I have lived for some years now with a certain kind of uncertainty, the kind that quietly follows me even on ordinary days.

It is not always loud. Sometimes it sits far enough in the background that I can almost forget it is there. Life feels normal for a while. I breathe a little more freely. I settle into the everyday rhythm of life and let myself enjoy what is in front of me.

And then something brings it close again.

A date on the calendar. An MRI. A neurosurgeon’s appointment. A report still unread. And all at once, the thoughts begin circling again. The wondering. The waiting. The quiet fear of what may have changed.

That is the nature of living with spinal and brain tumours. Even in the better stretches, when life feels lighter and more ordinary again, the uncertainty never fully disappears. It stays somewhere beneath the surface, quiet but present, like something I have learnt to carry but never truly set down.

It is a strange way to live.

And it has changed me.

It has changed the way I look at time, the way I hold my plans, the way I treasure ordinary life. Things that once may have seemed small no longer feel small to me. Time with family matters in a deeper way. Travelling when I am able matters. Shared meals, familiar voices, laughter around the table, a quiet day out, the simple gift of being together — all of it feels more precious when life cannot be planned too far ahead.

And writing matters to me too, now more than ever.

There is a real fear in me sometimes, not only of what the scans may show, but of what the future may take. Writing has become such a part of how I live, how I process, how I remember, how I make sense of life and hold onto its beauty. And there are moments when I feel the sharp ache of that fear — what if one day I cannot write the way I do now? What if the words no longer come? What if this part of me, which feels so alive and so deeply mine, is taken or altered?

That fear is hard to put into words, perhaps because writing itself is the very thing I am afraid of losing.

And so it has made me want to write while I can.

Not in a frantic way, but with a deeper urgency. A tenderness. A knowing that the things we think will always be there are not always guaranteed. Writing is no longer just something I do. It feels like something I must honour while it is still in my hands. A gift. A lifeline. A way of leaving something of my heart on the page while I am able.

Perhaps that is one of the hidden ways uncertainty shapes a life. It makes you reach more quickly for what matters. It teaches you not to keep putting off joy, or words, or love, or time together. It reminds you that ordinary life is not ordinary at all.

There are times when I can almost forget. Times when the scans are not due and the appointments are not hanging over me, and I can simply live without looking too far ahead.

But only almost.

Because this uncertainty hums quietly beneath the surface of life, and sometimes it rises and reminds me just how fragile everything really is.

And yet, in all of this, I keep coming back to the same truth: God’s mercy has never failed me.

He has been with me in the fear, in the waiting, in the questions, and in the long stretches of not knowing. I have been held, again and again, and even here I can still say that all my life He has been faithful and so, so good.

That does not take away the reality of this road. It does not remove the fear or the vulnerability of living this way. But it reminds me that I am not walking it alone.

Perhaps that is what I find myself reflecting on most often.

How fragile life can feel, and yet how full of beauty it still is.
How the unknown can sit beside the beautiful.
How even a life marked by uncertainty can still be rich with meaning, tenderness, joy, and grace.

And so I keep wanting to write while I can, love while I can, go while I can, and hold close the people and moments that matter most.

Because ordinary life does not feel ordinary to me anymore. It feels precious, and so does the gift of being able to reflect on it through writing.