Friends are the family you choose for yourself

We have known each other down to the marrow of our own grieving bones. We've known each hurt and heartbreak. Our tears have flown into a river together, yours and mine all mixed up. We've cried for sins, and depression, broken hearts, isolation, the broken Church, marriages and children and this whole broken world.

The miraculous is in the joy shared when everything dictates otherwise. We've laughed with tears still in our eyes, the laughter choking off the last sob in the throat. We've marveled together at the offspring that somehow share our DNA but oh what people they are becoming on their own. We've loved deep, for generations.

And sometimes it is a lonely path through the snow. Sometimes you're there to help people my wilderness. Sometimes now it's your daughters who come to my rescue.

We watch close as the next generation knits themselves into an unravelable thing called "beloved". There is no untangling this yarn that's bound us to each other since I was just a child. And here is the hands and feet of Jesus in the meals we've shared, the long talks, the knowing God together, deeper every day. There are thirteen of us now, caught up in this little everyday miracle. For is that not what you'd call a friend who is unfailing for 29 years?

Beloved.

Heart still beating but it's not working

It's like a hundred thousand voices that just can't sing

I reached out trying to love but I feel nothing

Oh, my heart is numb

But with you

I feel again

And with you

I can feel again

Moments of mystery {30 Days of Thanks}

Remission day was 8 months ago. I still have no lymph nodes in my neck, throat or chest. And so another infection slams me in a sudden 24 hour assault, and the good ear, the one I can still hear out of, swells shut, the ear drum torn, blood pouring forth, and I am on four more medications in addition to the 15 or so I take on a daily basis still. All because of cancer. A friend, newly diagnosed, asks me if life ever returns to normal. I tell her it does...sort of. It does, in the sense that the doctors visits spread out, the diagnostic tests are fewer and farther between, there are many days you forget about cancer altogether and enjoy life like never before.

Every small joy you ignored in the busyness of normal life is suddenly captured in vivid color. The miracle of a single orchid blossom...that orchid plant that all you did was water on your sill for an entire year...it bursts into bloom, and you are overcome by the symmetry of the blossom and the pinks and yellows, and there in the mundaneness of a Wednesday evening in your kitchen, you are face to face with God in a moment of utter praise for an ordinary miracle.

Life is shrouded in mystery. Why did I get cancer at 28? Why was it the aggressive kind that took four years to bring under control? Why does every check-up come with mixed celebration - no radiation in December, yes, but March? The doctor says probably. Tumormarkers rising, falling again. Scans inconclusive, then negative again. Hope is the thing with feathers...YES, but to me that quote rings true, not because hope is beautiful as a swallow captured in the hand, but because it is an elusive thing, a wide-eyed bird you can hold in the palm of your hand for only a brief second, feeling the pounding heart of fear under your fingers, the whisper of the wings fluttering as hope threatens to take wing away too soon.

You learn, on the hard road, to grasp quickly and tenaciously at the small blessings. You learn, on the path marked with suffering, to read deep the meaning of the allegories, the lessons shrouded in mystery. The hearing loss that marks today is a question of trust: do I value my hearing enough that I will give up faith in an everlasting, unchangeable God for the gut-wrenching and useless practice of worry, anxiety and helpless planning for tomorrow? Do I cling to the Cross, do I look down at the footsteps marked before me on this road, the very footsteps of the Christ I long to follow? Do I prepare again to sweat blood in Gethsemane as I pray that the cup may pass? Or do I fling the cup as far from me as possible, rage at the cup, rage at the God who proffers it, rage at my circumstances, rage at my helplessness?

I have made my choice, long ago, and I will not waver. I choose the path of joy and thanksgiving. I choose the easy burden He trades me for my difficult one. I trust Him to carry my pack of rocks - the yoke of cancer, infection, complications, endless consequences of a dreadful disease I did not ask for and do not understand. I trust that whatever outcome He has planned for me is exactly that - planned eons before my birth, eons before my diagnosis, and ages before this small infection that has cost me the hearing in my good ear. I choose to believe that He is bigger than, greater than, and more important than any sacrifice I might still be asked to make on this temporary road of life.

I choose to mark this day - with it's doctor visits, painful procedures, aching ear, silence, and orchid blossoms on my window sill - a day of thanks. Day 7 of my 30 days of November gratitude. For He has richly blessed me beyond measure. The least I can do is accept whatever tribulations He asks me to journey through, to take the cup despite the blood, sweat, tears, and prayers. To take the "no" answers with the "yes" and "maybe". To wait upon the Lord for my deliverance and the answer to my prayer for healing.

Will you join me? Count a gift each day for which to give thanks this November, the month of Thanksgiving? Will you join in the tradition of the pioneers - plagued by disease, death, and hopelessness - who set a feasting table in the presence of their friends and enemies and gave thanks for what little food and kindness they experienced in a foreign land? I arrived nearly 5 years ago in a desolate foreign land of a difference sort - the land of Cancer, where my landscape changed from the naïve, carefree life of a young mother at home with children to the desert of doctor's appointments, scary lab tests, surgeries, and radiation treatments. I expected something different. God gave me a whole new life to live. I chose to trade cursing for blessing, even in the immaturity of 28. I am going to keep choosing it now, 33 and still living in this foreign country despite that magical word "remission" spoken back in February.

