The narrow escape

I have been in the hospital for four days. Dealing with chronic illness lays your soul bare and opens an ear to the whispers of evil. There are times when you go dancing with the inner demons, the triumphs of sin in the expanse of your life. You lift the ruby red blanket of Christ's sacrifice and allow those demons to jump back out from underneath, cackling and carrying you on their backs down the path of dangerous thoughts. I am not good enough. I am not worthy of the life I've been given. Look at all these awful things I've done! Do they not condemn me forever? Am I not marked as a wicked one?

The Jews of ancient times ascribe Lamentations to Jeremiah, the "weeping prophet". In my darkest times of soul distress and distrust, the words of this book scream like dervishes confirming my worst fears about myself:

All who honored her despise her, for they have seen her nakedness; she herself groans and turns away. Her filthiness clung to her skirts; she did not consider her future. Her fall was astounding; there was none to comfort her. All your enemies open their mouths wide against you; they scoff and gnash their teeth and say, "We have swallowed her up. This is the day we have waited for; we have lived to see it." As if it were a feast day, you call enemies to terrify me on every side. (from Lamentations 1 and 2)

I've danced in the minefields for one day too long. I am weak and weary. If I were writing a Psalm, I would repeat the words of David, Do not cast me from Your presence, but grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. (Psalm 51:11a & 12b) I gather things around me, books, Bibles, my thumbprint cross, the tattoo on my wrist that says, Choose life (from Deuteronomy 30). As talisman against the darkness.

I think back on this present trial, the worst of it 8 weeks long now, and there are a few things to rejoice in. I suffered 8 weeks of impulsive thoughts pushing me toward the place I have chosen not to go, and at the end of the 8 weeks I chose triumphantly with all the weapons at hand. I believe this turning, this repentance - the Hebrew word  שׁוּבָה transliterated "shubah", meaning a return or a turning away from - is counted by God above as gold, silver, and precious stones.

I return home stronger, although despair and hopelessness still nip at my heels. I have seen redemption worked out in my life again, and I have lived to tell the story, I love to tell the story -  because I know 'tis true; it satisfies my longings as nothing else can do (I Love to Tell the Story, by Arabella Hankey, 1860's).

Are you dancing with your demons? Are you surrounded on every side? May the blanket of white snow that is Christ's covering salvation return your demons to dust, and may you find peace in the sanctification of the Holy Spirit. My prayer for myself, and for you.

"After"

Back to life, back to reality

I feel like I'm floating on a cloud this morning. It is the first day of school for our little homeschool, a job interview looms luminescent this afternoon, and I am still riding high from a long date with my lover for our 9th anniversary. After a difficult 7th year and an 8th year that included some very hard work, we are back in the honeymoon of our love this 9th year.

It's easy to love a man this handsome.

I love this turn of phrase from the Message in I Corinthians 13: "Love takes pleasure in the flowering of truth". This is exactly what I have seen happening in our marriage over the past 3 years, and this year especially in my husband. As he takes the reins of our family in a new and gentler way, and leads us according to his own interactions with God and the Holy Spirit, it is a beautiful thing to watch. I take pleasure in it.

We're squinting through a fog, peering through mist. But it wont' be long before the weather clears and the sun shines brightly! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us. But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. (I Corinthians 13:12-13 The Message)

Wake to rainbows, sleep to purple moons

We wake, one morning early last week, to a rainbow. My camera doesn't capture it in its glory of the just-blooming dawn sky. But we all stand on the porch in awe, the covenant sign filling our hearts. I will never destroy you again.

That night, the moon is bright orange and falling too quickly from the sky, and I set the camera to catch it's color. The picture turns out like a pillar of fire in the night sky. I remember the Israelites, led out of Egypt by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. Led out of captivity by these pillars, and yet even as the pillars are swirling in plain view, they still have doubt.

The next night, it is a fingernail moon shining pink in a lavender sunset sky. Again, click goes the shutter. A wink at the glory of God on display for all to see.

The diversity of life overwhelmed me, yesterday, as I sat in my porch swing and thought about my troubles and peace begins to overtake as the cricket song cracks the shell on my hurting heart, as the bright yellow of the goldenrod bends in the wind, and I smell the oats growing for hay in the field. If this world keeps spinning on it's axis, and all this amazing conglomeration of creatures and plants and rains and winds keeps calling me to praise, my troubles melt. Yet, like the Israelites, doubts can crowd out the cricket song and the goldenrod waves. I remember this time, quickly, to "turn my mind". Because, from beginning to end, He has sustained me and loved me and never forsaken.

You are the First and the 

Last Beginning and the End 

The promise of wonders to come 

The future is in Your hands 

Caught in the light 

With all the earth we will sing 

You are the author of love 

Our freedom within Your Name 

Embracing the cross meant for us 

And bought us to life again 

Caught in the love 

With all we are we will sing 

God our hope Our salvation 

Worthy of all the praise 

Be our light Everlasting 

Great is Your Name Jesus 

the First and the Last 

Show us the way of Your love 

Lead us toward the truth 

Stir up the fire in us 

To live out this life for You 

Caught in Your Name Jesus 

forever we'll sing 

Every heart every nation will hear the sound 

As Your light breaks through the darkness 

And Your Name rings out 

Every distant horizon will meet as one 

Singing holy is Your Name 

We sing holy is Your Name 

You are the first and the last 

You are the Alpha and Omega 

The beginning and the end 

Our salvation 

You bring freedom God 

Your grace knows nowhere 

You are the name above all names 

Forever now I'll stand 

You are the first and the last 

You are the first and the last

~First and the Last, Hillsong ~

Rushing

It's echoed in everything from Alice in Wonderland to cancer blogs to mothering conferences and executive training seminars. All of America, it sometimes seems, is in a rush. We "suck the marrow out of life", "live like we are dying", we're "supermom", the dad that holds down a top level job and has time for t-ball practice. At each stage of life, we wonder what we are missing...and if perhaps we'll find true happiness in the stage yet to come.

