Letting the light in

I spoke of things this week that I never thought would cross my tongue. Childhood hurts locked away tight and buried after all these years of avoidance. I am nudged - gently - to sift through the secrets and unlock the padlocks and let someone in. To this most horrible part of my self. I shy away, trying to trust.

It is difficult to say "yes" to grief. Especially if that thing you're grieving is nearly 30 years old. Why bother now, I ask in desperation? My friend, my therapist - she says it's important to let the light in. That the truth will set me free. That my fear of the thing is bigger now than the thing itself.

So I open, tentative as a blossom in April, and invite her in. Tears fall, sadness wells up in the throat, water from the lip of a petal. Soft and quiet and aching. For a moment, what was unholiest about me feels holy - sacred ground that was trespassed upon. And for that moment, I see myself as He saw me so long ago - His beautiful child in pain. Only by the power of Christ have I held this pain and all His glory and emerged, somehow, whole.

There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love. ~Washington Irving

Muddy Monday

Romanced by the sun-warmed earth, I shed boots to squeeze mud through toes in the North Dakota spring. My mother was busy, and I quietly disobeyed. A million crystals exploded underneath running feet, crushed into the wet brown soil. I remember the burn as feet chilled in the running, slowly turning to wood as they froze. Mama bathed those brown toes in the kitchen sink, me sitting on the counter, 4 year old contrite. She wrapped me in the red and black polyester pills of the blanket that always smelled of Grandpa, no matter how many times it was used or washed. I was shivering when my Papa asked me if I was warm enough for Dairy Queen. I tried to grit my teeth to stop the shaking, but to no avail. He took the boys, and Mama and I stayed home. I could feel her concern mixed with anger. She read, I shook.

They came home with my favorite, a Peanut Buster Parfait. Later that night, I was finally warm enough to eat the cold treat. Mixed up in the memory, the smell of my grandfather, the crunchy peanuts, my mother's forgiveness, a father's love.

Weekends are for weltering

wel·ter :: 1. a confused mass; a jumble. 3. to surge or roll, as on the sea.

Weekends are for serving old friends as they make new ties.

Weekends are for capturing joy moment by moment - deep in the heart and frozen on film.

Weekends are for rediscovering beauty in ordinary places.

They're for finding new friends.

And rediscovering old ones.

Amy (and, in the context of this writing, I should delineate that I mean "Amelia") had well over a dozen seizures in the last four days. I would have to consult the episode record for the exact count. For some reason, she isn't absorbing the seizure medication correctly. She's now developed "clustering" of seizures, with almost a constant simple partial seizure yesterday, punctuated by 6 tonic/clonic seizures. LOTS of clean up, LOTS of tears, and LOTS of worry for parents in new territory. Yet we are off to Vacation Bible School tomorrow in the morning...then on to Mayo in the afternoon for testing. Same thing Wednesday. A "in the area" (a.k.a. no 3 hour drives anywhere) day on Thursday. And back to VBS and Mayo on Friday. In between which I should be putting together a 30 minute presentation and preparing my defense for my comprehensive exam. Time to trust God again!

Never a heartache, and never a groan,
Never a teardrop, and never a moan;
Never a danger but there on the throne,
Moment by moment He thinks of His own.

Moment by moment I’m kept in His love;
Moment by moment I’ve life from above;
Looking to Jesus till glory doth shine;
Moment by moment, O Lord, I am Thine.

~Moment by Moment, Major Daniel Whittle, 1893

Passed from darkness into light

(Colossians 1:13-14)

Sometimes the buffeting of this world tempts me to forget. There are days when I don't feel Him at all. Whole days. Comfort comes as I read the Word He provided for times like these. I open the Book, and I feel the comfort flowing immediately. Regardless of present suffering, I have so many blessings to remember. Instead of dwelling on what He has not done, I choose -mindfully, willfully, doggedly - to remember what He has done. Remember my word for the year - "abide"?

Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you stood your ground in a great contest in the face of suffering. Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated. You sympathized with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions.

