Patient Endurance

ka'tie'less, a.  1. Without Katie

ka'tie'less-ness, n.  1. The state of being without Katie.

I've read that cancer patients and their families typically suffer from symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, the disorder that plagues rape victims and combat veterans. On many days, I feel as if I suffer from it. I have horrendous flashbacks, bad mental pictures - from the days in the hospital, and on hospice care - that flit onto the screen of my mind, and stick there, randomly. I have to make a conscious effort to come back to, and remain in, the present. If I stay in the flashbacks, I suffer the horrors again; if I leave them, I leave memories of my daughter.

I've been feeling anger in my grieving, lately. Perhaps it's just a phase; I don't know. But I am not someone who is really at ease being angry; I prefer to live with gratitude and love. I think anger, left to grow, becomes toxicity, and I don't want my life and my work to be laced with toxic anger.

"There is nothing that pleases the Lord so much as praise. There is
no test of faith so true as the grace of thanksgiving. Are you

praising God enough? Are you thanking Him for your actual blessings

that are more than can be numbered, and are you daring to praise
Him even for those trials which are but blessings in disguise? Have
you learned to praise Him in advance for the things that have not
yet come?"   - Anonymous

After reading this quote first thing this morning, I confess, I felt angry. Because if this quote suggests that the trial of Katie's illness and death was/is a BLESSING,  NO, thank you!

What would that mean about God?

What would that mean about Katie? Her life is a blessing, but her suffering and death? I don't see it that way. Being Katie-less isn't a blessing, in disguise or otherwise.

As I read further (in a daily devotional), here is what I found:

"These then were Christ's inward virtues: humility, charity, and

patient endurance. These three virtues Christ our Bridegroom

practised during all His life, and He died with them, and paid our

debt according to justice. And of His generosity He has opened His

side. Thence flow forth the rivers of well-being and the sacraments

of bliss. And He has ascended in power, and sits at the right hand

of the Father, and reigns in eternity." - THE ADORNMENT OF THE SPIRITUAL MARRIAGE, by St. John of Rusybroeck (1293-1381)

For sure, I learned more humility on the cancer ward; I had never lived with life-threatening illness, never lived in a hospital, never been a nurse. I was new, I made mistakes, and learned to laugh at myself. Charity was natural, as we love our children deeply. But patient endurance is not something I was taught at home, nor have I observed it being held up as a desirable virtue in our culture. Fixing, changing, improving, earning: yes. Patient endurance? That sounds like failure, like lying down and giving up. But it's not.

I think patient endurance may be the only non-violent way to deal with something like suffering and death from an incurable disease.

Patient endurance is what I saw Katie (and many other kids in the hospital and on caringbridge) exemplify. I also see it in their families.

Patient endurance means entering hell on earth with those you love, so no one has to suffer alone.

Patient endurance means staying when everyone (including you) wants to run away.

Patient endurance means witnessing horrors you wish you'd never seen, and offering comfort and love in the midst of those horrors.

Patient endurance means listening to words that cut your heart.

Patient endurance means feeling fear and facing into it.

Patient endurance means knowing that there is no reasonable hope for the outcome you want, but hoping for the best anyway.
Patient endurance means getting up every morning, no matter how tired you are, to face whatever comes next.

Patient endurance means dealing with what is thrown at you, moment by moment.

Patient endurance means gratitude for the smallest joys.

Patient endurance means looking for the good and the humor in the moment.

Patient endurance means learning to live without what you want.
Patient endurance means learning to live with what you don't want.

Patient endurance would not be possible, for me, without God.

"But He said to me, My grace (My favor and loving-kindness and mercy) is enough for you [sufficient against any danger and enables you to bear the trouble manfully]; for My strength and power are made perfect (fulfilled and completed) and show themselves most effective in [your] weakness. Therefore, I will all the more gladly glory in my weaknesses and infirmities, that the strength and power of Christ (the Messiah) may rest (yes, may pitch a tent over and dwell) upon me!" - 2 Corinthians 12:9 (Amplified Bible)

Put in other words:  "...so I wouldn't get a big head, I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations...[and] push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty! At first I didn't think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then he told me,

'My grace is enough; it's all you need.

My strength comes into its own in your weakness.'

Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift.

 It was a case of Christ's strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size—abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become." - 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 (The Message)

I'm not there yet. I am still "focusing on the handicap;" I want my daughter!

I will never believe that it was God's will for Katie to suffer and die. I believe that His will, for all of us, is good, but that - for some mysterious reason - this is a broken and flawed world that we inhabit.
 

Perhaps, now, patient endurance for me means learning to live with this "thorn," this "weakness," this horrendous, stupendous, enormous loss, this Katieless-ness, with patience, and enduring it with as much grace as possible.

I am thankful that God knows that we need a pattern, and that He has given us Jesus, Mary, Saul (who became the Apostle Paul, and who wrote the letter quoted above), and Abraham, Moses, David and others whose lives can teach us patient endurance (if we are willing to learn). And I pray that this anger will be transformed into loving energy.