One child won't put his feet on the pedals, and shuffles along on his too-big bike like a little old man. The other not only finds the pedals, but finds her balance and freedom all in one long Easter afternoon on the cul-de-sac at Grandma & Grandpa's house. It's so easy to push ourselves, to overfill calendars, and take on ministry after ministry. I find myself reaching for a camera - not only because I love the art of capturing images in still frame, but also because I live in fear of forgetting the scenes that go rushing past too quick to capture in the depths of my mind. Instead of enhancing joy, instead of growing relationships and building trust in God, I know there are times for me - for all of us - when service to others and the flurry of relationships burden instead of uplift, disappoint instead of fueling hope, scatter brains instead of gathering memories.

Cancer threatens to push many young survivors into fast forward. "Living life to the fullest" may not include the porch swing, the lazy Sunday afternoon. Or it may put too much emphasis on small joys, stealing from the larger joy of understanding our place on the continuum of mortality and eternity. To balance the bittersweet newness, fleetingness of all that is life post-cancer with the responsibilities, the ministries, the opportunities whose doors open in cancer's wake...not an easy task, made even more difficult by the age at which we young survivors embark.

I pray I find peace between the high gear life has been slammed into and the ability to truly savor. The French - savur or saveur - takes on so much richer meaning in Dutch (schmaak) and Italian (gusto). I want to schmaack life on my lips with gusto. Life is very, very good. Yet what follows will be so much sweeter.

For we know in part...but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 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 Corinthians 13:10-11 exc.)

Transformations

I am often moved by the artwork of Ria, a two-time, two-type cancer survivor whose catharsis is found in brush, pen, film. Her self-portraits are beautiful. I was inspired to try a series of self-portraits myself. Someday, I will frame this series for my daughters when they embark on their own either physically or spiritually - whichever comes first.

METAMORPHOSIS IN THREE CHAPTERS

1. HEART

God took me to the brink of the grave as a teenager, but I bowed my head low and set my brow in confusion and disgust. Life seemed colorful for a while, full of the color I myself created: red for fury, orange for vibrance of human spirit, white for void, black for depression. This self-portrait includes a lot of ugliness, craters where selfishness scarred my soul.

2. MOTHER

It was the birth of my second child that tilted my head back to the heavens as I searched for answers and found nothing within myself that was holy, pure, blameless, or particularly beautiful. This transformation turned me outward, and desaturated my vision: black for self and white for Christ. The ugliness is pushed to the borders of this face, as I began to see myself washed clean by Christ's blood.

3. CANCER

Balance and moderation began to speak deep in my soul when cancer came and stayed. The colors are beginning to creep back into my days since cancer highlighted beauty once again. It brought me to a place where I can both praise God's holiness and see my own beauty and transformation as a new creature in Christ. I can bare more of my soul to the world around me, seen here as shoulders and neck emerge from the pinhole view of the first portrait to the broader spectrum of this one.

...the final removal and transformation of all that can be shaken in order that what cannot be shaken may remain and continue. 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 12:27-29 Amplified)

Flipping the pyramid

For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. ~ II Peter 1:5-7

Years ago, I made a list of "Mama's Rules" and posted it on my bathroom wall as a reminder of how I need to act throughout my busy...and often frustrating...days as a young mother. I have been working on the area of self-control in my life for about six years now, and it has been a very slow, uphill battle. When I read the above list, it seems like I started with faith; I added goodness; then knowledge; and finally, got stuck on the self-control tier. I was re-reading my list of "Rules" today, and thought about how far God has taken me in that battle over the past few months.

Then it struck me - we start everything out backwards in our culture! I assume that I am full of love because I "feel" love all the time - for my husband, my kids, my family, strangers, sick people, you name it, I "love" them! Yet how often do I show them brotherly kindness? How often godliness? How often do I persevere through difficulty in relationships? Is it really love I have after all, if these other traits are so lacking in my actions, words, and thoughts? The world would say yes, love is a feeling. Everything else follows love. But this verse indicates otherwise...love is the end result of a long string of choices, not a passive experience on which your own choices have little consequence.

I do feel as though God has recently completed a step in my transformation through Christ. Self-control is coming easier day by day, and now it is that perseverance step that I need to master. I go along for weeks without incident, and then quit persevering and oops! there I am wallowing in self-indulgence again...emotional, physical, mental, spiritual. I have new motivation today after my "light bulb moment". My end goal is not some lofty spiritual aim, nor mere pie-in-the-sky human goodness. My aim is love, true, deep love as evidenced by acts of brotherly kindness, godly character, perseverance in the face of adversity, self-control, knowledge, goodness and faith. Whether you're humanist or Christian - aiming for this list of traits will guarantee that your life and the lives of those around you are better, richer, more enjoyable.