“What did you say?”  

“Me write something that would be worth anyone’s time to read?”  “What do I have to say that hasn’t already been written?” 

“I am sure that someone much smarter, more insightful, and creative than I am, has already penned, so much more eloquently than I ever could, whatever it is that I am trying to express.

Let me share with you why these thoughts have run through my head for decades and I why I didn’t think I was qualified to be ‘a writer.’  

My insecurities and, therefore, aversion to writing officially began when I was in 5^th grade, when my teacher, Mrs. Strobel*, made fun of my spelling in front of the class. I had written a note that I planned to pass to a friend as we switched between English and Math class. But Mrs. Strobel saw it on my desk, peeking out from under my English book. She snatched it and promptly read it aloud, noting a misspelling in it… for all my classmates to hear. This was just the ultimate mortification for me in elementary school. In thinking back… unlike my dear friend-since-first-grade, Lori Luce, who can recall everything that happened to either of us way back then… I only have a few fond early school-day memories. As a tall skinny quiet girl who took ballet, piano lessons, was active at church and took Hawaiian dance lessons (yes Hawaiian dance: to make sure I went, my Mom would cart me each week to one of our neighbor’s, Mrs. Marmaduc’s, house, where Mrs. M. would frequently criticize ballet and how it would destroy my feet, which incensed me because I loved ballet. Then she would go on to tell me repeatedly to “move your hips”… when I actually had no hips to move) So sorry, I digress: back to the public-spelling-shaming at school; I felt crushed! I believe this was even more scarring than always getting picked last on the playground for; red-rover (skinny wrists), or dodgeball (too slow), or softball (being nearsighted meant I usually missed the ball…even with glasses on). The bottom line was, when I started junior high school, I had very little self-confidence. So, I focused on my studies and, fortunately, by the time I graduated from senior high school I had kept up academically with my closest friends in university prep classes and I made Honor Society. During my three years at Edgewater High School, I seemed to find my place by joining the school’s swim team and participating in the band (taking up the clarinet was my only way of getting out of piano lessons that I struggled through with a grouchy piano teacher.) Apologies Mrs. Willard, for being so uninterested in the piano that I made the hour-long lessons hard on both of us! However, those piano lessons did pay off, and I had leadership opportunities like being chosen first chair clarinet, Drum major, and Student Conductor. So, I finished my high school stage of life on a much more confident note. No pun intended; however, next came my university studies… 

“Back in the day” unless you took/passed an end of High School “CLEP test”, I believe they were called this but I never took one, everyone had to take freshman English. So, in the early fall of 1978 at Stetson University in DeLand, Florida, I stepped into English 101 with Dr. Ellen Smith.  This class, held in the bowels of the Dupont Ball Library, was where I proceeded to earn one of the worst grades on my university transcript. (For the record, because I am sure some of you really want to know, my worst grade was in Chemistry 101 – an 8:00 AM, Monday/Wednesday/Friday class with a Tuesday lab. Because of that Chem class, I changed my major from Pre-Med to Finance.) I could blame my English 101 grade on the person I hired to type my important term papers, or my poor handwriting that the hired typist couldn’t read, or the fact that I wasn’t a good speller. But in the end the result was the same: a “C,” and with it a cemented belief that writing “just wasn’t my thing.” I still am a nervous wreck whenever I write on a flip-chart in front of participants in a banking training course or write a “thank you” note, as misspellings continue to top my list of pubilc mortifications. Unfortunately, there is no spell-check on paper medium.

https://youtu.be/C_90_NAbv3k

Given this history, and also following along behind a brother who, by the way, was a National Merit Semi-Finalist and I obviously wasn’t!!!…, why in the world would I dare to take the risk to share my writing insecurities with you? I share them with you to give you the back-story of how I have experienced a miraculous truth: God can use even the weakest parts of us; our past failures, our pain, and deficiencies, in order to encourage, support and point others to Him.  

Because of gracious communications from many of you, I found out this truth during the most difficult time of my life: while journaling about the diagnosis, surgeries, treatment, and eventual loss of our son Will, to adenocarcinoma of the small bowel. Throughout this painful time, my husband, Bruce, and I used the on-line tool, Caringbridge**, to keep dozens of friends and family from across the globe, updated on Will’s journey. We started out believing that the site would help us save time, as well as physical and emotional energy, while keeping our thoughts and communications consistent; but, journaling on Caringbridge became so much more.  