Please join me - and see the orchid blossoms instead of your pain. See the joy of this day, instead of your suffering, your fear, your disappointment, your anxiety for the future. Trade your heavy burden for that which is light. He offers you His burden to shoulder, the burden where death has already been defeated, where sickness has been healed, where sorrow has been forever wiped away for an eternity of celebration. Can't we count one small joy, and focus our eyes on this and the prize that lies ahead, instead of whatever plagues us in our daily walk? It is such an easy trade. Mindless, really. Join me. Not on the road marked with suffering, but on the road marked with a million small graces, like diamonds in the dust, just waiting to be noticed and reveled in.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:29-30)

http://www.30daysofthanks.com/

When your dreams get lost in the mist

There have been many starry-eyed beginnings on this long journey to becoming a professor, but today was not one of them. On the last eve before I face a roomful of 100 or so starry-eyed students, sophomores and juniors entering their first semester of the nursing curriculum, I found myself much less excited and much more afraid than I had dreamed. It was an eve of many tears as I realize just how ill-prepared I am for the first day of this journey.

I go out to the porch swing, my personal sanctuary, at 2 a.m., when I should be sleeping, as those students await me at 8 a.m. sharp, with their skills lab packets, ready to begin their pre-testing for which I am the somewhat clueless evaluator. Instead of sleeping, I am shaking in my boots.

And, as He has so many times before, God matches the internal pendulum of my thoughts and fears with a picture in nature to comfort me. The very trees I treasure are hidden from view as a pea-soup fog rolls over our valley and clouds the night in an impenetrable white of hidden hopes and dreams, darkened landmarks of comfort and familiarity. I take a deep breath of the humid, heavy air and I know that the fog will lift in the morning - from this landscape I love and from these dreams I hold so dear and so close.

I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.” The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. It is good for me to bear the yoke while I am young. Let me sit alone in silence, for the Lord has laid it on me. Let me bury me face in the dust— there may yet be hope. Let me offer my cheek to one who would strike me, and let me be filled with disgrace. For no one is cast off by the Lord forever. Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love. For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to anyone. (Leviticus 3:19-33)

 You have my heart

And I am Yours forever

You are my strength

God of grace and power

And everything You hold in Your hand

Still You make time for me

I can't understand

Praise You God of Earth and sky

How beautiful is Your unfailing love

Unfailing love

And You never change God You remain

The Holy One

My unfailing love

Unfailing love

You are my rock

The one I hold on to

You are my song

And I sing for You

And everything You hold in Your hand

Still You make time for me

I can't understand

Praise You God of Earth and sky

How beautiful is Your unfailing love

Unfailing love

~Chris Tomlin~

Water from the rock

He sends a cascade of bubbles, little orbs prismatic popping in my hair, and the din of twenty voices slurs to static white noise in a moment stolen with my son. 

The kids tumble out the doors to the playground, and I can hear the high notes of their glee as they clamber and scamper around us. Aaron puts his arm around my shoulders, wool on wool rasping, and I squint from the suddenness of the sound. I think to the next day - a day at Mayo searching for answers - and then quickly back to the joy of this day. 

My mother hands me a napkin while we are at Mayo, right after I hear that I might have a tumor in my brain causing my loss of hearing. It's a Doctor Seuss quote, and I immediately shrug it off. After all, who ever found philosophy illustrated with Thing 1 and Thing 2?

"Do not cry because it is over, celebrate that it happened at all."

I just heard "remission" the week before, and now I am hearing brain tumors. But "remission" did happen, and we did celebrate, and it was wonderful. The sounds of the cafeteria and the waterfall fade to gray, and I am there, in my head, back at Perkins celebrating remission with my kids and our waitress and my beautiful mother. I know God holds the answers to my sudden deafness. Maybe remission was His gift to me, knowing that I would walk another desert soon. The Israelites in Exodus 17 cried for water and cursed God for leading them into the desert. Moses hit the rock with his staff, and water flowed. Water for that day. Afterwards, they traveled on in the parched desert. But that water from the rock was indelibly imprinted, a memory of His goodness, His greatness, His provision. Maybe remission was my water from the rock.

The truth is, God has a great love for struggling people. Struggling people don't forget about Him; they don't think they have enough strength on their own; they don't quit talking to him, quit asking for what they need. Struggling people cling to Him because all else is shaking ground.

It was you who opened up springs and streams; you dried up the ever flowing rivers. The day is yours, and yours also the night; you established the sun and moon. It was you who set all the boundaries of the earth; you made both summer and winter. (Psalm 76:15-17)

Wherever I am, whatever the trial or celebration, whoever I am with, I am with God. He set these days before me before one of them came to be. He holds me and loves me, even when life seems harsh. Resting in His arms through darkness is the only way to survive life's nights.

