When Bravery is Stillness: Desperate Hope in a Nightmare Diagnosis

“We couldn’t avoid or bypass this day – we had to stare it down and then walk through it.  Here’s the crazy part of walking into the fear: While avoidance and escape feel safe, having to step right into the hard time and stay there is always when and how I’m most blessed.”       ~Ellie Poole Ewoldt, Chase Away Cancer

 

Ellie Poole Ewoldt speaks from experience.  Not just of hard and long days as a mom of 4 kids, but of many a mother’s worst nightmare – of holding her little boy’s hand as they walked through a battle with childhood cancer.  I’m thrilled to have Ellie as a guest at I Choose Brave today.  Her words are authentic, hard fought, convicting and brave.  May you be encouraged by her brave today.  And read on to the end for a chance to win a copy of Ellie’s new book! ~Katie

 

In the heart of a beautiful country, in the heart of a historic city, there stands a story etched into the very rocks of the earth.  A lion lies wounded; dying actually, and in death, he has thrown himself over a shield, decorated with the symbol of another monarchy and country.

Art.

Beauty.

Truth.

 One lays their life out for another.

 

I first saw the Lion of Lucerne when I visited Switzerland fifteen years ago. My memories of the trip are dimming with each passing year, but I still remember exactly what it felt like to view that etching of bravery chiseled into stone. It was larger than life, as all bravery is, and though totally still, it was completely active in its purpose.

How is silence a shout? I do not know, but I’ve seen it.

Almost four years ago, I stood arrested mid-breath as an ER doctor shook his head and quietly spoke the words “There’s a large mass” to my husband and I beside the bed of our beloved two-year-old son. What followed was at times unspeakably difficult. We stood by Chase as he fought cancer with everything he had, and it was brutal. But in some ways, the hardest part of the struggle was the times that called for stillness.

To me, a fight always means action, but under the words of a cancer diagnosis, I spent far too many hours and days sitting still on the edge of a hospital bed, in a surgery waiting room, and in a dozen other waiting rooms. We would wait to see him again after procedures, wait for news, for results, for improvements, anything to say we were moving forward in the awful fight.

 

And you know what I have found? It kills me a little and I struggle against it even now, but sometimes the biggest and bravest way to fight in the cancer, the illness, the hardship of any kind, is to be completely still – to lay myself out for another in silence.

It seems counterintuitive when every fiber of my being is crying to physically lash out or run out or…I don’t even know what… Clean? Bake a cake, maybe? Surely, anything is better than being quiet in the storm. Stillness feels powerless and I know that feeling all too well. It reminds me of sitting in the waiting room while Chase lay with his skull open in an operating room too far away from me. It reminds me of dressing changes and IV needles when Bob or I would literally lay ourselves out over our screaming son to hold him motionless for his immediate safety. It was for his protection and his ultimate good. But how I ached in the being still; the holding him still and being silent while his screams rang shrill in my ears.

Yet, just a hint like the lion immortalized in stone, sometimes our very stillness is our strength. Sometimes, it’s in our stretching out, our laying out of our time, our bodies, and our very lives that we are most powerful. In brave sacrifice, we make the biggest difference to those around us. In brave sacrifice, we become the hands and feet of Jesus to the people in our lives.

 

I watched Chase learn that bravery again and again. He sought deliverance, but all too often, none came. The port needle had to be changed again, the procedure had to be done, the chemo had to be given, and his greatest, strongest act was often to simply stretch himself out and say:

“I accept this. I may cry throughout because my heart and body hurt, but I will not fight it because, in this moment, it is necessary.”

In many ways it comes down to this: we didn’t get to say “no” to the cancer, to the fact that it spread itself through the body of my little boy. We didn’t get a pass on days and nights without end, past our capacity for sanity in the hospital, separated from our other children. There was no way to bypass chemotherapies and radiation and transfusion after transfusion when his body had nothing left in itself anymore.  But here are some things that I did and do say “yes” to in the stillness and pain and sometimes they are the only answer as the pain stretches us out:

I say yes to being still because I know that He is still God (Psalm 46:10)

I say yes to being silent and waiting for my deliverance because He Himself promises to fight for me (Exodus 14:13-14)

I say yes to bravery of the craziest nature because if He stands with me, than none can stand against me (Romans 8:31)

I say yes to the inexplicable and difficult days because I know The Day is coming when pain and suffering will be no more (Revelations 21:3-6)

My heart and life remain broken because we continue in the middle of this broken world and each new day brings new fear, but God has promised to be my strength and my portion. He has promised that not even cancer can separate me from His love, and His presence alone is the way of life and joy forever.

Sometimes the only answer to the impossible question of pain comes like this: God is God and His heart is for me. I can go to Him, wrestle Him, interact with Him until the dim pain becomes clear joy because His plans for me are good even when I cannot see the purpose.

Sometimes the bravery in the impossible fight comes like this: I must lay myself out in acceptance and be still.

So live with the greatest hope and expectation, for He is not done with us yet.

Moment by moment.

 

Friends, I’m delighted to tell you that Ellie’s Memoir, Chase Away Cancer, (Affliate link) releases today!  I know, she’s writing here, at I Choose Brave, on her release day.  How lucky are we?

I’ve read the book and let me tell you – it’s wonderful and heart breaking, raw and beautiful all at the same time.  Ellie shares the honest, vulnerable and occasionally funny challenges of battling childhood cancer with her sweet boy, Chase.  She details her struggles with fear, guilt, joy, anger and gratitude in ways that broke my heart and brought forth hope all at the same time.  While her story is unique in that it involves cancer, her search for purpose, her fight for joy, her struggle for grace is applicable to each and every one of our dark and lonely battles.  My copy of the book is already dog-eared and underlined because these are brave truths I need to know and remember.

Good news for you – Ellie’s publisher Tyndale Momentum, has graciously offered to give away a couple copies of Chase Away Cancer to I Choose Brave readers!  Simply use the Rafflecopter below to enter by midnight on Friday and we’ll send two lucky readers a copy of the book (which can also be found on Amazon or wherever else you buy your books.)  Don’t miss your chance on this one, friends.  This is a story you won’t soon forget.
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