Praying For Time
This weekend our family celebrated our youngest’s eighteenth birthday – a major milestone which at one point I doubted that I’d ever see. In fact, eight years ago, when I was first diagnosed with cancer – and she was just ten years old – one of my most fervent prayers was that I would live to see this birthday. And as we partied, I looked back in wonder and gratitude that I have survived long enough to see her graduate to adulthood.
The whole concept of time takes on a particular poignancy when you have been diagnosed with cancer. Everyone’s experience will be different but when I first found out I had cancer my time horizons shrank dramatically.
Unsure about how long I had left to walk upon this earth, I had to contemplate a future which I might not be a part of; in fact I went so far as to write letters, and to put together gifts, for the major milestones in my children’s lives including their eighteenth and twenty first birthdays — as well as their weddings and the birth of their first born children (the grandchildren that I couldn’t imagine I would ever see).And while I prayed fervently that I would see my children grow up — to blossom into adults — on a day to day basis I found I was only able to focus on the very short term; to plan beyond the next twenty four hours seemed presumptuous.
When I gained a clearer idea of my prognosis and treatment, that time horizon extended slightly and I was able to think about my life in blocks of twenty one days (the time between each of my chemotherapy cycles). And, when against all odds, I went into remission, my time horizon expanded even further, enabling me to plan ahead for the three months before my next quarterly check-up. Until, after a couple of years in remission, I finally allowed myself the luxury of a trip to Australia to see our family, a process that involved buying a reasonably priced ticket nearly a year in advance. However, as I pressed the confirm purchase button on the airline website, I felt that familiar frisson of doubt – will I ever actually make this trip or will the cancer claim my future once again?
And then finally in 2020 when I passed the five year survival mark, I allowed myself the outrageous hope that cancer was a thing of the past, and began to get used to the idea that I was going to live. Until on March 8th 2021 I received the dread phone call to tell me that my mammogram had once again detected cancer. At which point my time horizon once again began to shrink and I was back to thinking one day at a time.
Now as I near the end of my cancer treatment and face what will hopefully be my final surgery, I am slowly beginning to think ahead again. However my future focus is still somewhat tentative. On this latest cancer journey, I have faced so many twists and turns that I am still loathe to anything into my calendar more than a week or two in advance.
But God has been so very good to me; he walked with me every step of the way and has brought me through many dangers. So on the day I celebrated my youngest’s eighteenth birthday, I dared to pray a new prayer; that I might now survive cancer long enough to see both of my children married to loving partners and perhaps even get to hold a grandchild. But at the same time I also recognise that ‘With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day’ (2 Peter 3:8), and that my times are truly in his hands.
Kate Nicholas is a preacher, Christian author, broadcaster and consultant. Her best-selling memoir Sea Changed (shortlisted as Christian Biography of the Year 2017) is an account of her unconventional journey of faith and previous healing from advanced cancer.
Her latest book, Soul’s Scribe (launched in 2021) draws on scripture, philosophy, psychology and over 20 years’ of reflection as a Christian communicator to take you on a journey through the various chapters of your soul story, providing you with the tools to share that story in a way that will inspire and encourage others.
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