How People Will Talk

"God caused this and God is testing you," the Green Bay oncologist told me.

"I don't believe it," I told him back.

I don't remember anything more about our office visit but I remember going back into the waiting room by the big fish tank and talking to a man sitting there because I just couldn't keep quiet. "My doctor just told me that God caused this and God is testing me," I reported. "He is wrong," I made sure to add. The man did not reply. Still living the after-shocks of the doc's bomb shell theology, I hear my name being called to the big chair in room number 8. Put on a mask so that the nurse can access my Power Port with a 3/4 inch needle and take my chemo like a soldier.

Relationship with God is not something to be messed with. God will triumph and the truth be known but it sure is painful along the way. I remember when Velen Kruger fundamentalist that he was told me that I was an abomination to God when I cut my hair. Verlen knew the chapter and verse and put his nail split finger on the rice paper page to prove it to me. He kept reading those verses to me thinking one time I was going to hear. When I became a lay speaker, I remember Verlen wouldn't go to hear me preach. I was all dressed and heading out the door Sunday morning and he said; "You are an abomination to God. Women are not to preach." He showed me chapter and verse proof. I went to preach anyway.

From my experience, God does not hit a person up the side of the head with a two-by-four to get attention. God does not cause cancer. God does not hurt people to teach lessons. God is not some professor gone wild with mid term and final exams plus bonus questions coming at you and a grade point average breathing down the neck. God does not abuse God's power. God is perfect love relationship.

God is with Aderea who came in this morning to help me with my shower, rub my back with hydrating cream and make my bed with fresh linen so I could experience God makes all things new one more day. God is with Liz who came to walk the 7th floor east with me and point out that the limited floor plan could be a labyrinth walk complete with center triangle with the point of God, Spirit and Son to touch base with as I walk. God is with Joe who calls to say "I love you," one more time. God is with the people in the kitchen somewhere in this huge building who keep answering my calls and sending me more food and Arnell who delivers my tray to me and winks at me until I clap my hands and break out laughing. God is with the gulls who fly and swoop outside my window so that I'm with them in mid-air. God is with the doctor who came in today and said it was not illegal to keep me here past discharge and that waiting until my girls and care provider, Kathy LeClaire are feeling better is all o.k. and he will not send me home to a sick house. God is with Karen, my Stephen Minister assigned to me who came today and read Psalm 118 and prayed. God is with Marianne and Alison who are agreeing to hug and mother my boys until I can be on Island again. God is with house keeping who comes in and wipes all the cob webs away and empties all the trash to start fresh again. God is with Jennifer, the chaplain who came by yesterday and is on her way to Denali for vacation with her mountain man husband in for the treat of her life -- chaplain meets God's snow mountains. God is packed in every card that comes wishing well and care. God is in the good book scripture by my bed. God made my body and my body is doing the work I was made to do and being the miracle I was created to be. Thanks be to God.