It was a blue moon, but it looked decidedly yellow to me when I discovered it at 5:30 a.m. on Friday morning.
It is only "once in a blue moon" that I am up at 5:30 a.m. and happen to notice the sky. And that I am suitably motivated by anything to go hunt up my telephoto lens and stay up for another 45 minutes to capture an entire moonset just for the fun of it.
Ironically, I didn't even know it was a blue moon while I was taking the photos. I just knew it was an incredibly clear dawn and the moon was particularly beautiful.
I am reminded that I am often prone to dive into something rare and monumental. And that I am exceedingly bad at being faithful in the little things, the normal moon sort of moments of life.
I thought of this as I edited the photos of the moon that waned from red to yellow to orange to pink as it set across the sky that was at first midnight black and dawned to a dark cobalt and finally a hazy turquoise.
I don't have a soloist's voice, so I've thought over the past 10 months of joining our church's amazing choir. But it requires weekly practice, early mornings at the church, and listening to the sermon from the choir loft instead of sitting next to my family.
Instead, of a "blue moon" experience like the church choir, I've chosen to try to be faithful in an everyday moon sort of singing. Every night I am singing my children to sleep - everything from favorite modern worship songs like "You Never Let Go" to old hymn standards like "Rock of Ages" and even family favorites like "I Saw the Light", which was, hysterically, our processional at our wedding 10 years ago.
However beautiful the blue moon is, I don't aspire to a blue moon life. When the time comes for me to wane away from this world, I hope it can it be said that I was faithful in the little things, rather than that I accomplished grand ones.
“There have been times of late when I have had to hold on to one text with all my might: "It is required in stewards that a man may be found faithful." (Amy Carmichael)
I know why the caged bird sings. Heart free, heart-sick to be barred in by the chains and jails of this world.
I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,
When he beats his bars and would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings –
I know why the caged bird sings.
~Paul Laurence Dunbar~
I sit in my blue swing, and I watch the birds. They teach me. They play, climbing up, up on a draft of cold air and dancing downward in a spiral of thrill and freedom before leveling out. They are the fighter pilots of the natural world, birds. All birds do this. All birds take time every day, so many times, to sing. They sing to no one, they sing to their lovers, they sing just to sing. They eat, taking the random blessing of seeds and grasses and eating, building nests for their young. They care for their young, but push them out of the nest early, when the wings are just barely ready.
I am a stubborn woman, born of stubborn stock. When I turn my mind to something, I work toward it tenaciously. I watch those birds, and think of my cages, and look for keys..." a plea, that upward to Heaven I fling..." Every week, in my dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) class, they try to hand us keys. "Coping skills". Most seem silly, but finally my mind caught on one about three weeks ago: "Turn your mind". In other words, repent. When you think suicide, think about hurting yourself, turn your mind around, all the way, 180 degrees, to a life thought. I stop when the thought comes like the raven's shadow in my thoughts, and I picture myself turning around and looking at something beautiful: my child's smile, my husband's back slumbering beside me, a flower just picked for me, the words of a friend.
And so I beat my wings against my cage, looking for the door. God is leading me, slowly, gently, out of this depression and anguish. His truth is soaking deeper into my soul than ever before.
I find myself sometimes rushing to the feeder, a desperate race of survival, expecting anxiety to meet me there and haul me back into my cage. I need to learn to still my soul and to live in this moment, not the next or the last.
Help me, Lord, to soar high, so close to the Son that I am drenched in light. Darkness, flee from this mind. Sadness, soothe thyself. Fear, calm. Reach for the Son and bask in the warmth, please, please, this fall, warmth.
Lord, help me soar so close to the Son that I disappear into His light. I feel the warmth on my wings, this cold autumn day. He is there. Help me fly closer. Help me escape the bondage of this world.
Never again do I want to be a bird of stone. I want to be the moving, breathing, loving, believing, smiling, daughter of the King I've felt myself stretching into these past few days.
I've been practicing this "turn your mind" for about 3 weeks now, and the thoughts are starting to subside. I guess my foe knows that once I've made up my mind, there's no way to get me back to the twisted, rationalized, fear-gripped place he had me in before. His cage can't hold me.
Among my people are the wicked
who lie in wait like men who snare birds
and like those who set traps to catch people. Like cages full of birds,
their houses are full of deceit;
they have become rich and powerful and have grown fat and sleek.
Their evil deeds have no limit;
they do not seek justice.
They do not promote the case of the fatherless;
they do not defend the just cause of the poor. Should I not punish them for this?”
declares the LORD.
“Should I not avenge myself
on such a nation as this?" Why is my pain unending
and my wound grievous and incurable?
Therefore this is what the LORD says:
“If you repent, I will restore you
that you may serve me;
if you utter worthy, not worthless, words,
you will be my spokesman. I will make you a wall to this people,
a fortified wall of bronze;
they will fight against you
but will not overcome you,
for I am with you
to rescue and save you,”
declares the LORD. “I will save you from the hands of the wicked
and deliver you from the grasp of the cruel." Jeremiah 5 & 15
It was a long day of testing. She drew circles, squares, crosses. She stacked blocks, arranged them by color, counted them out loud for the bird-thin woman whose body had miraculously housed three children but seemed hollow now as it bent unnaturally into a "C" around Amelia's small hands. They measured how those coils of brain matter communicated, how they functioned all by themselves, which coils are damaged, which coils show promise, which coils came through the fire of brain infection unscathed.
It is her left brain that is hurting. The part she inherited strong from both parents - the logical, orderly, sequential, analytical, words-and-numbers side of the brain. Her right brain is fine (thus her left hand, her left eye, her left leg). This is why she stumbles to the right, her right hand twitches when she holds the pencil, her right eye glides in to study the curvature of her nose when it should be looking elsewhere.