Defying Death: Adventure & Mortality

There is a grievous evil I have seen under the sun: riches kept by the owner to his hurt, and those riches perish by evil adventure... (Ecclesiastes 5)

I am an adrenaline junkie. This trait is the product of the many times I was urged on by my younger brothers, only to chicken out at the last second. So many trees I didn't jump out of...races I didn't engage in...hills I refused to slide down. By college, I pushed myself hard to learn to snowboard. I became a hockey goalie. I tried bungee jumping and sky diving. I kayaked down many dangerous rivers. I once tubed in the buff down a river in Minnesota.

All of these risk taking activities sound pretty mild - but there were other death-defying habits I developed that weren't so harmless. I was a habitual liar. I constantly amped up my own stakes in my own game, at the expense of those who naively believed me. I messed around with binge drinking for a while, at the expense of my body. I think self-harm and suicide fit in the same category of death-defying stunts that gratified that gaping hole in me that could only be filled when I was on the brink of something dangerous, breathtaking or bad. Satan knew just how to seduce me, and I often closed my eyes to his rather transparent attempts to draw me away from safety and truth.

I gave up most of those habits when I was given a family. They still lurk in corners and occasionally I toy with them a bit too much. But, for the most part, I've abandoned risk taking in favor of a more sedate...and healthy...life with my husband and kids.

This insatiable thirst for adventure has cost me many things. One of the most bothersome to me is the dream of heaven. It is difficult for me to imagine how life could be exciting and perfect without any risks to take. How in the world will I enjoy myself if I can never die? Is that why Eve ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil - sheer boredom? Curiosity about how life tasted when the stakes were raised?

One of my cancer-inspired dreams is a good one: I slice through clouds with a snowboard, falling from a thunderhead a thousand feet to the sea of white below. I wonder if you still get that going-off-the-top-of-a-rollercoaster tickle in your tummy if you know nothing can kill you? I have to table my confusion until I get there and can ask Jesus. I simply can't imagine living forever and not losing the thrill of it. But then again perhaps I see life too often in the negative space, the black, not the white. Perhaps I don't really understand what it is to be alive at all.

Don't let the excitement of youth cause you to forget your Creator. Remember him before you become fearful of falling and worry about danger in the streets... (Ecclesiastes 12:1a & 5a)

Stonehenge

I used to see God just like this. Me, God, two inexorable features locked tightly in a molded sculpture of perfection. This is what I thought God wanted to do in my life. Bend me and shape me, the iron rod, the unforgiving stone of a life, to erode me and form me into something different than I am. After all, it's exactly what I deserve. If He is my constant companion, and sees my defeats and torment, surely He is the disciplinarian, the head honcho, the boss you duck to hide from at work:

Why does it feel like night today?

Something in here's not right today

Why am I so uptight today?

Paranoia's all I got left

I don't know what stressed me first

Or how the pressure was fed

But I know just what it feels like

To have a voice in the back of my head

It's like a face that I hold inside

A face that awakes when I close my eyes

A face watches every time I lie

A face that laughs every time I fall

And watches everything

So I know that when it's time to sink or swim

That the face inside is hearing me

Right underneath my skin

I know I've got a face in me

Points out all my mistakes to me

You've got a face on the inside too and

Your paranoia's probably worse

~Papercut, Linkin Park~

And to that God counters with the sweet, strong courageous voice from the pulpit that reads to me from Psalm 45. I shake while worshiping, penance for years thinking of God as an authoritarian parent I drew back from. Jesus, Lover of my soul? What He pursues is me, the real me? Not to break me, but to love me? This scandalous love affair between Creator and created seems like something we keep under wraps, don't speak about too much in public, for fear of coming across a bit odd. But, like breath in, breath out, intimacy with Him grows, magnificent, holy, supernatural and as natural as that reflex to breath in and out. 

Hear, O daughter, and consider, and incline your ear:
forget your people and your father's house,
and the king will desire your beauty.
Since he is your lord, bow to him.
The people of Tyre will seek your favor with gifts,
the richest of the people.


All glorious is the princess in her chamber, 
with robes interwoven with gold.
In many-colored robes she is led to the king,
with her virgin companions following behind her.
With joy and gladness they are led along
as they enter the palace of the king.


In place of your fathers shall be your sons;
you will make them princes in all the earth.
I will cause your name to be remembered in all generations;
therefore nations will praise you forever and ever.
~Psalm 45:10-17~

My gratitude list, excerpted from #649-656~
650. Starting the day with a positive thought for future
652. Matching tattoo with Melanie!
654. Peace in the Bachs home
656. Three little girls with matching pixie haircuts

Mist

You drive through it, fog lights on, and all the familiar landmarks are foreign. Only the blackness of the tar in front of you assures you that you are on the road. You slow down. You search for the familiar. You drive beyond your headlights and it is trust that propels you forward, the moving car in the wilderness of white, the waiting for protection, the begging for a clear ravine where you regain your boundaries.

