Rejoice Anyway

One of Kinley’s requests when we finally got a few days at home was to have a

The rules were simple.

Come over.

Have fun.

And you had to wear a wig.

As her dad, I had already assumed wigs were probably going to become part of this season. Her hair was gone, and in my mind, that meant wigs would naturally follow.

So the party felt like a fun way to step into that new reality with some humor instead of dread.

Our closest friends and family showed up, and they absolutely understood the assignment.

There were wigs everywhere.

Long wigs.

Short wigs.

Curly wigs.

Ridiculous wigs.

At some point, people started swapping them, and that may have been the funniest part. Someone would pull off their wig, hand it to somebody else, and within seconds the whole room would lose it laughing at the result.

I was also slightly surprised by how pretty some of the guys looked.

A few of them wore those wigs a little too naturally.

Kinley went with a Jamaican Rasta wig, which fit her perfectly.

But the image I probably will never forget is Cohen.

He had on his jean jacket and this head full of fake hair, and he was absolutely flaunting it.

Walking around.

Flipping the hair.

Showing it off like he had been waiting his entire life for this opportunity.

He was committed.

And it was hilarious.

There was a little irony in all of it because when Megan went through chemotherapy years earlier, she hated wearing wigs. It looks like Kinley may be following in her footsteps there too.

She is not a fan.

But that day, wigs were serving an entirely different purpose.

Nobody was trying to hide anything.

Nobody was trying to make Kinley look like cancer had not happened.

The wigs were not about concealing what chemotherapy had taken from her.

They were about laughter.

Being ridiculous.

Standing out instead of trying to blend in.

For a little while, wigs were not something associated with cancer.

They were just funny.

And watching everyone swap them around, watching Kinley laugh, and watching Cohen strut through the room in his jean jacket and flowing fake hair, cancer felt pushed into the background for a little while.

Not gone.

Just not in charge of the room.

For About an Hour

Kinley lasted about an hour.

We knew that was a possibility.

Her body still tired quickly, and although we were home, that did not mean she suddenly felt normal again.

But for that hour, the house was full.

People were laughing.

Everyone looked ridiculous.

Kinley was having fun.

For a little while, life felt almost normal again.

I have started realizing that normal does not always come back all at once.

Sometimes you get it in pieces.

An hour with friends.

A car ride.

A cookie.

A baseball game.

A room full of terrible wigs.

You take what you can get.

And you enjoy it while it is there.

Rejoice

There is a verse in Philippians that has stayed with me:

“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!”

That verse sounds easy when life is easy.

Rejoice.

Sure.

But Paul was not writing those words from a comfortable season of life.

He was writing from prison.

He was in chains.

His future was uncertain.

By the time Paul wrote Philippians, suffering was not some theological idea he had studied from a distance. He had been beaten, persecuted, rejected, imprisoned, and threatened with death because of his faith.

And from prison, he wrote:

Rejoice.

Then, almost as if he knew someone might think he had misspoken, he said it again.

Rejoice.

That changes the verse for me.

Paul was not telling people to rejoice because their circumstances were good.

His circumstances were terrible.

He told them to rejoice in the Lord.

That distinction matters.

Our circumstances were awful too.

Our daughter had cancer.

Her hair was gone.

Her body was exhausted.

We had just spent weeks in the hospital, finally gotten a few days at home, and already knew we were headed back for another round of chemotherapy.

There was nothing about that situation that made me want to celebrate.

But Jesus had not changed.

Paul understood something I was beginning to learn.

Joy and suffering are not always opposites.

You can be afraid and still have joy.

You can cry and still have joy.

You can sit in a prison cell and rejoice.

You can sit in a hospital room and rejoice.

You can know something is terribly wrong and still know that God is good.

Rejoicing does not mean pretending the pain is not real.

It means refusing to let the pain become the only thing that is real.

For us, rejoicing looked pretty strange.

It looked like a house full of ridiculous wigs.

It looked like Kinley laughing for an hour before her body told her she was done.

It looked like friends and family showing up simply to make her smile.

It looked like Cohen strutting through the house in a jean jacket and fake hair like he had missed his calling.

And soon, it would look like packing our bags and heading right back to the hospital.

Back to Reality

Round three of chemotherapy was next.

This was supposed to be our short week.

We would check in Tuesday, chemo would run Wednesday and Thursday, and hopefully we would be headed home Friday in time for the Fourth of July.

That was the plan.

By then, we had learned to hold plans loosely.

Still, we were hopeful.

A couple of days of chemo.

Get through it.

Go home.

Celebrate the Fourth.

Easy enough.

At least that was what we told ourselves.

Then the wigs came off.

The bags got packed.

And we went back to chemo.

The Good Room

When we checked in, we got some unexpectedly great news.

We got The Good Room.

There was one room on the floor that was bigger than the others.

And it had two couches.

Two.

If you have never spent weeks living in a hospital room, that probably does not sound impressive.

Trust me.

Two couches felt like a suite upgrade.

During our previous stay, if Megan and I both stayed overnight, one of us had to sleep in a small recliner.

Calling it a recliner might be generous.

The couch was not exactly luxury either.

It was hard.

It tilted.

But compared to that chair?

Five stars.

Of course, none of this meant we actually slept much.

Hospital rooms have their own nighttime rhythm.

Vitals.

Medicine.

Labs.

Machines beeping.

Someone coming in.

Someone else coming in.

Kinley needing something.

Then somebody else coming in because apparently the previous person had not interrupted your sleep quite enough.

And according to Megan, there was also my snoring.

I disagree with that characterization.

I was not snoring.

I was breathing with purpose.

Apparently, my purpose was preventing everyone else from sleeping because I was eventually encouraged to leave the room.

The Kind of Joy Cancer Cannot Take

Cancer had already taken plenty.

It had taken Kinley’s hair.

It had taken most of our summer.

It had taken sleep, schedules, privacy, and any illusion that we controlled what tomorrow would look like.

But watching Kinley laugh in that Rasta wig reminded me that it had not taken everything.

It had not taken her personality.

It had not taken the people who loved her.

It had not taken Cohen’s ability to make a room laugh.

It had not taken our sense of humor.

And it had not taken Jesus.

That was what Paul knew from prison.

Rejoicing was not pretending the chains were not there.

It was knowing the chains did not have the final word.

A few days earlier, we had been standing in our house wearing ridiculous wigs.

Now we were back in a hospital room for round three of chemotherapy.

Thankfully, we had The Good Room.

Two couches.

Basically the Ritz-Carlton.

And I had apparently been evicted for breathing too enthusiastically.

Cancer was still there.

Chemo was still there.

But so was laughter.

So was hope.

So was Jesus.

Rejoice in the Lord always.

Paul said it once.

Then he said it again.

Rejoice.