Snapshots of a Mother’s Cancer Experience — A Tattered Black Feather Pt 2

When I was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer in 2000, I came face-to-face with my own mortality—and learned some profound lessons that transformed my view of reality. I would never sign up for my cancer experience, but neither would I trade away the treasures mined from it.

Above all, I learned to live with the awareness that we all really do have an impending, inescapable appointment awaiting us. We all have an appointment with God. No matter how busy or distracted we are or how distant that appointment may seem, one telephone call can change everything.

My call came when I was a 40-year-old mother of two preschool children and a happily married wife. The following post is Part 15 in “Snapshots of a Mother’s Cancer Experience,” a series that chronicles my journey through diagnosis, surgery, and beyond. (You can find a chronological list of the previous Snapshots here.)

 

2000
Friday, August 4

(Continued from Part 1)

It took many months and an assortment of miracles for me to decide to trust Jesus and surrender control of my life to him. That didn’t actually  happen until March 11, 1991.

Back in 1990, in the early days of my search for God, when I equated feathers with His fingerprints, finding a tattered black feather amid parsley leaves moments before midnight made me marvel. But the dramatic feather find that followed later that week convinced me that I had witnessed a small, highly personal, made-to-order miracle.

Back then, I carried a Dictaphone voice recorder with me everywhere to take notes and capture ideas. One day, the recorder went missing.

For the record, I had rollerbladed 8.25 miles at a nearby forest preserve the previous day, and then realized my house keys were missing. Thinking I may have dropped them while skating, I retraced the entire path, carefully scanning the ground. Roger joined me. When we didn’t find my keys, I searched my car, meticulously checking everywhere multiple times, including under the seats. Later, when I arrived home, I found the “lost” keys dangling from the deadbolt on my front door. 

I’m generally well organized. I’m systematic. I put things back where they belong when I’m finished with them. So when I couldn’t find the Dictaphone, I was baffled. Where did it go?

I looked everywhere, frustrated to have lost two items in two days. Then I decided to try something different; I would pray (a radical idea for me as a non-believer). I knelt down and silently asked for help…

“Look under your car seat.”

What? It wasn’t an audible voice, just a quiet thought that popped into my head.

I quickly answered, “That’s absurd. Yesterday, I searched every inch of that car, trying to find those keys! I haven’t been back inside it since. Looking under the seat would be a waste of time!”

Yet I was beginning to recognize that Voice. So, just in case, I checked.

I walked into the garage, opened the driver’s door of my car, stuck my hand under the seat, and felt something soft. I pulled out a feather. Well, that’s interesting…

I put my hand under again and, this time, I felt something cold and solid. When I pulled my voice recorder out from beneath the car seat (a space I had so meticulously searched the previous day), I was simply stunned. My immediate reaction? I dropped to the garage floor in worship.

Tears splattered the concrete as I quietly whispered, “I just heard from God!”

♥ ♥ ♥

So tonight—with my mortality in sharp focus and surgery on the horizon—finding this tiny tattered black feather inexplicably tucked among romaine salad leaves brings me great comfort. It is good to trust the One who sees every sparrow that falls, and it is good to rest in His promise that nothing can separate me from His love.

♥ ♥ ♥

Do you have an amazing God-story to share? Tell us about it! And come back next month to read the next snapshot.