Your vision is dimmed in the mist. You aren't certain of what you see...or whether you'll see it in time.

You stand in the fog, and the horizon has disappeared. Only the faded glow of the moon is visible. The trees are mere shadows, and your house is dark and distant, just a few feet away.

But you hear in the mist. The lone whistle of a distant train. The faint crow of the pheasant pleading through the darkness. You smell the mud, the sap running, the fecund woods breathe life that you cannot see.

You feel the thrum of traffic, the crackle of the frozen earth beneath the sheepskin boots, and the surety of terra firma frozen beneath your soles, the suck of the mud in the trenches of the driveway.

You smell the earthy air, the wetness. Your lungs pull in promise of daylight, promise that this is just a season of dimness.

You know it will dissipate in sunlight, burned clear by the warming rays of the spring sun, the breaking of day destroying the desolation, misdirection, confusion.

God's Word. Sometimes it's shrouded in the mist. You can't latch onto your purpose, and read Scripture skewed through misty eyes, and wonder when daybreak will burn off doubt and confusion and despair.

The reality is the horizon is still there. You see the lights of home glaring through the fog, and you home in and point yourself in that direction. You know clarity is just moments away, through the dark misty night and the fog that confounds.

You look up at the dim reflection of the moon, the craters disappearing in the glow of condensation, but there it is...the moon, the lone star flickering through, the visage of hope in a night of uncertainty.

He's there. Whether you see Him or not. Whether the Word is shrouded in mystery, whether the verses cloud together in heaps of gray, whether hope seems far away and tenuous.

The cold rises up from frozen earth and envelopes the whole world in conundrum, the conundrum of your pain and your grief shrouding His rescue, His provision.

Look for home. Smell the give of earth melting to promise of harvest. Hear the whistle in the dark, the whisper behind you that breathes, "this is the way, walk in it." (Isaiah 30:21) Don't be lost in the sensory fog, the vision lost, the purpose shrouded.

Keep reading. Read on through the mist of the Psalm that speaks uncertainty and find yourself, finally, in the conclusion of praise. Praise for mist and mystery. Praise for unseen glory and shipwrecked humanity.

Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
(from Psalm 139)

Read on to the praise, the purpose, the glory. For in the mist, He writes our story, shrouds it from our own eyes, so that in the end, it is He who garners worship and praise. When I am in the mist, He is seeing all. When my dreams...my horizon...are shrouded, they are still there, present in His promise, protected by His love, written already in His book, all these misty days of my life when I struggle to sense Him, to sense my direction, to sense my path.

Now to him who is able to establish you in accordance with my gospel, the message I proclaim about Jesus Christ, in keeping with the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past, but now revealed...so that all the Gentiles might come to the obedience that comes from faith— to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ! (Romans 16:25-27)

Walking through the woods at twilight

*Photos here of my gorgeous twin nieces, Kaitlynn & Jessica*

I love babies. If I could, I would have about twelve of my own. (I would also probably be clinically insane when the 12th child hit age 3, if not before) But every pregnancy leeched a little more life out of me, and, during my pregnancy with Caleb, the heart condition that I'd been free from for seven years came back with a vengeance. I was on my knees nightly praying to somehow survive the delivery. And I did.

We researched long-term methods of pregnancy prevention, and scheduled a tubal ligation to take place the day after Caleb was born. There was trepidation sitting like a stone in my belly that morning, and despite reassurance from my mom and my husband, I canceled the surgery. Yet we didn't have peace with not doing something. So two months later I submitted to the surgeon's scalpel and had my tubes "tied".

At the physical for the surgery, the tumor on my thyroid was found. A month after the surgery, I was facing radiation for cancer and told that the hormones of pregnancy had rocketed my cancer into high gear. It seemed like a perfect dovetail of providence that my tubes were already tied and pregnancy was not possible in the future.

Except it is God who writes our story, and sometimes no matter what we do, He writes in a little twist, a little surprise ending, a little mystery.

Just to remind me that I am not in control of my own destiny. Nor that of my children. I do not know the day I will die. I do not know how many children I will have. I do not know their life stories any more than I can figure out my past, present, and future.

In November, 2009, just as Amelia was released from the hospital and needed full-time care - help walking, eating, dressing, sleeping, speaking - the miracle baby I carried inside grew so large in the tiny tube meant only to carry it to it's growing place in my uterus that I was rushed into emergency surgery, bleeding and crushed. I remember that morning, desperately calling every pro-life obstetrician I could find in the U.S. to try to find out if my baby was still alive. Fear gripped my throat like an invisible vise: what if I killed my baby to save my own life?

I finally got the answer. My baby was already in heaven with Jesus. It seemed odd that something so small - measuring 2 inches in total length, could rock our world so. The kids were grief-stricken. We were juggling Amy's hospitalizations and needs with my own recovery from surgery and the inevitable post-surgery complications. It seemed like our world had quit spinning, and we were deep in survival mode. When the doctors opened me up to take Theodore out of my body, they took parts of each of my tubes as well, so that I would never, ever have to face this possibility again - this risk. This loss.

