Dear Friends,

I don’t have much news, but perhaps it helps just to tell you that. I have really turned inwards, spending time with the people that I live with, and not spending much time with people outside my address. They are the ones that would be most impacted by my absence, and the ones that I truly “do life with.” Spending a day fully present with them is the way I want to spend most of the days I’ve been given. 

Being present in the present is my mode. I don’t spend time in the past, or in the future, but I feel very absorbed with the present, very satisfied with the present, and very strong in the present. The current moment is where all my strength is, all my grace is – strength and grace both being gifts for our present moments.

I am reading a book that mentions that if resurrection and forgiveness are possible, there is hope, and “the future is always an open source of surprise.” Those are my two lights of hope right now, the things I can really hang my hope on, that renewal of the heart and the body have actually happened and will happen. I guess those things are both in the past and the future, but they completely revolutionize the way I can inhabit the present. Nothing eternal is truly lost. 

I got my ureteral stent out, not with any real data to say it would be ok, but just kind of because I had no reason (fear) to keep it in. I followed a keto diet for six weeks. Again, just sort of because I could and it was my own sort of chemo. I’m in the sun as much as possible, gardening a lot, and trying to gain weight through muscle mass. I am taking some chinese herbal OTC things, and some basic supplements, and am setting my sights on full-body health, looking for outputs of joy, creativity, and connection. That has been the bulk of my health plan.  

I have been miraculously welcomed into an integrative medical practice that seems excited to delve into my sicknesses and support the health of my body with multiple modalities. They are starting me on some well-researched vitamin treatments. Meanwhile, they are looking into the full health picture to make a plan. 

Please pray for me. I know God heals me. It doesn’t make sense that I am still here. Most people with this disease are either fully healed or dead. God knew all along that I would live in these times, and by that I mean the late spring days of 2024. He is being so abundantly generous to me, and I will never be outside of his hand, or outside of peace with him. Even with all that abundance, I want more days on earth and he has been happy to give them to me. Pray for more of the good things he gives. I have been saying thank you, and please more.

With my focus on my nuclear family, I have turned down quite a few offers for visits and help in order to maintain “normal” with them. I am totally their mom right now, having normalcy that is incredibly precious and regenerative to all of us, normalcy I never thought we would have again, and normalcy that I cannot maintain. I never know when I will be taken out of the sun, for a migraine, or for a surgery, or forever. Thank you for supporting my motherhood and my family’s emotional wellbeing by supporting “normal” with us, while my body is letting me be so strong and present. I’m here to do the thankless jobs and listen to their whining, to be ignored by them, to waste time with them, to order socks for them, to try art stuff and gardening stuff and organize their closets. Such is the beauty of normal. 

My job is to be present for today and to not put on them a burden they cannot bear, the burden that we truly cannot bear – the burden and worry of how to spend our time. How to spend days I might not have is a question that postures me to worry and hoard. But what to do in the today that I do have relaxes my hands into generosity, and it is a loose sort of holding, a gentle sort of bearing. God is being SO generous to me, and the present is a place where I can actually receive his generosity and let it flow to my kids. 

Thank you for your presence in my silence. I’ve been in my office, my home life, which is out of touch with most of you, but in touch with my family. I don’t truly know the status of my health, and sometimes that is scary, and we are scared. You can thank God for a new integrative practice that is caring for me, pray for wisdom and energy for them to do the good things they do. They are spending their days working for quality in mine. Thank you for your perseverance in asking for my body to be healed — God is always healing and sustaining me, and we ask for more. I am extremely grateful for your prayers and love.

Love,

Bailey