The Valley of the Shadow—Not a Bad Place to Visit, But I Hadn’t Planned to Live There

THE MEDICAL EXPERTS WERE OUT OF IDEAS, and Tom and I were out of our spiritual depths. Too much coming at us too fast. Bolstering was the next logical step. We needed a man with a professional connection to God.

OUR MINISTER, ROBERT, listened with a sympathetic expression, and when we were finished, he offered the strangest prayer I’ve ever heard. “Father, we’re mad at you. We don’t like what is happening to Tamara, and we don’t think it’s right. You’ve closed off every possibility for her, and we don’t know where else to turn. Neither, it seems, do the doctors. We want more from you. We want your guidance, and we need it now. Amen.”

ROBERT HAD SUMMED IT UP, and I felt better. The three of us talked. This was a lousy deal. Two months before I’d been full of energy, symptom-free, and, bam! I needed to shop for a coffin. How could this happen?

ROBERT OFFERED ME A TISSUE BOX and the advice I needed. He told me to begin talking about living and dying until I could manage either with equal ease. Tom was to allow me to do this, and I was to do it as much as I needed to get comfortable with my own mortality. I think it was harder on Tom to give me that permission than it was for me to exercise it.

TALKING ABOUT MY DEATH started out with practical plans. Wills and funerals. Never was it about giving up. I began reviewing the promises in the Bible. I began learning to really believe God. Learning to leave fear on the devil’s doorstep.

I WOULD DIE IF THAT WERE THE PLAN, but if I were to live . . . I only knew how to go at life one way—and that was full-throttle.

THEN IT DAWNED ON ME. No matter how much I wanted it, no matter how much I might mourn it, my old life would not come back. Change so big I couldn’t grasp it was staring me down. And I would have to learn to live within a different set of restraints or give up.

AND IT HAS NEVER BEEN my nature to give up.

You’re blessed! Be a blessing.