Was our marriage ready for cancer?
Jamison and I had just celebrated our 6th year anniversary together in the beginning of June 2018, and we had no idea the trial that was coming. Just two short months later I was rushed into emergency surgery to remove a tumor from my colon. Two days after that we got the diagnosis that I had stage IV colon cancer.
Was our marriage ready for something like this?
Jamie and I were each other's “first” everything. First date, first kiss, first love. We had liked each other since we were 18 and started dating when we were 20. Married at 21 and we added a honeymoon baby to the mix 9 months later!
I was initially attracted to Jamison because he was an old soul. We met when we were both 15 (I definitely was not interested in him at that point). He was involved in missions and had already spent time in Africa on missions' trips, which I thought was impressive for someone our age. We became friends.
Jamison grew up in Las Vegas. Family friends moved from Washington (where I grew up) to Las Vegas and then moved back to Washington eight years later. During that time, they connected with Jamison’s family, who helped with the move back up to WA. Jamison visited a few times each summer over the next couple of years. At church camp one year when Jamie and I were 18, he developed feelings for me, but I still was not interested in him like that.
He pulled out every trick in his rather limited homeschool playbook, trying to win me over. That mostly involved him recording sappy love songs on his guitar and posting them to Facebook. Over time our friendship grew, and I was more and more endeared to the person he was. His heart for missions and his desire to honor God with his life was inspiring. I loved that he was a good communicator, smart and loved learning and growing. My desire to learn and grow with him increased and then it dawned on me - He was my person.
Jamie and I had a lot of growing and maturing to do in those early years of marriage, but we both loved the lord and wanted to grow. With a solid community, a desire to change and with Godly counsel in our lives, that was possible. We both saw the worst in each other at times, but we always forgave one another.
During fights we said things we didn’t mean, but we are always learning and giving each other space to learn and change. We committed to not putting each other in a box. It was a lot of hard work, but we thought after 6 years we had come a long way, and celebrated our anniversary together, feeling in love and blessed.
That first night in the hospital after we heard the words “The test came back positive, it’s cancer,” there was a brief moment where I didn’t want Jamie to approach and comfort me. He tried to give me a hug and I put up my hand and said “not yet”
I knew that if he held me, I would break.
The Shining Barrier
Jamie and I have put a lot of work and effort into knowing each other deeply. When we were dating, we read the book “A Severe Mercy” by Sheldon Vanauken, a true story about the author’s love and relationship with his wife. In it he describes their process of building a “Shining Barrier” together as they built their relationship. He describes it in this way:
The Shining Barrier – the shield of our love. A walled garden. A fence around a young tree to keep the deer from nibbling it. An fortified place with the walls and watchtowers gleaming white like the cliffs of England. The Shining Barrier – we called it so from the first – protecting the green tree of our love. And yet in another sense, it was our love itself, made strong within, that was the Shining Barrier.
We decided right then and there that we wanted to build our own “shining barrier” for our love.
Building a shining barrier for us to go to in our darkest night has taken:
Endless hours of conversation.
Brutal honesty.
Allowing each other space to reflect on the areas of growth needed.
Putting our friendship above all other relationships in our lives.
And most importantly, forgiveness
We did not know as teens that the shining barrier we were starting to build would need to be strong enough to withstand a cancer diagnosis, we just knew that the foundation needed to be Christ. And that we wanted to build something epic together that would last.
The Barrier Tested
In that moment in the hospital room, I knew that I needed to let Jamison in, although it would hurt worse to feel his pain than it was to just bear my own. The fear of the unknown, what I was about to put him through, was almost too much to handle.
By the end of the day though, all I wanted was to be back inside the shining barrier with Jamison. He climbed into the hospital bed with me and held me. We fell asleep there, and the nurses on the night shift didn’t wake me to take my vitals but let us sleep.
Looking back on those first six years of marriage, I am so thankful we stuck it out. Every fight and disagreement was not a waste of time. We didn’t allow them to tear down, rather we used them as building blocks in our shining barrier. We forgave, recommitted, reconciled and were closer because of them. This pattern of seeking unity and oneness prepared us for our “worst” and continues to help us today. We are both sinners, seeking to live life together, in wartime and in peace.
2 Corinthians 12:9-10 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.