Cancer Is Eating My Friend {Pray for Bethany}

Apologies for the harsh title. It's just how I feel. It's all the cliches; it's all the usual descriptors; it's all the ick that exists.

It's a nightmare that won't end. A train wreck in slow motion. A Mack truck making its rounds. A breath I'm trying to catch. I'm in the deep end. I'm treading water . . . and not very well.

Only last week my friend, Bethany Lytle, learned of her breast cancer diagnosis. In the handful of days that followed, I've read these words in emails and Facebook updates and heard messages over the phone:

The cancer is confirmed.
Then it's invasive and aggressive.
Surgery postponed for months, maybe a year until chemo has a chance to work
Depressed and in a dark place.
Next, feeling very poorly
The doctor wants you to come back in
Calcium is dangerously high.
Having a PET.
Chemo next Monday
No, chemo on this Friday
Wait. Chemo tomorrow.
Not having a PET
The cancer is aggressive
Praying for a miracle.

Cancer is eating my friend. And I feel sick. Sick to my stomach. Sick in my heart. My friend is sick with cancer.

And she's just not any friend. She is a dearest, a best, a "just-like-a-sister." We shared millions of laughs, tears, and bags of Doritos in the 14 years I've known her. We've watched each other marry. We've moved miles away. We've welcomed babies. We planned to be cranky old Southern women together. I still want that.

I struggle to understand the role and purpose of prayer in relation to God's sovereignty. Yet, that complexity doesn't keep me from believing prayer is purposeful and necessary. If God has placed such emphasis on it and it's role in my life, I will pursue it . . . while clinging to Romans 8. Please, groan on my behalf, on my friend's behalf. I am praying without ceasing, and I mean that quite literally. I am praying because of who Jesus is and what He has accomplished for Bethany and myself; after all, that is the meaning of "in Jesus' name." I am praying as one who grieves but never does so without hope. I am praying boldly. I am praying with supplications and thanksgiving. I am praying.

And I beg you to do the same.

As "coincidence" would have it, this weekend is a first-ever girls' trip for my college buddies and me. Bethany was to be part of that trip, but, obviously she cannot attend. And as "coincidence" goes, the getaway destination turned out to be a short distance from where she is hospitalized. So the four friends are driving to visit with Bethany and her family during our trip. It's not what we planned those many months ago when we daydreamed about this trip, but I am immensely grateful for the opportunity to visit my friend and share the experience with the girls who helped me become a woman.

I will look to the hills. From where comes my help? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.