Silver Linings: Affirming God’s Goodness in the Shelter of His Grace

By Linda Keeley McFarlane

Linda Keeley McFarlane firmly believes that God has a purpose for each of us. Yet, in the span of a heartbeat, our orderly days and nights can be changed and realigned for a greater purpose, reminding us that all the years we have been granted to date have been preparation for a pivotal moment that will require all the faith, hope, courage, and love we can muster.

In a retelling of her sister Janet’s journey through a bone marrow transplant, Linda intertwines personal insight with original blog posts to recount the steps along the way—each one exactly as it was meant to be taken—as Janet’s medical team, friends, and family used their gifts of education and talent to fit together each jewel-toned piece of tile that completed the magnificent mosaic of Janet’s earthly life.

Silver Linings chronicles an amazing woman’s journey through a bone marrow transplant, lifted through her challenges by a loving God, supportive family, and a healthy dose of humor.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jun 7, 2023
• ISBN: 9781664299931

Linda Keeley McFarlane

A Kansas girl at heart, Linda Keeley McFarlane lives in Durango, Colorado, where she is a middle school reading interventionist. Students and their education are her passion, having previously taught first, second, and third grades and grades K–12 in English as a Second Language. Linda has also been employed as a bilingual reading specialist and building administrator and has worked in the English departments of several junior colleges. Additionally, she enjoyed supervising student teachers at the college level and tutoring students of all ages. In order to continue to fulfill her career goal of helping as many children as she possibly could in her lifetime, she has retired several times only to shortly thereafter resume her mission. Linda enjoys spending time with her children, daughter-in-law, grandchildren, and all other family members. Pastimes include reading, knitting, riding her bike, walking outside in God’s amazing world, and shopping. She enjoys creating lovely flower gardens and playing her keyboard and trumpet. She’s been dreaming about becoming an author for quite some time.

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Copyright © 2023 Linda Keeley McFarlane.

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Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright

© 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-6642-9992-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-9994-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-9993-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023909010

WestBow Press rev. date: 06/06/2023

For my

siblings, Janet and Patty, our spouses, and

our parents in thanksgiving for the three cords¹

strength of unconditional family love.

Preface

Though mostly indiscernible in real time, I believe deeply and firmly that God has a purpose for each one of us, even as we were fearfully and wonderfully made.² Our lives are so inextricably interconnected, and given the free will of a myriad of choices each day, the complexity of our existences is way beyond my grasp. We go about our days generally unaware of the altering dynamics of our decisions in the courses of our lives. Then, in the span of a heartbeat, our orderly days and nights are changed and realigned for a greater purpose in which every fiber of our timber is tested. Subsequent to a period of emotional chaos, we are gradually endowed with newfound strength, and it appears that all of the years that we were granted up to this point were but preparation for a pivotal moment that will require all of the faith, hope, and love we can muster, not to mention a boatload of bravery. The often repeated adage God never gives you more than you can handle comes into sharp focus, the translation of God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength but with your testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.³ For all of those also affected by the shift of our personal tectonics, each cog in the gear must play an integral role according to his or her personal gifts toward an outcome for which we can only collectively pray. And pray we do, as if a life depends upon it, which it often does.

No matter the outcome, all of the stakeholders in the tragedy or triumph are changed from the inside out. Some may wear a new cloak of bitterness or regret and cloister away their sadness where it permanently and corrosively resides. For others, sorrow will lose its sharp edges in time. Thankfully, blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.⁴ Those who see the hand of God in the endeavors to sustain life and also in the resignation of life eventually find peace in knowing that prayers were answered, and all happened in the shelter of grace as it was meant to as each one of us grew closer to our Maker.

In retrospect, our sister Janet’s inevitable destiny was the culmination of an amazing journey, unique to the child of God that she was. Many doctors, nurses, technicians, friends, and family members used their gifts of education and talent to fit together each jewel-toned piece of tile that completed the magnificent mosaic of Janet’s earthly life. It is with joy that I recount the steps along the way—each one exactly as it was meant to be taken.