So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. (from Hebrews 10)

Before/after

Baby cheeks, lilting eyebrows, dimpled fingers, drawing in breath of delight at beauty...

Amy between meningitis (February, 2009) and encephalitis (October, 2009).

Redemption

You are the first
You go before
You are the last
Lord, You're the encore
Your name's in lights for all to see
The starry host declare Your glory

Glory in the highest
Glory in the highest
Glory in the highest

Apart from You there is no God
Light of the world
The Bright and Morning Star
Your name will shine for all to see
You are the one
You are my glory

And no one else could ever compare
To You, Lord
All the earth together declares ...
Glory in the highest ... to You, Lord

All the earth will sing Your praise
The moon and stars, the sun and rain
Every nation will proclaim
That You are God and You will reign

Glory, glory hallelujah
Glory, glory to You, Lord
Glory, glory hallelujah
Hallelujah

~ Glory in the Highest, Chris Tomlin

Home again, home again, jiggity jig

Babies always sense when something big is happening (of course, it may have something to do with the bags packed and children dressed in warm coats at 6 a.m.). Caleb climbed up for a last sweet snuggle with Amelia before we bustled her off to surgery on Wednesday morning.

The moments spent alone with her in the hospital were bitter, but sweet as well. It's a rare occasion to have 24 hours alone with any of my children. Soaking up their smells, their nuances, their little habits, the sweet curves of their lips, the grip of their tiny fingers on mine. Amy was a pale, quiet companion. I got some homework done, I laid in bed with her for hours. She had three rather frightening episodes when her oxygen saturation dropped: once to the low 80% range, once to the low 70% range, and once to 58%. What was scariest was the fact that I have seen her like that innumerable times at home - I just didn't know how low her "sats" were dropping. She was dusky around the lips and nose, and the rest of her face was pallid. She woke up, coughed, and came back to normal levels fairly quickly. Her color improved after an albuterol nebulizer treatment, which astonished the nurses and doctor, because her lungs sounded "so clear". Amy has a form of asthma called "silent asthma" (also known as cough variant asthma), which causes little or no wheezing and has little or no warning before the severe attacks of bronchospasm. Her lungs almost always sound clear - there is just less and less air movement as the attack progresses. While she was healthy enough to discharge from the hospital this morning, she has continued to have these "silent" attacks, and needed three nebulizer treatments today. As her mother, I don't feel she is out of the woods yet. She has continued to drink very little, and remains extremely sleepy from the anesthetic she got yesterday. This sensitivity to anesthetic is also known to run in the family. I am hopeful she will wake up tomorrow with more energy and less asthma trouble. That was, after all, the end goal of the surgery (tonsil and adenoidectomy) to begin with.

We had the consequent joy of time spent with all the Holmen cousins under one roof: Auntie Megan and cousin Emma drove Amelia and I home from the hospital after discharge this morning. We spent a morning playing and admiring this joyful, beautiful, healthy group of cousins suddenly sprouting in our family. What bliss God mixes with our sorrows!

After wallowing in the pleasures set before us as we watched the cousins play, I plunged immediately back into the stark realism of life in a world of pain. One of my closest friends was diagnosed with stage II/III invasive breast cancer. Her husband writes beautifully at Beneath the Crust. I'm sure many of his musings from here on will reflect the pain and rejoicing that accompanies such a monumental trial.

Her cancer brings me back to my own cancer. It's slow pace. The waiting and wondering. The questions without answers. The wracking sorrow and the tingling joy of living life with the knowledge of death looming. Stupid cancer. Great God. Tight friendships. Sensory pleasures. Sensory sorrows. God is in it all, cancer accompanies it all. Today I tasted of that bitter root again, and remembered it's sorrows, and the visions that flew in on it's coattails. I pray my dear friends experience the same enlightenment and freedom along with their laments.