Except God is still in control. I don't know the details of our latest mystery. But in January I began to suspect I might be pregnant. I spent hours in secret researching the effects of recent radioactive iodine on a new pregnancy. I retraced my steps of 2009, reading about odds of survival of an ectopic pregnancy, and renewing my knowledge of expectant management (versus early abortion). Yet that positive pregnancy test quickly turned to negative. I waited for the abdominal pain that would signal another emergency, but it never came. Lab tests showed my pregnancy hormones had gone down to zero. Not only would there be no baby - there would be no answer, no window into the mysteries wrought inside by a God who knows all.

Do we live this way always? Half in shadow? I watch other people walk through days with purpose. Like they know where they're going, how they're getting there, and what to do once they arrive. I feel less certain, these days. It's kind of like walking through the woods at twilight. The trees are still there. The birds are singing their night songs. Light filters through, but you pick up your feet slowly, linger through the trees, feel for the path. He says that I will hear Him whispering from behind, "This is the way. Walk in it." (Isaiah 30:20)

What's missing is why.

What's missing is the end of the story.

Life is not a book you can flip to the back page and see how it turns out.

It's a journey, a voyage, a wandering through the woods in twilight.

But life is never traversed alone.

I've seen the lightning flashing,

I've heard the thunder roll.

I've felt sin's breakers dashing,

which almost conquered my soul.

I've heard the voice of my Savior,

bidding me still to fight on.

He promised never to leave me,

never to leave me alone.

The world's fierce winds are blowing,

temptation sharp and keen.

I have a peace in knowing

my Savior stands between.

He stands to shield me from danger

when my friends are all gone.

He promised never to leave me,

never to leave me alone.

~ from Never Alone, Ludie Pickett, 1897 ~

Goodbye, my friend, I hate to see you go

A long-time cancer "acquaintance" through the internet, who offered me much support and resources throughout my own journey, passed away today. Please stop in to her blog and offer her husband your comments if you have could at Daria's Living with Cancer blog.

My Bible-in-90-Days reading took me through Numbers a few days ago (yes, and now I am all the way through Judges...it's amazing!). The story of the manna hit me hard, and then I read it again in One Thousand Gifts, my current book of "wow!"

Manna literally means "what is it?" A mystery. Can't put your finger on the texture, flavor, color even...if you read the description, it's very amorphous. God feeds us with mystery. We can't quite label it or put it into a box. That's why it's called faith. I played around with the above photo of the feed spout at the York's horse farm, mulling over these things. Thinking about friends dying of cancer. If you enjoy it, click on the photo and you can save the large size to your computer and put it up as a computer background like I did. You can also download it even larger from Flickr.

Empty places

Grief became to her like breathing; she couldn't rise or go to sleep without the pressing feel of it against her heart, the weight of it like a suitcase she didn't know how to unpack. ~Karen White, On Folly Beach

The holiday season descends and with it the joy of the circle of family. Empty seats hover like ghosts - we don't set them, but they are there, in our hearts, as we look around at the beloved faces and the mind constructs a list of those gone now for this season. I read that some people set the places, an empty chair, a plate never dirtied; I wonder if those people know better how to unpack the suitcase of grief, that they can stare it in the eyes at the dinner table.

The circle of life continues though we resist the gravity of time's passing. I wonder, too, at God's wisdom that He empties and fills the pitcher at the same well, that we of finite passions could not possibly hold all the love for all those we lose and all we gain. Yet do the loves we lose ever really vanish, or is it the lacework on the tablecloth of life, the beauty around the edges that pulls hard at the heartstrings? The last lingering refrain of a song so plaintive we close our eyes hard against the joy and the still deeper pain of hearing the notes?

God is personal but also propositional; beyond our knowledge, and yet we can know (Ephesians 3:19). Human life is not a test of worthiness or a vale of suffering we must somehow rise above. It's a quest, and creation is a mystery - both in the wonder-full sense and in the Agatha Christie sense: a marvelous work, and a problem with a solution. ~from Janie B. Cheaney's August 14th article in World

Milk

It's what Abraham chose to serve the angels that visited him to announce the upcoming birth of his son in Genesis 18.

It's how mothers have let love flow since the beginning of time.

It is a reward (Exodus), a blessing (Leviticus), and provision (Psalms).

In the Old Testament, the Law is compared to milk given back to children already weaned.
Who is it he is trying to teach?
To whom is he explaining his message?
To children weaned from their milk,
to those just taken from the breast?
So the word of the Lord shall become to them:
Do and do, do and do,
rule on rule, rule on rule;
a little here, a little there.
(Isaiah 28:9 & 13)

In the New Testament, these verses hit me hard.  I just failed my

comprehensive exam.  The doctoral degree that was just about

within my grasp...nay, my strong grip...seems elusive.  Whether

this latest bout is blessing, curse, punishment, or persecution, I

cannot say.  But the Word speaks, and I must bend to listen.

