Pennies for Passion?

Must a passion be monetized?

This is a question I’ve been asking myself for just over a year now, which is when I began to discover my deepest passion. That’s partly because just over a year ago, just as the full implications of pandemic lockdown were being realized, my sweet family and I just encountered an additional complication.

It was the afternoon of Saturday, April 11, 2020. For a couple of weeks I had been feeling incredibly tired and had been experiencing headaches from the second I woke each morning. But I had just chalked of this all up to the stress of learning how to be an online teacher at three seconds’ notice. (“Yikes!” cried teachers, students and parents alike!) My family and I had spent the day frantically trying to recover our home and yard from the fallout of that week’s homeschooling adventure. We had entered the house to ready for supper. To the horror of two of my young kids, I suddenly collapsed floorward—right before their eyes and practically into their laps.

I remember standing in my living room, staring unflinchingly through the window at a bright spot of sunlight glistening off of my car outside. I felt confused by my behavior and a little silly. I could see my daughter in my periphery, staring at me and wondering what I was doing. I raised my finger to point to her and was planning to turn and jokingly say, “Don’t laugh at me, I got lost in a moment there!” Then—in what seemed like just a moment later—I awoke on my living room floor, surrounded by my husband, my mom (when did she get here?), and…the mom of one of my junior high students? Wait—where did all of these people come from? And why am I laying on the floor? And why am I SO tired?

I had experienced a grand mal seizure. The people were friends from our community, volunteer EMTs, who had responded at a moment’s notice.

When I had collapsed my children had screamed for my husband—I am SO grateful he was home—and he had wisely sent them all to the next room while he called 911 and my mom, then watched helplessly as I continued to seize, stopped breathing, then relaxed into shallow breathing and unconsciousness. After the ambulance crew arrived, he hurried to check on our kids in the next room and found them kneeling in a circle, praying fervently for me through tears. How I love them!

An ambulance trip and MRI later, we were informed that I had a brain tumor which required removal expediently. I slept off the seizure under watch at the hospital—my husband couldn’t accompany me because, well, COVID—then went home to set my affairs in order before returning for a “Voluntary Brain Probing.”

Suddenly, very few things seemed actually important. Suddenly, I wondered if my children, all of whom came to us through the miracle of adoption, truly knew that I loved them as dearly as if they were my own flesh and blood. Suddenly, I regretted every moment I had ever spent in any mood but kindness and love.

The odds of survival were good. “Only a 3% chance of death,” the doctor had calmly stated. Now I realize that waking up each morning presents about the same chance of death, but let’s be honest: it feels more real when needles, lazers, and power tools to the skull are involved.

I’m incredibly grateful that the last words I wrote in my journal (just in case) did not turn out to be my last afterall! I’m SO glad that so many people offered prayers and service and support for me and my family. And I am eternally thankful that those prayers were and continue to be answered.

Through this experience and the past year’s treatments, baldness, prognosis scares, parenting, and teaching of every adolescent’s least favorite subject following pandemic “learning” (cough, cough)—I discovered that I do, indeed, have a DEEP passion.

My deepest hope is to spread hope. I don’t always spread it, and I don’t even always feel it. But through some of the scariest times I’ve ever encountered, I have discovered that when I choose to make room for hope in my heart, I find more hope! When facing grim test results, when discussing the possibility of leaving this life sooner than anticipated with my family, when discovering that my recovering Franken-head dislikes wigs and hats so I must roll out fully bald, and when working full time through the pains and discomforts of chemo, I have definitely met hopelessness face-to-face. Yet EVERY time I have opened my heart to hope and peace, in spite of all evidence pointing towards despair, I have found hope and peace!

I have written in public posts on social media about the hope that I have found in the face of fear, pain, and discouragement because I hope it will help others to feel hope amidst whatever challenges they’re facing. But after submitting each post, I often spend the next two weeks fretting over whether it was “TMI” to share what I feel about such odd things as the time I unexpectedly saw the new corktop section of my skull bounce UPWARDS when I coughed while looking in the bathroom mirror?!?! The thought of this doth still bring my stomach and heart to an erp. Yeesh-and-bleh!

But every time a new challenge arrives, I have been fortunate to eventually and miraculously arrive right back at hope! And so, when I feel compelled to do so, I write about hope. I am told it has helped a few folks. Several people have encouraged me to write a book about my experience with cancer along with our experience of adopting our kiddos—four of whom came all at once in an exciting and harrowing tale I like to call, “That time I discovered that I do not, in fact, know a single thing about how to be a parent.”

If what I have written has helped a few folks to feel hope, I would love to help more folks! I would like to help rapidly because I’ve been told my chances of lasting a long time are not great. I HOPE this turns out to be wrong, but just in case, I’d sure like to spread the word sooner rather than later!

But it feels weird and a even a little skeezy (?) to benefit monetarily from pointing people to peace. Is there some way to share my experiences more broadly that doesn’t require expense? Is it right to capitalize by sharing about something I have found freely and repeatedly when I choose to seek it? Should a passion for hope be monetized?

I recognize that for my family, mouths must be fed, bodies must be clothed, and heads must be sheltered. If I wish to make hope-spreading a full time gig, my current salary must be somehow replaced. But would gaining from sharing feel authentic to my readers or to myself?

Yet I know that I lack the means and savvy to distribute my story of hope widely. I also don’t believe it’s a coincidence that God gave me such a passion for writing coupled with such unique circumstances in which to find hope. I believe He loves us each, gives us each gifts and ways to share, and provides for us as we follow His will.

So perhaps it is time to stop asking, “Should I?” and to begin asking instead, “Where and how shall I?”

This year has taught me that HOPE is ever available if we choose to seek it and dare to keep a place for it in our hearts. I HOPE that I can find a better and broader way to share what I have felt. More importantly, I HOPE that you find HOPE, too.