Chris's Lymphoma Journey

It was our joy and gift to return to Thailand during the month of June.  It was a promise kept for our kids, it was a time to see friends who are like family, it was a chance to experience together where we lived for 15 years, and it was a time to bookend our journey by closing down our rental home and manage our earthly belongings.  The Lord was so gracious to allow it and we were blessed, though at times it was very hard – hard to say goodbye to a community, place, and way of life that we loved, as well as challenging to dismantle our home on the other side of the globe from where I now sit.  

Thank you for your prayers – we know many of you were with us in spirit. We have endless appreciation for the “stayers” in Chiang Mai that loved us and served us in our leaving.

We plan to share more in upcoming posts.

Please join us in prayer:

– for Chris as we anticipate another round of testing come August 18.  We rejoice that our insurance approved a full year of his special medication, this was unexpected.

–for wisdom in our professional roles regarding when to take on additional responsibilities

I crafted the liturgy below as we prepared to leave our community in Thailand after 15 years. It draws inspiration from and incorporates excerpts from Douglas Kaine McKelvey’s Every Moment Holy Volumes I–III. I am deeply grateful for the beauty and richness of the words in these books, which helped shape this liturgy. Often, before saying farewell to friends, I would gather everyone together to read this liturgy to both remember who God is and grieve our moving away.

Oh Christ, Exalted Prince of Heaven, O Christ Radiant King of Earth,

Your glories are everlasting.

You are the living head of your body, the divine bridegroom of your church.  You are the desire of all nations.

You hold authority over death and life, over all peoples and kingdoms, over all principalities and powers.  All creation is your inheritance.  You are the fullness that fills all things.

Through you all things were created and by your redeeming works all things will be made new.  

All glory and power are yours O Christ.  You lack nothing.

You are worthy of praise. Your ways are holy and high. When emotions swirl’round our feet like a rising flood, we will lift our hands in prayer, reaching to you, for the waters respond to your command.

In our grief you are with us,

Through it we come to know you more.

You make all things beautiful 

And you do so in your time, not in ours.

The list of our uncertainties is long. But longer still is the list of your provisions.

When we are overwhelmed, let your Spirit bring to our remembrance stories of

your faithfulness. Let us count the many ways you have met, supported, taught, and delivered each of us in days gone by.

For you have been faithful, O Lord.

Let those past moments of deliverance and joy come to mind, that our hearts might again believe in the gracious reality of your love.

Amidst the pain that lades these days, give us courage, O Lord; courage to live them fully, to love and to allow ourselves to be loved, to remember, grieve, and honor what was, to live with thanksgiving in what is, and to invest in the hope of what will be.

Be at work gilding these long heartbreaks with the advent of new joys, good friendships, true fellowships, unexpected delights.

Remind us once again and again of your goodness, your presence, your promises.

For this is who we are: a people of The Promise-

a people shaped in the image of the God whose very being generates all joy in the universe, yet who also weeps and grieves its brokenness.

So we, your children, are also at liberty to lament our losses, even as we simultaneously rejoice in the hope of their coming restoration.

And that is who you are,

Restorer of all things. 

You were before all things, you created all things, and

in you all things are held together.

There is no corner of creation you will fail to redeem, even this.

You are Lord of Lords, and King of Kings,

O Jesus Christ, our King of Everything.

Amen