My practice of listening to the service from the week before continues to bless my Sunday mornings - with the luxury of sitting in a comfy chair with a cup of tea, and having my slippers on my feet!

The call of Jeremiah and the 1 Corinthians 13 'Hymn to Love' must be two of the passages that have cropped in my life more often than almost any others.

I recall during the seond year I was at Vicar School being set an essay along the lines of "is there a model for ministry in the book of Jeremiah".  I felt the mark I was given and the comment that "it didn't need to be a model for ordained ministry" were both a little unfair.  The latter was certainly true, and I can't help but feel that my decision to explore it as 'ordained ministry' ought to have earned me marks for contextualisation, it was after all a 'contextual theology' degree...  Anyway, what struck me then, and remains the case now in my own experience umpteen years later, is that the clear, unambiguous sense of God's call, the divine "it's you" whether heard or felt or discerned by others, is crucial in surviving the reality of ministerial life in all its complexity.  Last Sunday's preacher noted how twenty chapters into the story Jeremiah is demoralised, depressed and angry (I remember our OT tutor telling us to read Jeremiah in one sitting, front to back - I gave up at about chapter 22 as it was so depressing a read!)... Life and ministry don't always turn out as we expect them to, and we need that unmistakeable marker to which we can return at such times.  Mostly I love what I do, but it has its moments!!

The Hymn to Love in 1 Corinthians is, I once asserted in a sermon after I'd actually done a bit of Greek checking out, is not to show the readers "a yet more excellent way" but a response to people who are "still craving greater gifts".  Although last Sunday's preacher didn't allude to the link verse (no reason why he should) he expressed brilliantly exactly what I believe Paul was responding to - people who were seeking bragging rights on which flamboyant, attention-grabbing spiritual gift they had.  Childish behaviour that was unbecoming among the people of God. "Stop trying to out do each other as to who has the best gift... what really matters is love."

I have preached on, reflected on, and meditated with 1 Corinthians 13, I have employed it in weddings and funerals, normal sermons and Bible studies... it is an over-worked passage, yet one which always, always has new insghts to offer up.  Right at the end comes a reminder of the temporality of spiritual gifts, the partiality and imperfection of our understanding and experience... now we see, understand and know in part, then (at some future date, at the eschaton, in eternity...) we will know fully, even as we are fully known.

So here was the new nugget to ponder, two passages set alongside one another each of which asserts that we are fully known by God.  According to Jeremiah, since, or even before, conception... according to Corinthians as a simple statement of fact.  The preacher last Sunday pointed out that because we are fully known to God, we don't have to try to please God by what we achieve, rather God, knowing who we are, invites us to join in expressing our own unique gifts (or that's how I heard/interpeted it anyway).  This doesn't mean we can sit back and do nothing, but it does mean we don't need to fret when things don't work out as we'd hoped they might.  As something of a perfectionist, it did me good to be reminded of that.

But it is the 'fully known' bit that touched my innermost being...

Fully Known...

From the moment that sperm penetrated that egg and it successfully implanted in the womb of my mother...

On the cold winter's day when premature birth and cord strangling the infant threatened life...

Through the rough and tumble, tears and smiles of early chidhood...

In the love of learning and the fear of failing, the shyness, the quietness and the solitude of school days...

In the choice of course and university, the thriving and freeing, discovering and delighting...

In the square-peg in a round hole job, and the finding-my-niche career that brought fulfilment...

In the Sunday School teaching, piano playing, Girls' Brigade leading...

In the sewing and knitting, hiking, reading, cat-cuddling, cake-baking, car-maintaining...

In the leaving it all behind to follow God's call to ordination...

In the serving with and of, in preaching, missioning, pastoring, teaching, marrying, burying...

In the diagnosis of cancer, its treatment, its long term effects, the residual uncertainty and the love of life's richness...

In making sense and finding meaning, in reflecting and writing...

In the learning and changing, the trusting and remaining, the douting and believing...

In England and Scotland, in New Zealand, Finland, Malta and Madeira...

In the doing and being, the activity and stillness...

In all that has been, and in all that is still to be...

In all of this, I am fully known

In all of this, I know only in part

But then -

Whenever, whatever 'then' is -

I will know

Until then -

Now, here, wherever, whatever life brings

Love

Love for God

Love for neighbour

Love for self

Faith, hope and love - three inconquerables

And the one that matters most

The one that God is

Is love.

Yesterday these absolutely stunning flowers arrived by courier, a get well gift from an overseas Gatherer.  I have never seen more beautiful flowers in my life, and their purple and blue and turquoise colouring could not be more perfect for me.

Over the last three weeks lots of funny and beautiful and thoughtful cards have landed on my doormat, mainly from Gatherers and others from friends in Wales, England and even from overseas.

The postman has delivered many lovely surprise gifts from various of my "cancer gangs"... my chemo buddies, my local network.

And every day someone pops in to cook my tea (bending and stretching still verboten for another week, along with lifting anything over 1kg!) and check if I need any housework or shopping done.

It is hard to think that there could be anyone more spoiled on this planet right now.

Very humbling, and very beautiful.  I think opening the flowers and thinking 'wow' just summarised all I feel.  Ffor all the bad news, sad news and challenges that life brings, it is beautiful and, in the words of God, "very good".  Indeed, as I've been known to say when preaching on Genesis 1, God looked at all that had been created and went, "Wow!"

One of the things about being a rule-follower, a girly-swat and apparently a good patient, is that thus far, my recovery from surgery is progressing really well.  My wound is healing beautifully, I have no pain to speak of (just an odd niggle if I twist or move a bit too quickly) and although I get tired very quickly in the evenings, my energy levels are improving day by day.

