Beauty and Cancer

At the young age of 19 I had to quickly learn the value of beauty. As vain as this may sound, with the diagnosis of cancer the thought of my hair immediately followed. Most cancer patients cry for their lives, I however cried for my hair. I never imagined that my cancer diagnosis could prove a blessing in disguise in regards to how I view beauty and body issues. Not only did chemotherapy heal my cancer, but it also healed my self-deprecating thoughts I had towards my body.

I did not let cancer interfere with my education, I continued through chemotherapy as well as my college courses. However, juggling treatments and homework was not nearly as daunting as walking around campus with confidence. I chose to shave my head before the chunks began to haunt me, I will never forget that night. That night, raw and genuine beauty was revealed. No longer could I use my hair as a “security blanket”, no longer can I hide behind my hair, eyebrows and eyelashes. Now the world would see my beauty based on my heart, and not my hair. I admit, this idea frightened me because society does not award women based on their heart, they value women based on their looks and applaud only the beautiful. I felt like I had just lost all of my beauty.

For months I walked around with hats, attempting to cover every bit of my head and not allowing the world to see any shaved parts. I prided myself in the fact that people never knew I had no hair and truly felt like I accomplished the arduous task of living without hair. Then as the rain and cold wintery weather began to melt away and sunshine instead took its place, so did my hat fetish. It became too hot and unbearable to wear hats constantly, so in February I gave up hats and decided to walk around bravely with my shaved head. I tried not to focus on people staring at me and just kept my gaze on God and the ones I loved. A feeling of freedom began to overtake me, freedom that had been so long oppressed. This was me, this was a season of my life that I had to endure and trying to hide this was like trying to hide a part of my identity. Not only did the hats conceal my shaved head, but it also veiled the testimony that I had been given. I desperately tried to return to a state of normalcy and a shaved head definitely did not fit into my world of normal.

Through the removal of hats from my wardrobe and the freedom I felt when walking the campus with no hair, I learned that inner beauty exudes and becomes physical beauty. The most beautiful people I have met on this journey have been people who were fighting for their lives, cancer patients. The hope and love that radiates from their faces can make any depressing thought vanish. Their strength, courage and faith during a time of complete tragedy create an environment filled with an infinite amount of beauty and hope; I became captivated by the smiles and bright eyes of the people who were with me in the treatment room.

Beauty is captivating.

Beauty is warm.

Beauty is inviting.

I have never felt more welcomed anywhere else than in that treatment room, I suddenly wanted to become the beautiful that these fighters possessed.

The term “beauty” can arouse either feelings of desolation or confidence. Thanks to the media and billboards, American’s view of “beauty” involves long, lean legs, hourglass figure, and gorgeous, luscious hair (the beauty myth). Unfortunately, I believed this beauty myth throughout childhood, I tortured my body to become this unrealistic figure and even when I received compliments on my physical appearance I still felt no satisfaction. Losing my hair in the battle against cancer only fueled my low self-esteem. I never realized that my battle not only would fight cancer, but also my negative thoughts towards my body.

Towards the end of treatment, when my body and mind reached ultimate exhaustion, I remember distinctly staring into the mirror, analyzing the reflection whose hair was nothing but peach fuzz and whose eyes shone brightly despite thin eyebrows and eyelashes, and thinking “How can I hate this body?” This body that has endured twelve chemo treatments, this body that has not rejected treatment, this body that still allows me to laugh and to sing and to dance, a body that can hug, and a body that can hike and enjoy beautiful creation. Why would I repay this wonderful body by torturing it and feeding it minimal amounts of food?

My body has survived a rough and strenuous six months with astonishing strength, and when I revert back to despising my body I will remember that the same body that survived cancer will be the body that will triumph for another sixty years. This body, my body, will one day walk down an aisle in a white dress, give birth to beautiful babies, run 26.2 miles, travel the globe, and chase grandchildren around the yard. Loving my body from this perspective has completely transformed my definition of beauty.

