope and today is a pretty perfect day to share that with all of you.

In Oct of 2013, during Breast cancer awareness month, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. My children found it a little amusing that I managed to get breast cancer during breast cancer awareness month. I did not find it terrible amusing. My breast cancer was your pretty normal, run of the mill, trying to kill you variety. I quickly was surrounded by a team of rock star oncologists and surgeons and a plan was put in place to get me back to healthy after a year of different forms of not so nice treatments and surgeries.

It was strange to be the sick one in our household. Eric, my husband of nearly 22 years had a genetic heart condition that lived mostly quietly within our family and the attention we had to pay to it was very routine. He lived life hopefully every day--he hoped that his medication would work, he hoped that this or that procedure might help, and he hoped that he would have many more days with us. Eric passed away six weeks after my diagnosis. All his hopes on this earth were replaced with the hope of heaven that he had always held firmly to.

It was a dark and cold winter and to say that I needed something to hope in would be a dramatic understatement. I had a cancer battle that couldn’t be postponed and three kids who still wanted to be fed, still made dirty clothes and still needed someone to help them understand their grief and help guide them into their new life.

I was surrounded by all the support, meals and prayers that a person could ever hope for. But it’s hard to remember those things every morning when you have to lift your head from the pillow once again. The life ahead of me felt like a very long and dark tunnel. Because I had been raised in a beautiful and solid Christian home, my faith went into autopilot and I continued to put one foot in front of the other, both physically and spiritually. The hope I clung to in those days was the hope of Heaven--hope with and capital H where I could once again see my earthly husband and heavenly savior. This was the light at the end of my tunnel.

As I made my way daily through this dark tunnel, focusing on the heavenly light on the other end, I was surrounded by lovely people and the very evident power of prayer. But with each day I became more and more aware of how much life on earth was between me and that Heavenly hope.

You never feel more keenly aware of being alive than when you experience death. Eric was gone, but for some reason, I was not. I was alive. My kids were alive. And something needed to matter between where I stood and where I was ultimately heading. So I stopped and asked myself why are you here, in this tunnel and what might you be missing on your journey?

It was tempting to look back and long for what was our family, it’s was also tempting to look too far forward and miss the lessons and love and work that were right at my fingertips. I’m a visual person and I had to, in a sense, light a candle in that dark tunnel and appreciate the lessons and blessings that were to be found in every day, in every moment and in every step on this path I had been given. God opened my eyes to the hope and beauty that was in the sunrise each day, to the blessing of my children’s laughter, to a smile from a long lost friend across the sanctuary. He wasn’t just at the end of the tunnel cheering me on, he was right beside me, holding me up all along. He helped me to not only see hope as an exit plan but to also see it as a framework to look through and appreciate each day that I will be given. This kind of hope is a gift and it isn’t just reserved for cancer and death--it there for each of us as we face each day in each tunnel we have been given.

I’m going to leave with you some words of an old favorite hymn that have come to mind often in these last 4 years:

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.
I dare not trust the sweetest frame
But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.

So today on this holiday of hope, we gratefully say Christ has risen!, He has risen indeed!