In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. (I Thessalonians 5:18 KJV)

Headwinds & tailwinds

I went for a bike ride Saturday afternoon. It isn't every day that I can go on a bike ride at a moment's notice. I usually have to recruit at least one additional adult! To date, I have three kids who can zip along as fast as training wheels will take them, and one who can't even peddle yet. Despite the various carriages, seats and other contraptions we've amassed to haul them along attached to our bikes, it still isn't a one woman job to convey four children plus self on a leisurely cruise through the neighborhood! With my children slashed to just two toddlers for the week, I took advantage of my new-found freedom on wheels. We set out on this blustery Saturday, with a steady wind of about 15 miles per hour and gusts far stronger than that. As I rode past the farmer's wheat field, the rustling and rushing of the wind through the grass was reminiscent of the moors of England which I've always longed to visit. The sound of the wind blowing through the trees and crops created such a whir that nary another sound could be heard. Occasionally it died down sufficiently to allow the bird songs of spring to break through. We clipped along with the wind at our back, visited several neighborhood horse pastures to see the colts and fillies of this spring's birthing, and threw rocks in the creek. I congratulated myself at being so fit as to barely notice the fifty-plus pounds I was pulling behind me on my first bike ride of the year.

Then I turned around to head home. And found, with some surprise, that I had been considerably helped along my merry way by the wind which was blowing straight at my back. And now blew straight in my face. Surprising how much wind resistance a bike trailer, two toddlers, and a rather wide and out-of-shape mama can create! We struggled on and on, mile after tedious mile (all four of them!), wondering if we would ever make it home. I had to pause a few times to walk the bike, children protesting to "Go faster!" from the back, legs like jelly. I remembered this feeling, that deep, muscle memory of countless endless bike rides home when my legs spent all their energy carrying me farther away with no thought of how I would make the return trip. I made many such trips as a child. I remember the cracked lips of cottonmouth, and the aching hips perched far too long on a skinny bike seat. I remember, yet I forget.

I do the same thing with God, and that's why he sends a little headwind my why every now I then, I imagine. I fly on my merry way away from Him, exploring, testing my wings, glorying in my strength, wit, beauty, resourcefulness, intelligence, frugality. The wind is at my back, speeding me along with a false sense of my own ability. With the wind at your back, it is easy to fly along without taking note of how far you've gone. When you turn about to head back, the wind reminds you of the long journey home. Any sin is like that: I remember going out for drinks with friends in college and never noticing how far past my limit I was until it was much too late, and the consequences had to be borne as I fought my way back to my normal, sober life. How about eating? Easy, isn't it, to put pounds on, and so very difficult to shed them. Sleep? I constantly stay up much too late and don't notice the time until I suddenly realize I have to wake up in a few short hours of interrupted slumber.

Cancer has been my headwind, recently. It reminds me how close I must draw to Christ to survive the journey home. If the wind were at my tail, I might quickly forget - I have quickly forgotten - and begin to suffer from "supermom" syndrome again. Although it's never fun to fight the wind in your face, to push hard against the peddles and make such small progress back, it is good to be reminded. This world is hard, and I am weak. I am in need. I am thankful for saving grace.

Another spring

The lilacs were just leafing out last spring, in April, when the lump started to make itself known in my throat. Now, a year later, I am preparing to take a deep breath and walk through the same doors, down the wide halls to radiology. Another year, another ultrasound, another biopsy.

I am scheduled for an ultrasound of my abdomen and pelvis on May 5th, this Tuesday. After that I will be walked down the back halls, shivering in my gown and robe. A mammogram to check a lump in my chest and get a baseline for the many future tests I will require to be certain that my cancer treatment last November isn't creating new cancer.

I remember secondary cancer. Mostly I remember it killing people. The biggest difficulty, for both Aaron and I, is finding the balance between realism and fatalism. We tend to spend a week in denial, not crossing the mental threshold into that dark room called "Cancer". The next week we swing like a heavy pendulum deep into sorrow and grief at what feels like the probability that cancer will do what it has always done to everyone we've known...kill me. To find a place in between seems impossible. Yet this year, we're calmer, in some ways. Resigned. Resolute. In other ways, it is harder not to dread these next weeks, knowing what it feels like to have that type of bad news hit you square in the gut, knock your breath away, leave you gasping. Once you've been in that place, there is nothing you wouldn't give to not go to that place again.

