Rebellious Hope
A Tribute to Nightbirde
Today marks the first anniversary of when Jane Kristen Marczewski left the world to return to her home in heaven at the age of 31 (December 29, 1990 — February 19, 2022). Like millions, I did not know Jane personally but was introduced to her by my television when she auditioned on the 16th season of America’s Got Talent.
It was June 8, 2021, and I was relaxing on the couch, ready to watch an audition episode of AGT. The past ten years of my life have been extremely difficult with various trials, but when I watched AGT, I experienced temporary relief from anxiety and depression. After a few acts and a commercial break, the show continued by highlighting the vast room of contestants waiting for their chance to amaze the judges. The way it was edited, the camera only focused on contestants who had a supportive person alongside them. A father supported his daughter, a wife supported her husband, and a friend supported her friend.
With the camera panning to highlight other supportive groups, it stopped on a girl with a black t-shirt and torn white jeans who was alone. It was Jane, and it was her turn to walk onto the stage. Alone. Her solitude bothered me. It became even more awkward when during the introduction with the judges, Howie (one of the judges) asked her, “Who are you here with?” and she replied, “I’m here by myself.” Here’s her memorable audition:
Fifty-two million views later, her audition continues to impact viewers around the world. Like millions, I cried tears of amazement watching her performance. Like millions, I was blown away by her optimism and perspective on her life. Listening to her speak words of profound wisdom, I kept thinking there was something different about Jane. She touched our souls with her words when she spoke gems like,
“It’s important that everyone knows I’m so much more than the bad things that have happened to me.”
And
“You can’t wait until life isn’t hard anymore before you decide to be happy.”
And as her time on my television screen wrapped up and before another commercial break snapped me back into reality, her video clip ended with her smile beaming as she proclaimed,
“I have a two percent chance of survival, but two percent is not zero percent. Two percent is something, and I wish people knew how amazing it is.”
Like millions, my soul was touched by what I had just witnessed. There was a healing component in her words for my grieving heart. There was faith despite the bleakness. At that point, I knew I needed to learn more about Jane.
Nightbirde’s Blog
I searched the internet about her and found her blog with four entries. Her blog entries were a part of her website.
The four blog entries were:
1. Bald Girl in the Dark (October 30, 2020)
2. God is on the Bathroom Floor (March 9, 2021)
3. If I Must Break (April 20, 2021)
4. Room for Air (May 3, 2021)
I must admit, I was not ready for what I was about to read. Rare is it to find such raw pain beautifully written, such hope and faith expressed in dire terms. I learned that her bout with cancer had a more extended history than I initially thought. Jane was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2017 and declared cancer-free in July 2018. Her cancer recurred in 2019, and she was given six months to live, but she was again declared cancer-free in 2020. Before her AGT audition, Jane was told that cancer had metastasized to her lungs, spine, and liver, with a two percent chance of survival.
I commend these entries to anyone who needs encouragement, perspective, grace, and love.
Bald Girl in the Dark asks the following,
“I haven’t come as far as I’d like, in understanding the things that have happened this year. But here’s one thing I do know: when it comes to pain, God isn’t often in the business of taking it away. Instead, he adds to it. He is more of a giver than a taker. He doesn’t take away my darkness, he adds light. He doesn’t spare me of thirst, he brings water. He doesn’t cure my loneliness, he comes near. So why do we believe that when we are in pain, it must mean God is far?”
My hunch was confirmed; Jane believed in God, and God was her treasure. However, she didn’t speak like most Christians I’ve known; she actually thought God was real, good, and beautiful. Jane concludes,
“I am still reeling, drenched in sorrow. I am still begging, bargaining, demanding, disappearing. And I guess that means I have all the more reason to say thank you, because God is drawing near to me. Again. Again. Again. No matter how many times He is sent away.”
There was a grit to her faith that stood out to me.
I also gained more insight into how the “alone” motif on AGT was painfully applicable. For example, Jane was diagnosed with terminal cancer on New Year's Eve. Two weeks later, her then-husband, whom she called “My One Great Love,” told her their marriage was over.