Understanding the

Blog Insertions

Originally, Janet toted her iPad to Lenexa, Kansas, where we resided, for the express purpose of learning how to create a blog and to publish it for family members and friends as a documentary of her bone marrow transplant experience. Although I prodded her on a daily basis to begin writing, Janet clearly procrastinated over the span of a week and then announced that she really didn’t want to start it in the event that she would not be able to keep up with it. (She had a legitimate concern there. Good point, Sis.) In the next breath, Janet bloviated that she hoped that Linnie would undertake the blogging task because Linnie was highly proficient at writing and would really delight in doing it. (Wait. What?)

Before Janet’s in-residence stay with us, I had never written a blog. I had read a very few, and I definitely knew zilch about the technical side of launching blogs into cyberspace. Most of all, I did not expect to attract readers from eleven different countries!

What I did know was that the purpose of my blog writing would be to apprise those who loved Janet of her progress (or lack of therein) but in a kind of secondary aside. My hope was to take the mundane and depressing aspects of what Janet was enduring and give it a lighthearted spin that would evoke smiles on everyone’s faces, hers especially. After all, humor is a life skill that brings people together and relaxes tension; we needed both plus all of the other health benefits of laughing. Our family humor has always been an integral facet of our close relationships. We love hard, but we also play hard physically and verbally, all in the name of good clean fun.

I wanted all of Janet’s close family members to play roles in my blog as an avenue for showcasing their attentiveness to Janet and their deep love for her. In this book and in my blogs, my aspiration was to proudly describe how Jim and Lorene Keeley endowed us, the Keeley girls, with ideals of faith, hope, courage, education, and love that served us well and to highlight how their family and extended family of grandchildren and great-grandchildren applied those virtues in accompanying and supporting Janet in the direst of circumstances. They prepared us all by example and by teaching us to weather the storms of life by dancing in the rain with the Son.

You will find the blogs inserted chronologically throughout this publication, and you will notice some overlapping from the chapter narratives. The entries range from the last week of May 2013 through the last week of July 2013. The response to each blog edition was far-reaching and nothing short of awesome. People related and unrelated, living in close proximity and across the globe, reacted with praise, prayers, and encouragement. Friends and not-yet friends rallied with gratitude for our candid sharing and with well-wishing. I had not anticipated this source of daily joy. Some blog readers even seemed to appreciate and understand my sense of humor! In return, we desired to communicate empathy to those people in our social circles and beyond who might be going through the same painful trials. We forged so many relationships that strengthened our daily resolve to make eye contact with leukemia, strategically do battle, and watch Janet emerge triumphantly healed and back to the vibrant lady she had been.

Oh, and Janet’s prophecy (however manipulative) was fulfilled: blogging came naturally to me, and I did enjoy it tremendously. It was cathartic, my therapy as my fingers danced across the keyboard recounting medical matters and turning some of the lighter anecdotes into pure family fun. Thank you, Gee, for pushing me in that direction. You knew me well. It was an ineffable honor and, without a doubt, one of the first silver linings.

Keeley Family Tree C:\Users\ldrummy\Downloads\tree7.jpg

In order to understand and appreciate this saga of our family engaged in the most serious struggle of our lives, an introduction to the characters is prerequisite. Readers unfamiliar with the Keeleys need not memorize the family tree. Instead, use the explanations of position as a reference from which to determine our familial relationships. To do so renders the narrative (especially the blogs) considerably more comprehensible.

Our parents from whom we learned foundational life virtues were Jim and Lorene (Pundsack) Keeley. In a way, it was a blessing they were spared from Janet’s cancer agonies, although we each know in our heart of hearts they were never far away. In birth order, Janet (Gee to her sisters, Mam to her eleven grandchildren), Patty, and Linda (Linnie) were their children.

We girls picked our parents carefully, and they were amazing in so many ways. We sisters adored them, wanted to please them, and remain very grateful to them.

Janet married Tom Hipp. Tragically, Tom passed away shortly after Janet’s health began to fail and a diagnosis of leukemia was presented. We all have missed Tom but never more acutely than during Janet’s journey through leukemia, but we believe firmly that somehow Tom’s memory and spiritual presence were often Janet’s primary sources of strength and courage. He was