As described earlier, true, genuine and raw beauty lies within a human who finds complete satisfaction in the size and shape of the body they were given, so that they in turn can focus their love and attention on humanity around them. I am thankful for my illness and the suffering because it has forced me to rethink beauty and has freed me from the lies of the “beauty myth.” With no longer focusing on myself and appearance I can instead concentrate on people and loved ones, which has made life much more enjoyable.

backyard photo-shoot

Beauty in the Broken

I love the rain! And unfortunately I only get to see cloudy and overcast days 2 weeks out of the year because I live in southern california. But when those 2-3 weeks do come, I joyfully run to my rainboots and slide them on eagerly then skip to my coats and scarfs and pick an outfit to match! Splashing in puddles brings me back to childhood, a time where worries were only about friends and what to present for show-and-tell days.

I love the contrasting colors of green and grey. The vibrant green foliage stands out even more with the beautifully frightening grey background. It reminds me so much of life and the beauty of the broken. We are all broken, we are human. But there is something so amazingly gorgeous about the broken, and that is Jesus Christ. I can say that there is beauty in the broken because I know that Jesus makes us whole. He is our wholeness and that wouldn't be possible if we were not broken. Sure, there may be dark, dreary days but Jesus is what makes me splash in the puddles with joy on those days.

Let me give you a personal example of brokenness. Last night, one of my dear friends from high school (whose name I shall not say) and I met over coffee to catch up. I had felt so convicted for not calling her or talking to her sooner because she just spilled every emotion, thought and concern that was racing through her mind. From divorcing parents, to a rocky relationship and scarce girlfriends this friend was clearly dealing with several emotional distractions that definitely left her broken. But despite all of these aspects that made my friend break down, I could not help looking at her and seeing an extraordinary amount of beauty. Jesus loves the broken because he loves to come in and rescue and make you whole through him. I felt extremely privileged to look upon my friend, in tears and in brokenness, and see her like her Savior sees her. How amazing is that! I do not know whether she understood why I was staring at her and smiling (she must have clearly thought me crazy or creeperish for wearing a huge smile on my face while she was balling her eyes out), but the Lord really put it in my heart to tell her that her beauty has never shined brighter than it was right then (and that's where she probably thought me psycho to the core). But the point is that even when we think that our world is at the ultimate low and we cannot imagine ourselves crawling out of the huge hole that was dug beneath us, God comes in with a rope, calls us his "beloved" and rescues us from the pits of despair. And that's what makes us beautiful to him!

We are all tremendously broken, but made whole, solely, through Jesus Christ!

A Standing Ovation

I had never received a standing ovation, never thought I would and certainly never imagined it would have been for this circumstance.

In October 2009, I was diagnosed with cancer, Hodgkins lymphoma. I was 19 years old. My world cam crashing down. I seriously imagined myself waking up sweating, panting and thankful that this was a dream. I never woke up. It wasn't a dream.

About a month later I began the dreaded and scariest form of healing, chemotherapy. Taking a semester off from school never even crossed my mind. I just so desperately wanted to return to normalcy and dropping out of college was most definitely not normal for me. So I decided to stay in school and take a light load so that I can equally focus on academics as well as healing.

I have endured (only by the grace and strength of God) 4 months of chemo and still have 2 more months to go. But despite having no hair, odd body functions, and dark thoughts I still find myself waking up with a gigantic smile on my face. So many of my friends ask me why I don't complain much or how I can even smile and laugh when I am suffering so greatly. I always answer with one word: JESUS! He is purely the reason why I wake up, why I celebrate and find joy in the little pleasures of life, and why I love so greatly. I have grown, blossomed and matured in more ways than one through this season of my life, and I give him all the glory!

Well, back to my standing ovation. Last night the college's basketball teams held a special halftime presentation to raise breast cancer awareness. About a 1,000 college campuses are part of an organization called "The Pink Zone" which raises money and funds for cancer survivors or people currently battling cancer. My college, Westmont College, had placed an application for me to this organization and I was granted $1,000!!!!! THANK YOU GOD! The school wanted to present me the check during the half time presentation and after much prayer and heart pounding moments I agreed (which is completely out of character for me). My heart raced 5 minutes before halftime in the men's games then it began to violently pound when the buzzer went off signaling that halftime had begun. The woman's basketball coach introduced me to my peers, to parents, to faculty, and to the community then asked me to come on stage. I walked to the center court trying to keep my composure while most importantly trying not to cry. When I looked up I realized that the entire student section was standing, applauding, and cheering then I looked over to the parents/faculty side and saw all of them standing up and applauding. Well, how can one not cry?!?! I just wanted to go hug each and every person because I don't think they realized how much their support, encouragement and prayers meant to me! When friends, family or even complete strangers humbly approach me and say that they see me as their hero I just look them in the eye and tell them that it is people like them that get me through the lowest points of my treatment. There have been so many moments during this season where giving up would have been the easiest route, and honestly even the most appealing route, but every time I thought about traveling down that road the faces of love, encouragement, and friendship gave me strength to persevere.

