Selah : The In-Between

These feelings and words have swirled around in my head for several weeks now, and it is
finally time to express them. Always a caveat to begin. I am in a good place, and I am
surrounded and comforted by amazing family and friends and an Awesome God. Nevertheless, there are times when you walk “alone,” embarking on a journey or experience only you can walk, with lessons and insights only you have to learn or experience. This is what I am trying to express here and pray that my words can touch another person who may be going through their own “Selah.”

Health Update – Last week, my cancer antigen number was 14.6 which is the lowest it has been – my numbers have hovered in the 15-21 range for a while. Great news! The CT scan in late December showed 2 spots to watch, but these could be scar tissue. No additional tests will determine exactly what they are, but they appear to be shrinking in any case. The plan for now is to stay on maintenance – infusion every three weeks and daily pill. No “Evidence of Disease” statement but VERY GOOD NEWS on all fronts!

Now to the long post that I wish I could share with each of you individually, but time and
distance can prevent that. So, I am relying on technology for this share. Please know this is not a “poor me” or “pity me” post; it is meant to be a current update and an apology to those I have been unable to connect with since, perhaps unknowingly, I was stuck in my head in the “in-between” “Selah” moments.

A teal sister on one of the Ovarian Cancers sites I frequent had such insight into the “in-
between” feeling for survivors. “Completing chemotherapy does not mean the danger has
passed. It means the most visible phase of treatment has ended while uncertainty remains.
Living with ongoing risk means vigilance never fully shuts off. Life resumes, but it does so under watch — with awareness that doesn’t fade just because treatment does. There is a particular kind of exhaustion here — not loud or dramatic, but persistent and wearing. The kind that comes from living in a body that doesn’t cooperate the way it once did, even when you’re told you should be relieved now.”

I call it “identity fatigue,” layered on grief and real physical depletion. It’s about not having a version of yourself that feels accurate yet — not sick, not well, not before, not after.  It’s about being suspended between “treatment” and “recovery,” in a space that has no language and no clear finish line. The limbo is brutal. “There is a strong urge to rush this phase — to get past it, outgrow it, wake up, and feel settled again. But this isn’t a phase that responds to force. It can’t be hurried without cost. Healing moves on its own timeline, and that lack of control is part of what hurts.”

“Survivorship with risk is its own terrain — quieter, lonelier, harder to explain. Healing
continues alongside vigilance. Relief and fear coexist. Both are happening at once.” Since this “phase” can’t be rushed (or controlled), she concludes that this is “Becoming — under watch, without certainty, and still moving forward.”

Such wisdom shared by a teal sister so I parked and reflected on her words of the “in-between”for weeks, and then discovered an amazing word found primarily in the Psalms and in Habakkuk – “SELAH.” I found this description of “SELAH,” and I have to say, I wept. Since I could not say it better, I am just sharing it here.
I am living in the “Selah.” The sacred space between the cry and the comfort. The hollow pause between the groaning and the glory.
Between “Why, Lord?” and “Now I see.”
Between the ashes and the crown.

Selah…I used to rush past that word in the Psalms.
Skimmed it like a speed bump on the way to
something louder, clearer, resolved.
But now I know it’s more than a pause.
It is a dwelling place.
A deep exhale in the middle of unanswered prayers.
A quiet held between sobs and songs.
I am sitting here, in the ache that has not yet lifted, in the wound that has not yet healed, in the prayer that still waits for its amen.
I am not where I was, but not yet where I long to be. I am in the middle…the Selah.

And I am learning this:
The pause is not empty.
The silence is not God’s absence.
It is His breath over the waters again.
It is the same voice that spoke in the beginning, not always with words, but with weight.
With presence. Here, He teaches me to wait like the psalmists did, not with passive resignation, but with hope.

Selah does not mean the story is over.
It means: Stop. Ponder. Let the weight of what was just said sink into your bones.
It means: Don’t miss this moment.
It means: God is still speaking, even in the stillness.

This is the space between grief and healing.
Between brokenness and breakthrough.
Between Good Friday and Resurrection Morning.
I thought healing would feel like a moment, a flash of divine power.
But what if healing looks more like dwelling in the pause?
Like learning to trust the Surgeon while He’s still stitching the wound closed?

Selah: the ground is still wet with my tears, but the roots are reaching deeper.
Selah: I am not whole, but I am being held.
Selah: I don’t have answers, but I know the Answerer is near.
I used to beg for the fast-forward button.
Now I just pray not to miss Him in the slow unfolding.
Not to miss the revelation in the space between.

So I sit. I breathe. I ache. I hope.
And I whisper that word with trembling lips—
Selah.
To all who made it the end, thank you. I pray these words touch you in some way and that I will connect with you all more this year as I move from “Selah” to engagement and enjoy this amazing life God has provided, and the journey so far, and the one yet to come.