We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. (Hebrews 5:11-13)

Do I know righteousness?  Have I allowed myself to drink spiritual milk too long? Have I ignored sins God was trying to squeeze out of my gently?  Will I ever be done learning the "elementary truths of the Word again", ever?  Is there an end to this learn, do, forget, repeat?

Robbie conducted a symphony for my camera, a silent song of mother's love and baby trust, provision and silence and awe and beauty and mystery.  A symphony of words, too, that came tumbling back from Scripture long ago read.  As I stumble through, trying to make sense out of latest catastrophes with a jumbled brain, I simply thank God for witnessing the symphony.

Praise be to the Lord,

for being here to see,

for seeing,

for hearing the Word whispered oh so softly, sweetly,

for a symphony,

for baby love,

for "milk",

for life.

The dark path

But that was a long time and no matter how I try

The years just flow by like a broken down dam.

There's flies in the kitchen I can hear 'em there buzzing

And I ain't done nothing since I woke up today.

How can a person go to work in the morning

And come home in the evening and have nothing to say.

Just give me one thing that I can hold on to

To believe in this living is just a hard way to go
~John Prine~

Searching.  I am sure I have questions answered, so positive I practically skip instead of walking.  And then, in the darkness of a new time of testing, I turn my ankle in the same holes.  One minute, I have the clearest sight and surest perspective, as a worshiping woman confident in her faith.  The next, I am blinded by my ignorance and my tears as I struggle with the weight of the world and wonder from where help will possibly come.

Last week was Amelia's worst week.  I was suffering the worst heart rhythm issues I've had since last summer, and it was demanding my attention so that I might employ the limited means I have learned to prevent major catastrophe.  And I failed my comprehensive exam in my doctoral program.

I've been told that the testing and the agony and defeats are all signs that I am on the wrong path.  That the spiritual path planned out for me is a smooth one, with only an occasional divot...not like this one I am on, riddled with dents, rocks, and sticks on which to stumble.  I used to picture my "life path" as a mowed path through one of those ethereal forests I read about in books.  A smooth path, perhaps a short growth of grass, clover or wildflowers.  Filtered sunlight dappling the landscape.  Bird song lifting the spirit as I danced and twirled through the life God planned for me.

This place is very different.  It is a real forest.  The path is just a footpath trod by a few before me.  The thick underbrush hides the stones on which I turn my feet.  I constantly bend to push the branches away from my face.  The air is thick and close, and the sun shines through only rarely.  The light is a strange, dark and hallowed green.  There are thorns that scratch my legs, and the trees and brush on either side grow so thick they are impenetrable to my eye.  Am I navigating correctly?  Should I turn and go back, revisit some milestone to be sure I am still headed the right way?  What dangers lurk in the forest surrounding me?  I feel exactly how I feel coming home down the long valley behind my house, on a footpath just like the one I've described.  I have "peace that passes understanding".  If you are a stranger to my path, to my home, your only response to my sureness will be consternation.  But I am sure this is the path home.  I know it in my bones.  It doesn't matter a whit what the path looks like, nor how many stumbles, scratches or bumps attend my way down it.  It leads home.

There is so little I am sure of right now.  I am not sure how life will go for my sweet Amelia.  I don't know how epilepsy will affect her siblings.  I have no comfort for my tears at night.  I don't know how God is expressing love and mercy in my life right now.  I don't know with what clarity I will reflect back on this time in 5 or 10 years.  I don't know if the tens of thousands of dollars I've spent on a doctoral degree I have been called to study for will be wasted or not.  As my heart flips awkwardly in my chest, I don't even know what the next seconds hold.  Life is uncertainty, at best.

But I do know that the words of John Prine in the song I quoted above - however achingly beautiful and reflective of the struggle that is this uncertain life - are not my life's song.  I have found that "one thing that I can hold on to, to believe in this living is just a hard way to go".  Blessed is the man whose strength is in You, who have set their hearts on a pilgrimage, in the valley of weeping (Psalm 84:5-6).  God - the one who "will be who He will be" - the one I cannot understand...He is my one thing that I can hold on to.

In the morning, when I rise

Give me Jesus.

You can have all this world,

Just give me Jesus.

When I am alone,

Give me Jesus.

And when I come to die,

Give me Jesus.

Take time to watch this video. She says it better than I.

Can I keep singing?

When evening came, Jesus was reclining at the table with the Twelve. And while they were eating, he said, "I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me." They were very sad and began to say to him one after the other, "Surely not I, Lord?" Jesus replied, "The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me. The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born." Then Judas, the one who would betray him, said, "Surely not I, Rabbi?" Jesus answered, "Yes, it is you." While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, "Take and eat; this is my body." Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it anew with you in my Father's kingdom."