So thank you God for your provisions, for the friends and family that you have given me for this specific time in my life, and for your joy that I get to borrow from you daily!

Anna Victoria Klassen

I can no longer imagine how I lived my life before I met Anna Victoria Klassen. She has radically redefined my definition of "best friend."

Let me introduce you to Anna:
She is loud. Spontaneous. An Extrovert. A law breaker. Caring. Supportive. Brutally honest. Transparent. Beautiful. Humble. A bit obsessive at times. A God fearing woman. Radiant. Tan. Bob Marley lover.

We did not ask to be friends. I did not even know she existed until August 2008. We were just kind of thrown together, very much like the ingredients of a casserole; she was my college freshman roommate. If we had not been roommates, I would have never become friends with her because honestly we are complete opposites. Here I am, 18 years old and fresh out of high school, nervous about moving out and going to college and I get roomed with a girl like Anna?!? What?!?! What did I do to deserve such a punishment God?!?

I remember our first night together, as we lay in bed ready to sleep off the abundant (and quite overwhelming) information we absorbed all day during orientation Anna breaks the silence with the question: "What are you most scared off?"

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?! "You got to be crazy, I just met you and you want me to get all personal and deep?!?! ABSOLUTELY NOT!" Of course I never said any of this, but I totally thought this and even screamed it in my head.

This was my first impression of Anna, I immediately began to fear my freshman experience. Little did I know that this would not be the first time Anna would have surprised me. About a month later (that's right, a month after we first met each other) Anna pulls a stunt that gets her in jail OVERNIGHT!! There I was sleeping in our dorm room alone because my roommate had a sleepover with some convicts. I got no sleep that night. The next morning I had to pick her up from jail (you can probably imagine the phone conversation I had with my parents that night and the next morning). I was so confused, why had God given me her as a roommate, especially at a Christian school!!!

But not only did Anna have a mugshot, she also decided to continue with her smoking addiction while at school (again, we are at a Christian college where smoking is not allowed). So Anna would go off campus each day and smoke cigarettes then return smelling of putrid smoke. Thankfully towards the end of the school year she transferred her addiction from cigarettes to exercise.

Despite Anna's slumber party in jail and her smoking, she was one of the most honest friends that I had ever known. At the beginning of the school year I shamefully judged her based on her actions, which proved extremely unfair on my end. But as the year progressed Anna continued to shock me with her caring and comforting nature, with her hopeful perspective on life, and with the way that she strived to become a better person.

She taught me how to love a person because of their imperfections. She taught me to be honest, open and vulnerable with friends. But most importantly, she showed me that the more I give and open up, the more I get. With each time that I shared a little bit of my precious and scared thoughts with her, the deeper and more profound that our friendship grew. Our friendship had blossomed so much that I found myself calling her my best friend, my most treasured friend. There was no day that I realized this, no tangible time that I can give you to when I figured this out, but instead it was a process, a process that led us on a roller coaster of emotions and growth.

So thank you Anna for showing me true friendship and teaching me so many important lessons of life and love. I look forward with anticipation and excitement to our future together and to watch how time will only strengthen our friendship.

What is a Blog?

I never ever understood the definition, purpose, or enthusiasm for blogging? What is this "blogging"? And why is it a verb?

Now I have a blog. Created it about an hour ago. What do I do now? Do I just type what I am feeling, thinking, my opinions, perspective, etc. Do you now understand my confusion? I mean it took me like 10 minutes to think of a title because I didn't know whether I needed a creative title, a title that reflected my work or simply my name as the title. Then I just resorted to how I view life, that is what the majority of my blogging will entail and that's how "Dancing in a Field of Daises" became my title. I celebrate each and every aspect of life, from the tiny bumblebee that lands on a sunflower to the beauty found in an old and beaten house. All creation has a purpose, a reason for existence and therefore should be celebrated and admired continuously.

So sit back, sip on a cup of tea, and enjoy life with me.