Over the next four months, God would continue to draw near to Jane again, and again, and again during, what appeared to be, one of her most painful and darkest times.
God Is On The Bathroom Floor
During the next four months, Jane “chased a miracle in California” and got it. She defeated her second cancer diagnosis. Then the darkness came.
“But when my brain caught up with it all, something broke. I later found out that all the tragedy at once had caused a physical head trauma, and my brain was sending false signals of excruciating pain and panic.”
I have read Augustine’s Confessions, the works of the Puritans, including their prayers found in The Valley of Vision, and completed from cover-to-cover Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, all to say that I found more help and healing in Jane’s God is on the Bathroom Floor than in these other books combined.
“I spent three months propped against the wall. On nights that I could not sleep, I laid in the tub like an insect, staring at my reflection in the shower knob. I vomited until I was hollow. I rolled up under my robe on the tile. The bathroom floor became my place to hide, where I could scream and be ugly; where I could sob and spit and eventually doze off, happy to be asleep, even with my head on the toilet.”
Sleep brought much-needed relief regardless of how little she got. Reading these words reminds me of the darkest psalm of the Psalter, Psalm 88. She then continues down a dark path in her mind wondering if such pain was due to her own doing, fearful that she had sinned against God.
“I have had cancer three times now, and I have barely passed thirty. There are times when I wonder what I must have done to deserve such a story. I fear sometimes that when I die and meet with God, that He will say I disappointed Him, or offended Him, or failed Him. Maybe He’ll say I just never learned the lesson, or that I wasn’t grateful enough. But one thing I know for sure is this: He can never say that He did not know me.”
How relatable is the haunting thought that your wrongdoing must have brought on your suffering? Job’s friends thought the same way — and this way of thinking about suffering is also prevalent in today’s church. One of the worst insults you can give to a Christian today is to accuse them of being bitter. Bitterness, it is thought in such circles, is rooted in unbelief, and to state that one is bitter is comparable to questioning their salvation.
Jane owns it. The good, bad, and ugly all have a place in Jane’s faith since her hiding place is in God’s presence.
“Call me bitter if you want to — that’s fair. Count me among the angry, the cynical, the offended, the hardened. But count me also among the friends of God. For I have seen Him in rare form. I have felt His exhale, laid in His shadow, squinted to read the message He wrote for me in the grout: ‘I’m sad too.’”
She experienced God’s compassion towards her on the bathroom floor. She did not find a petty, vengeful, judgmental, accusatory God but a God of love, peace, safety, and grace.
Jane ends with the following insight,
“Even on days when I’m not so sick, sometimes I go lay on the mat in the afternoon light to listen for Him. I know it sounds crazy, and I can’t really explain it, but God is in there — even now. I have heard it said that some people can’t see God because they won’t look low enough, and it’s true.
If you can’t see him, look lower. God is on the bathroom floor.”
Later after this dark season temporarily left, Jane spoke about grief and sorrow, affirming the work of processing such painful emotions as “holy work.” She confirmed the duality of both sadness and gratitude co-existing and even normalized such diverse feelings being held together as common in the messiness of life.
Nightbirde’s Origin
I told you there was something different about Jane. But of course, most people know her as Nightbirde. My deeper understanding of Jane led me to research the origin of her stage name Nightbirde. This moniker was based on Jane’s recurring dream, in which birds sang outside her window at night in anticipation of the morning. She explained, “It felt so poetic that these birds were singing as if it were morning, and yet there was no sign of it yet, and that’s what I want to embody.”
Even her name, “Nightbirde,” spoke of hope amid despair and anticipation of light while in the darkness.
Nightbirde’s Rebellious Hope
Two months after her golden-buzzer performance on AGT, Jane dropped out of the competition to focus on her health, which had worsened. In an interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo, Jane shared,
“I’m not a quitter. So it was really, really hard for me to say that I couldn’t finish the show. I got shocking news less than a week ago about cancer regrowth that has taken over my lungs and liver. So my liver right now is mostly cancer. More cancer than liver in there right now. But as I said, I’m planning my future, not my legacy. Some people would call that blind denial. I prefer to call it rebellious hope. And I’m not stopping anytime soon.”