Many of you followed along with us through that “devastatingly beautiful” almost 2-year journey of Will’s cancer battle. Your comments, prayers and offers of practical assistance were instrumental in our ability to keep going. Your faithful affirmations continue to do the same for us now. You’ve shared with us on Caringbridge and in private messages about your own struggles and how you appreciated the encouragement Will’s Journey provided. Some of you have; made the blessed discovery that a personal relationship with God could make all the difference in your life, or received the encouragement to hold on to/reclaim your own faith during a time of challenge, or learned some different things that you could do to support others through their loss and/or your own grief.  Caringbridge was a blessing to Bruce and me and to those of you who wracked up the over 20,000 “visits” by following Will’s Journey.  

https://youtu.be/eKcImiTxqKg

But now…the present…today…now what?

What do we do with the past months of pain, insights, struggles, lessons, blessings, and loss? Now that Will is no longer in pain, is totally healed and walking upright in the glory of heaven… now what?  

What about Bruce and me? What about all of us who personally knew Will or because of knowing Bruce and me you knew of him… what do we do now?  

In late July we celebrated Will’s life around his 31^st birthday… to put what some people would call “closure” to the journey. Seriously… can there ever really be closure for a parent who loses a child?!!! Is it all now over? 

Was that all that there was to Will’s 30 year life and the “devastatingly beautiful” experience that I have titled “Will’s Journey”?  When I’ve asked myself these last couple questions, inside my soul, all I can hear is a resounding “NOOOOOO”!!!!!   

https://youtu.be/ehAjwXaaNr8

Through this ‘journey’ I have found the creative process of writing, flooded by my tears, grasping down deep my soul to mine knowledge from years of church attending, Bible reading, studying and even teaching God’s word, to be transforming and redeeming. My times of reflection, writing, and editing (with a lot of assistance from “spell check” and my editor, Bruce) have been cathartic for me. My writing times have provided me with a different ‘lens’ through which I can interpret my life’s experiences. It has ignited the desire in me to share my “God lens insights” with you. Throughout Will’s Journey, I fortunately had my faith to draw on, yet I honestly struggled with certain scriptures like the promise from Romans 8:28,  “And we know that all things work for the good, for those who love the Lord and are called according to His purposes.” I have asked God, “Really Lord, do ‘all things’ really work for the good, because it sure hasn’t felt good at all!?”  

https://youtu.be/CzEEIdGU2To

Here is the ‘bottom line’ that He has shown me… He has the ability to use the weakness in me and the painful things that have occurred in my life so show me that I can trust Him and His Word. Therefore, with the encouragement to continue believing in God’s power, to embrace how He speaks to me through music, to write about how I see that God and the practicalities of life go hand-in-hand, I have the desire to continue to write and in the process to be healed and transformed by Him. My prayer it that God will give me eyes to see and ears to hear how life and His truths parallel each other… that He will use me… with my grief, my insecurities, my sometimes-wavering faith, and even my “C” in English 101… all for His glory.  

So, how about for you? Is there something you want God to help you: walk through, put aside, claim as ‘not true’, move past the fear of, or muster the strength to attempt?

Know that He is able to do all things in and through His mighty power, for your good. I write to you, testifying to this truth… that He loves us and wants us to love Him right back, and that we can put our trust in Him to do all things, for good!

Until we take the next steps on the journey of life together… to God be the glory for all the blessings that He pours out in and through us. 

~Cindy

* P.S. Mrs. Jenette Strobel faithfully served Lake Silver Elementary School in the Orlando area for decades. Serendipitously, in the summer of 1994, she offered for my family to “house sit” her lovely lake front home in College Park just down the street from my parents. She was heading up to North Carolina to escape the humidity and heat of Central Florida when Bruce needed to complete a summer internship in hospital chaplaincy, as part of his ordination process as a Minister of the Word and Scarcement for the Presbyterian Church USA.  Since Kate was 6 months old, and Will was just turning 4 years old we were eager for them to get to spend time with their grandparents.  While we appreciated the amazing place to spend a few months, I have to admit I was a nervous wreck that we would do something to damage her home and I would get chastised by her again! All the worry was for naught, and it was a relief to have had a totally different interaction with her after decades of my spelling shame. 

** If you missed following along with Will’s Journey, check out the link on this website to Will’s Caringbridge site. 

https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/willhedgepeth