According to what I refer to as the "How to Get Better" leaflet, I am to take a daily walk, rain or shine, and aim to increase the time/distance steadily over a period of four to six weeks.  So, I began the first day I was home with doing five laps of my kitchen table (roughly 40m, or so I calculated), soon progressing to 10, 15 and then 30 laps.  Once I'd got that far, it was time to venture outdoors for a ten minute stroll, accompanied by a friend, just to be on the safe side.  A couple more days and I was doing that little circuit alone and starting to add on little bits to increase the duration/distance.

By two weeks I had achieved my personal goal, being able to walk to a nearby cafe, sit down for an hour with a cup of tea and chat to a friend, and then walk home again.

Yesterday I had two shorter walks but together they totalled almost 2.5 miles, with another tea and chat stop in the second one.

This morning I braved a longer, single walk - the target according to "How to get Better" being 30 - 45 minutes.  I had slightly underestimated the distance, and the walk ended up as 50 minutes and 2.25 miles.  It was fine, but I was quite glad when I got home to sit down with a cup of tea and the "pink jammie" doughnut I bought at the bakers I passed on my way home.  After all, I need to keep up my energy reserves!!

Recuperation is a funny old thing, seeming to demand far more energy than activity levels suggest.  But it's also really important to do properly, in a girly-swat, rule-follower kind of way.  For which reason, once I've had my lunch it will be nap time before I spend the rest of the day doing nothing more taxing than colouring, stroking cats and watching TV.

We in the west seem to have a bit of an obsession with significant dates - birthdays and wedding anniversaries being the most obvious, but any number of others, often those of personal significance that no-one else on the planet will recall.  I'm not sure there is a whole lot of rhyme or reason to what is significant for a given individual... things that seem to me inconsequential are to others hugely significant and vice versa.  And some of it is about personality quirks -  for some people dates, times and places just 'stick' in the mind or a triggered by such diverse means as hearing a particular piece of music, smelling a certain scent, or even eating a specific food.

My own canon of significant dates includes some happy/positive occasions, such as my baptism, my sense of call and my ordination, and some not so lovely... my "cancerversary", the dates I started chemo and had my initial surgery are graven on my memory (though interestingly not the date I started rads but the day I finished them!).  Some are actual calendar dates, others are linked to liturgical dates (so, for example, I recall my Dad's death on the Wednesday after Easter rather than the actual date; my first sense of call on the second Sunday in Advent)

Yesterday was a milestone day - a marker that made official what already was (and which coincided neatly with the anniversary of going into hospital for my initial surgery, five years ago!)...

The officical assertion that I am now five years NED is a significant milestone in some ways, hence why I felt so unexpectedly happy about it, yet it is at the same totally artificial: due to an admin mix up my appointment had been delayed by a week, so I could have reached it a week earlier or a fortnight later, just dependent on when the appointment landed.  The marker doesn't actually change anything, at least not in terms of hard facts.  But it does change something inner, more nebulous, less precise.

The friend who five and half years ago said, "nothing has changed except now you know" may rue those words, given how deeply rooted they are in my psyche, yet they remain as true and as untrue as they were then.  Being told you have cancer does not change anything physically, but it totally changes your world, it is, in my opinion, an irreversible paradigm shift.  Being told you are still NED not only doesn't change anything, it is inherently imprecise, unproven, yet it makes a huge difference inside.  Reaching five years is a significant milestone, it is a figure that carries an air of mystique, and that is sometimes, unhelpfully, equated with cure.  This isn't a pardigm shift, there remains a level of uncertainty; a real, if diminished and diminishing, risk that something as yet undetected and undetectable may yet arise.  As others have said, the day you know you are cured of breast cancer is the day that you died at a ripe old age and something else appears on your death certificate!!

I think what I have learned, at a generic level, is to value my own milestones and markers, not to be embarrassed that for me 23rd August and 2nd/3rd February are hugely important dates, right up there with 5th October, 6th December and the Second Sunday in Advent, even if for very different reasons.

Most of these milestones and markers are not paradigm shifts, which is a good thing!  Most of them will become less significant with time, will pass unobserved, if not unremembered, and that is a healthy thing too, I think.

Five years of NED means the risk of recurrence has significantly diminished, that the risk of a new primary is falling closer to the societal average (and will reach that at around ten years from diagnosis).  Nothing dramatic has changed or will change, but as a personal marker, a date I genuinely feared I'd never see, it has personal significance - which I guess is good enough!

Five years ago to the date, I was admitted to hospital for my mastectomy and immediate reconstruction... I was tired from six cycles of chemotherapy and fearful of what the future might hold.

Since then I have learned to live with side effects, come to terms with living with a degree of uncertainty, made some amazing friends, done some wonderful things and been subject to ongoing care and support.

This morning was my five year post surgery check-up... I was pretty confident all would be well, but even so not counting any chickens.

I could not have imagined how happy I would feel to leave my appointment officially Five Years NED (No Evidence of Disease).  I still have another five years of follow-up.  Another five years of taking Tamoxifen.  And two-yearly mammograms (so years 6,8,10) for the balance of the decade.

Five years is a recognised milestone, not a 'now you are cured' but a real sense that 'now the risks start to diminish the longer you stay well.'

Had I been able to jump for joy without hurting my abdominal scar, I would have done.  Indeed, I would have danced my way out of the hospital and all the way down the road.

Chastened optimism, humble hopefulness, eternal gratitude... being a Five Year NED is just an amazing place to be.

Thank you God

Thank you everyone who has supported me

Thank you NHS Scotland.