When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. ~Matthew 26

The evening prior to His death. The long night lay before Him, He had beads of bloody sweat to be wrung from Him in His agony. What did He do, that very last night of normal? He reclined at a table with His friends. He helped them understand the suffering to come. And he sang. Jesus sang?!! I read that this morning in a little book I picked up for $2 at a used bookstore yesterday - "How to Meet Your Troubles", the slim brown volume is titled. I never noticed it before - but He did! The very last thing He did before walking to the garden was sing in worship.

I didn't feel like singing last night, when I typed up the words to this song - "How Can I Keep from Singing?". It has been ringing through my heart for days, as I practiced it for Sunday worship. But I just didn't have it in me last night to post these words...they seemed falsely joyful.

For eight weeks, something has been troubling me. I went to the doctor once and my vague symptoms were dismissed. Since then, they've worsened, and I took to doing a breast exam every day in the shower, looking for what I thought was an infection brewing. On Saturday, I found a small lump, like a pebble under my skin. I found it late at night, after finishing writing on a paper. Aaron was asleep, my mother was asleep. So I spent most of the night in prayer, and woke after just a few hours of sleep to go sing, play my harmonica, play the keys for worship at church on Sunday. Sunday afternoon, I was able to tell Aaron and my parents. We just accepted it. Okay, that's what we'll do next. Figure out this lump business. On Sunday night, again in the shower, I thought I found a larger lump, too.

I went to the midwife yesterday. She has been doing my physical for six years now. She found my thyroid cancer because of her carefulness and knowledge of my body's normal. I hoped she would say I was imagining things. Instead, she carefully measured the lumps - 1/2" for the small one; over 1" for the large one. (that's about the same size as my thyroid tumor when it was removed - between 4 and 5 centimeters) She checked her computer. With normal risk factors (mine are anything but) and only one of my symptoms, the risk of cancer is probably 15%. My own check, combining the three symptoms I have with my risk factors, is around 75%. Oddly enough, that cheers me - the more probably it seems, the less likely it will be true, in my experience so far. The less probable - well, then of course it will be! I know it doesn't sound logical, but it is a small comfort to me that all my previous experiences have gone this way.

Because of my risk and the other potential problems that could cause these particular symptoms, I am already scheduled to meet with a surgeon, regardless of the outcome of my diagnostic tests tomorrow ("smashogram" and level 2, high definition ultrasound). I will probably require surgical removal of the lumps, if nothing more. I will go to sleep knowing I am having lumps removed. They will test the lumps for cancer while I am still under anesthesia, and remove one or both of my breasts and lymph tissue if it is cancer. Going to sleep not knowing is one of the hardest parts of the trial for me to face again.

I don't know what to ask for. Instead, I am back to basics: praying the Lord's prayer. Give me the food I need today, Lord. Forgive me, I am weary. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, in my body as it is in your heaven. For thine is the kingdom and the glory forever and ever - so be it.

And yes. I will keep singing. I will keep praying. Words I wrote myself in long-ago days of trouble are echoing in my soul today.

Lord, lead me safely through the path of today,
Reach down and rescue me from hate and from pain,
Set Your laws before me, That I may have a lamp for my feet,
O Lord, guide me.
In this place,
Surrounded by a thousand fears,
Temptation and weakness,
Hatred and lies,
He promised me faithfulness, integrity,
A way that is perfect, a light for my life.
~"Guide" from Psalm 18, 10/02/98

I struggle, God,
You hold me up, I stand.
In your all-surpassing power, not my strength.
When trouble overcomes me, I turn my eyes to You.
For though I may crumble, You endure.
I do not lose heart,
I do not lose faith.
Your promise is my hope, day by day.
I fix my gaze on You, I am renewed.
~"Renewed", 2001

I can sing when I lose my step

And fall down again

I can sing 'cause You pick me up

Sing 'cause You're there

I can sing 'cause You hear me, Lord

When I call to You in prayer

I can sing with my last breath

Sing for I know

That I'll sing with the angels

And the saints around the throne

~ How Can I Keep from Singing,

sung with beauty by the random self-deprecating guy, below,

and words by Chris Tomlin (2006) and Robert Lowry (1860)

Hold my heart

Aaron up and walking after his morning pain medication.

Caleb resting in the room across the hall from Aaron.

Sick, sweet little boy.

Caleb was hospitalized tonight across the hall from Aaron's room. He has pancreatitis, and one of his lab tests is actually 800 times higher than it is supposed to be. Somehow, the outlet of his pancreas has become blocked because of the swelling in his intestines, and the build-up of lipase and amylase (two of the enzymes the pancreas produces) is eating away at the pancreas now. The pancreas is important because it aids in digestion and it also produces insulin. Therefore, the ER doctor feels this infection is life-threatening to Caleb. The mortality rate of childhood pancreatitis is 10-90%. Please pray that it will heal, and that the doctors would know how to treat him. He also has a low blood count from the bleeding in his abdomen, low sodium in his blood, which indicates his level of dehydration, and his heart rate and respiratory rate are elevated, which tells us his whole body is very stressed out.