Rebellious hope. Such a powerful, inspiring phrase. She continued to gush with this rebellious hope stating,
“Don’t you want to see what happens if you don’t give up? Don’t you want to see what happens?”
Rebellious Hope All Along
Rebellious hope; it was there all along.
It was there when Jane walked out onto that AGT stage alone, ready to sing a song of hope while cancer in her body had a 98% chance of killing her.
It was there each of the three times Jane had to hear a doctor tell her that she had cancer.
It was there when her husband left her, and instead of wallowing in a pity party, she drove to California looking for a miracle.
It was there with the bald girl in the dark and the girl on the bathroom floor.
And it was there with Jane until the very end.
Nightbirde and Hebrews 11
One of the reasons Jane’s life impacted me the way it did was that I was in the eleventh hour of a very long season of pain, disappointment, betrayal, and depression. A Bible passage that brought comfort to me was Hebrews 11:32–40. I had been in churches for over two decades and had heard many testimonies of God’s grace in people’s lives. But there was a common thread in all the testimonies that disturbed me. They all ended with sunshine, puppies, and ice cream. Don’t get me wrong; it is evidence of God’s grace if He brings about the provision and rescues His people in their time of need. But this is only one type of grace.
What was missing from all the testimonies were those that said, “Things are bad, I’ve sought God, and they’ve only gotten worse… yet, I still love my God.” It had been my experience that sometimes God provides a way to escape, and other times God provides the grace to sustain one’s faith amid the storm.
That is what I read in Hebrews 11:32–40. By faith, some conquered kingdoms and escaped the sword, and for others, by faith, they were sawn in two or were homeless, afflicted, and tormented. Both experiences came from the same faith in the same God. Therefore, it is not a sign of one’s faith that circumstances are going well, nor a sign of one’s lack of faith when trials come along.
Those who experienced hardship were described as “Some” and “Others.” But at the beginning of verse 38, they were given a name. Their name is “Those of whom the world was not worthy.” And the world was not worthy of Jane, as she longed to find her home. She acknowledged that she felt like an alien who didn’t belong here.
“For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland… But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.” ~ Hebrews 11:14, 16
Nightbirde’s Beautiful Break
As Jane’s life came to an end, I couldn’t help but think of her words from her blog, If I Must Break,
“I have looked into the eyes of every version of me I can remember, hoping to find one that feels like home, someone I can return to.”
She continues in her writing to describe a scene of ocean waves crashing into rocks, observing both the brevity and beauty of the moment.
“As each wave smashed into the earth, mist exploded into the sun, becoming a cloud of rainbow vapor, all eight colors, glittering in the air for only a second.”
Jane saw the beauty in the breaking of the water. Her rebellious hope was along with her until the very end as she felt the need to declare the good and beauty in the world amid her pain. In one of her last videos, faith, beauty, love, and hope get the last word of her life.
Her closing thoughts from If I Must Break:
“My eyes widened and I leaned forward. The angle of the water had to be just right, and the prism lasted only as long as a falling star. I was mesmerized by each wave hitting the rocks, shattering into ten billion gleaming pieces before falling back into the whole, finally reaching home.
‘If I must break,’ I thought, ‘Maybe I can break like the waves. And if I am shattering, maybe it’s into ten billion gleaming pieces, only for a second. And soon I’ll fall back into one whole. Maybe the breaking means I’m finally reaching home.”
In the end, rebellious hope won.
Happy one year of being home, Jane. Thank you for reminding me that God is real, He is good, and His grace is sufficient, even if I don’t see Him in the storm.
I’d want Nightbirde to end this tribute in the way that only she can, by singing her rebellious hope.
The Nightbirde Foundation exists to bring hope and healing to young women with breast cancer.
The Nightbirde Foundation is a 501c3 organization that helps young women with breast cancer. The Nightbirde Foundation was formed in honor of Jane Marczewski, aka Nightbirde, who brought hope to many through her journey with breast cancer. The generosity of thousands of people around the world extended Jane’s life much longer than expected and enabled her to inspire millions with her message of hope and healing. We invite you to partner with us in this mission with a donation of any amount here.