How do I do this well? How do I cope with this news realistically? Who do I share with, and how? Do I weep the bitter tears that choke my words all day long? Do I hold them in, wrap them up and place them like a trophy of unspilt gall at the feet of Christ? I learn more each day, the truth of this Proverb: each heart knows its own bitterness, and no one else can share its joy (14:10).

to all of the people with burdens and pains
Keeping you back from your life
You believe that there's nothing and there is no one
Who can make it right

There is hope for the helpless
Rest for the weary
Love for the broken heart
There is grace and forgiveness
Mercy and healing
He'll meet you wherever you are
Cry out to Jesus, Cry out to Jesus

When your lonely
And it feels like the whole world is falling on you
You just reach out, you just cry out to Jesus
Cry to Jesus

~Cry Out to Jesus, Third Day

Plunged

Quando sono solo
Sogno allorizzonte
E mancan le parole
~ Contepartirò, Sartori

When words fail, there is nothing like a little Italian to express what English cannot. I had a routine doctor's visit today, at which I learned that I will be having some more biopsies, ultrasounds and perhaps other diagnostic tests to explore some abnormal swelling. That probably sounds like nothing to make a fuss about. But the news was delivered by the same midwife, in the same way, and nearly exactly one year later as the news of the abnormal swelling on my thyroid gland. I am afraid. Shaken. Tonight I will lean on this:

Let us therefore, receiving a kingdom that is firm and stable
and cannot be shaken,
offer to God pleasing service and acceptable worship,
with modesty and pious care and godly fear and awe;
For our God is indeed a consuming fire.
~ Hebrews 12:28 (Amp)

View from a dark room

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face:
now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
(I Cor. 13:12)

Just a sliver of light makes everything so much more beautiful. This old white chair, sitting alone against a wall in our dark house, was lit by the shaft of light slipping through the bathroom door. What struck me is that an object half lit is sometimes so much more beautiful than one fully lit. So it is with knowledge: Eve wanted full knowledge, and she got it, painfully so. The object that looked so beautiful and alluring in dim light, half obscured, was frightening and ugly in reality. Waiting is difficult...living with cancer is stressful at times, to say the least. But I trust that the wise and loving God I serve is showing me as much as I can bear at this given moment. In full light, the truth that I will survive might release me in such a way that this metamorphosis, this daily sanctification I experience as I walk by faith and not by sight, might never occur. In full light, the truth that I won't survive might steal the joy of these precious moments of today, this year of believing that cancer is gone. So I crouch, in the half light, admiring the view. I am so glad that I am justified by faith, that I see through a glass darkly now, when once I was blind to this beauty entirely. (Romans 5)

I caught a glimpse of Your splendor
In the corner of my eye
The most beautiful thing I've ever seen
And it was like a flash of lightning
Reflected off the sky
And I know I'll never be the same
~ Show Me Your Glory, Third Day

My picket fence

And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:
And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.
~Deuteronomy 6:6-9

I remember using this verse to defend my use my palm as highly portable notepad to my mother one day, when I was a teenager. Now, set to the little song she made up for the words, it is a constant refrain as I make a fence of Scripture around the harried, anxious, and miserable thoughts that plague these days...these sun-laden, earth-waking, wind-whipped and fragrant days of early spring that burst at the seams with joy, yet are filled with the pall of upcoming separation from everything I hold dear. The children and I are memorizing a verse a week for a memory challenge in church, hoping that we - all three, Rosy, Katy and I - can earn our certificates together in April. The only problem is, I feel as though I have constructed a picket fence that those malicious, pesky thoughts, with their wit and wile, can jump, climb through, or break down. I am the proverbial little pig in the stick house. What I want is bricks! What I want is a stone wall like those in the great mythical city of Minas Tirith, a city built into a hill with a million bricks to buttress the fortress against all foes.

May the piece I add tomorrow be a brick, by the grace of God, not a wooden picket.