I don't really have words to express how I feel right now. Tonight, I went to see my friend's obituary and saw it was on the same page as my grandfather's. I sit in a hospital room with the two most important men in my life sick and not getting any better yet. I guess I contemplate what it would be like without them, just for brief moments it kind of hits me that I could lose them. When reality breaks into and destroys my sense of reality - i.e. I come to terms with the fact that the gift of their life is not now nor ever has been certain or permanent - the whole world seems to implode...sounds come caving in, my vision changes, I feel like I am losing touch with what I know. The slow stripping away of pride and control and self-assurance is gut-wrenching, agonizing.

Yet in the midst of the darkness come flashes of joy, beauty, light. God sent two small gifts to me today that were extravagant and unexpected. Truly, He cares for me - from the big needs like the health of my loved ones and grieving my grandfather, to the little ones like what to feed my family for supper. The gifts today were two cardinals, sitting in the middle of the road at two different times during the day. Cardinals are kind of my grandfather's "symbol". I felt like I had my grandfather flying along beside the car in the shape of a beautiful red bird. God was telling me His love is strong, and He knows what I need.

He is still there, listening, loving, lavishing. Even when the whole world stops spinning, even when you wake up to your nightmare, and wonder where the bubble you used to live in has gone.

Heavenly Father

You always amaze me

Let your kingdom come

In my world and in my life

You give me the food I need

To live through the day

I look out the window

The birds are composing

Not a note is out of tune

Or out of place

So why do I worry?

Why do I freak out?

God knows what I need

You know what I need

Your love is

Your love is

Your love is strong

Two things you told me

That you are strong

And you love me

~Jon Foreman, Your Love is Strong

One tear in the dropping rain,

One voice in the sea of pain

Could the maker of the stars

Hear the sound of my breaking heart?

One light, that's all I am

Right now I can barely stand

If You're everything You say You are

Won't You come close and hold my heart

I've been so afraid, afraid to close my eyes

So much can slip away before I say goodbye.

But if there's no other way, I'm done asking why.

So many questions without answers, Your promises remain

~Hold My Heart, Tenth Avenue North

My burning bush

Blessed is the man

who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly,

nor stands in the path of sinners,

nor sits in the seat of the scornful;

but his delight is in the law of the Lord,

and in His law he meditates day and night.

He shall be like a tree

planted by the rivers of water,

hat brings forth its fruit in its season,

whose leaf also shall not wither;

and whatever he does shall prosper.

~ Psalm 1 ~

Across the road, down the valley, where the trees grow tall next the little silver thread of Big Elk Creek, there is one lone birch that shimmers every evening in the sunset. Through March and April, this tree of diamonds delights my soul every day as I go through the hard work of keeping children content and cooking dinner, all at the same time. It is by far the most difficult hour of the day for me as a young mother. Yet, in these muddy months where there is little of beauty or refreshment on the spring horizon, God has lit up one tree like a jewel to bring me joy.

He says that His mercies never fail. By His mercy, we are not consumed. (Lamentations 3:22) To the ancient Jews, this probably meant something wholly different than it does to me today: then, it meant deliverance from armed enemies, food provided to the family table during a drought, safe passage to new grazing grounds. Because I have food on my table, a fully-equipped medical world at my disposal, a large house in which to live, no enemies at my doorstep...many would argue that I am no danger of being consumed by anything. But every day that danger lurks...through the difficult dinner hour, when I would much rather blunt my children's senses with a movie instead of conversing with them in their tired and hungry state. Depression, complacence, despair, irritation, over-scheduling, drifting through life, lowering my expectations. Those are the enemies that threaten to consume me as a 21st century Christian housewife and mother.

Many years have passed since those summer days

Among the fields of barley

See the children run as the sun goes down

Among the fields of gold

You'll remember me when the west wind moves

Upon the fields of barley

You can tell the sun in his jealous sky

That we walked in fields of gold

~ Fields of Gold, Sting ~

The whole field of corn husks in front of my birch tree sparkle as if you dropped nuggets of gold there. Just husks. Lit by sun. Somehow strangely beautiful. This is one of those visions of glory in our everyday world vista that plucks the heartstrings, and they vibrate to a bittersweet melody of joy that is so sweet it aches. Somehow this vision condenses for me all that has happened in my life:

friendships ruined,

heart failing, somehow healing,

hugging children who were dying,

feeling their last months soak into my soul like honey;

marrying my best friend,

birthing babies,

that painful, joyful metamorphosis of body and soul;

cancer, the cutting of surgery,

the years of living with it's specter;

baby girl slipping away,

baby girl coming home,

baby girl forever different;

another spring.

A glittering field.

A thousand sorrows;

a million joys.

Through it all, serving a Savior who takes my husks and turns them into glittering gold. A God who takes the last bit of my strength, energy, willingness, and infuses me with this sudden, thundering thing of beauty that lights up my kitchen night after night. The God who speaks through a burning bush, and tells me He is still there...and no, He is never silent.