There you are
this cold day
boiling the water on the stove,
pouring the herbs into the pot,
hawthorn, rose;
buying the tulips
& looking at them, holding
your heart in your hands at the table
saying please, please, to nobody else
there in the kitchen with you.
How hard, how heavy this all is.
How beautiful, these things you do,
in case they help, these things you do
that, although you haven’t said it yet,
say that you want to live.
~Victoria Adukwei Bulley “There You Are”

Our daily rituals are so routine and mundane, unless they are disrupted by unexpected and unwanted events. Then we desire nothing more than to get back to what is routine, familiar and comforting.

Right now, I’m aware of at least four friends in our small church congregation who are undergoing treatment for cancer, and a couple others who are waiting on testing results. They would love nothing more than a boringly routine day like they had known pre-diagnosis. Instead, nothing seems as if it will ever be the same again, except an awareness of how precious and valued each day of life is.

Thankfully, very few people are forced to share their life-threatening illnesses with the world via headlines, videos and photos like the King of England and Princess of Wales. Surely, that adds another layer of hard heaviness on top of dealing with such difficult, exhausting treatments and interventions.

For those coping with challenging medical illness, I pray for comforting rituals and routines that remind you how much you are loved. These beautiful moments of everyday life are reasons you want to live, even as you do these hard things.

May your heart and soul be held in loving hands as you see this through.