Those precious curves of the brain, coiling in and out, glistening platinum, bathed in the white vernix for safe-keeping. I am to believe there is purpose in the searing of what is precious in this cursed world, that by this sacrifice He will receive glory.
My mother taught me verses as a child, many, many. Set them to music. Sang them, sing-song through the day, singing a way to a peaceful home, begging God for a peaceful heart, pleading God for rescued children. Two and a half long hard years ago, the doctors told me I might lose my voice forever during my cancer surgery. I bought a USB microphone and sang and read stories long into the sleepless nights, read them and sang them into the person-less laptop computer, with a photo of my children in front me. Children who might never hear me speak or sing again.
How do you mourn these losses, these temporary but oh-so-anguished losses? How to keep the tears from my songs in those recordings, how to make the voices of the stories come alive with the whole spectrum of human emotion, not just the anguish and the pain and the pleading and the grief? Somehow I did it, and the stories have the rasping voice of the crows, the high-pitched voices of fairies, the hilarity of the three singing pigs in Sandra Boynton's classic.
And now those hard, long anguished years have passed. And we are still in the thick of the battle with Satan - the Job battle, the battle where your body is beaten, battered, languishing for a Word from the One who loves, protects, strengthens. I still speak, I still sing (albeit my voice more faltering, projection lessened. I am no longer the singer-in-the-bathroom-corners searching for acoustics to magnify this unsure that is my songbox). I sing my mother's songs...Not by works of righteousness...For there is one God and one mediator...Search me, O God, and know my heart...And these words which I have told you this day shall be in your heart...Trust in the Lord with all thine heart...
The time has come now. I feel it, pulling, tugging hard at my heartstrings. I am woman now, mother to these four who grow so quick, keeper of this home teetering on the edge of disaster and in the arms of Greatness. I have sung her songs...my mother's...for these three decades. We worship quick in the cracks of the day's work, we worship long in the last lingering moments of the evening with the children huddled under covers and Mama in the blue rocker whispering the last refrains of the day's verses. Now is the time to add our own songs to this hymnal of the generations.
Ten years ago, I worshiped quiet with head bent, eyes closed often, finger tracing the words under the music score of the red hymnal full of centuries-old songs of praise. Then I learned to lift hands, and, slowly still, believe they can be holy hands. They still feel wooden, hypocritical, copy-cat, demanded. Not like holy hands, yet. I wash them daily, hourly, moment-by-moment in the prayer of confession, and I see the blood run off in the Living Water and how they go from scarlet to white, clean hands cleaned by Grace. Maybe if I close my eyes with hands high in worship, faltering voice joining the throng of other believers, maybe I can feel holy hands, with eyes closed.
It isn't enough - Memory Madness drills, devotions in the morning, reading the Word at dinnertime while the youngest splats potatoes on the clean floor and his sister has a seizure and vomits on her plate and the older two try to help - find glasses, get silverware, get towels to clean vomit. I need to sing my own songs. Write my owns songs on my heart. The Scriptures are already written there, rich, bountiful. Now the notes. Please send me the songs, Lord.
May every generation of this besieged family write a new page in the hymnal of Scripture-songs my own mother started, with her song-bird voice and her lilting melodies that pour easy from her right brain.
Amy's left brain doesn't work. Maybe she can teach me to be more right-brained. Maybe we can use her melodies and my memories to write Scripture songs that are the reflection of the broken.
I've attached a few of the mp3 files of the recordings I made before my cancer surgery. Although I didn't lose my voice, I did suffer vocal cord paralysis (at first) that has now progressed to vocal cord paresis (weakness), and my voice is forever changed. These days, my kids beg to listen to one of two CDs at bedtime: "Mama Sings" or "Mama Reads". I would encourage moms everywhere to make CDs like this for your kids. What a comforting, delightful way to go to sleep - and eases the burden of sitting there to sing every.single.night.
Gen sings Proverbs 3:5; recorded June, 2008, just before surgery for aggressive thyroid cancer
Fern's Song: I Timothy 2:5-6
Search Me, O God (Psalm 139:23-24)
Teach them diligently unto thy children (Deuteronomy 6:6-7)
Yesterday, in the depths of grief as I watched Amelia sleep and sleep after 6 seizures by midday, I tried singing a favorite song for these times...Ginny Owen's If You Want Me To (if you like her stuff, be sure to check out her 2-disc set that's about to be released, including a song co-written by a young woman battling cancer). But that wasn't quite what I wanted to say to God. These words came instead, as I played some random chords. I decided to record it - something I rarely do. My kids will need to hear it someday when their own lives are hard.
I see you walking by with your carefree smile
I turn my eyes down in shame for my tears
Life has always been unfair but never so cruel
Why do others sleep in peace and I sleep in fear?
Years ago it was my own pain I felt.
Blessings have built a new kind of heartache
When it’s someone you love who cries in pain
And you wonder how much more you can take
Where is God, this God you proclaimed?
You run begging for help and only receive
Silence and sorrow and weeping despair
Faith becomes harder to find and retrieve
He says in the end that He’ll make it alright
And if heaven’s what matters, I know He is right
But when grief overcomes you this side of the grave
It’s hard to remember why you call yourself “saved”.
It’s all up to my choices in the moment of truth
Will I believe without seeing or turn from Your face?
Will I bear Your banner in a land of disbelief
And ignore the mockers who laugh at my faith?
When I cross over Jordan, and hand you my life
Remember those choices, please, won’t you, Lord...
Mention that time that I took the hard path,
Tell me that’s why there’s this jewel in gold.
Thanks to the suggestion of a friend, I have started experimenting with recording "one man band" songs, track by track and instrument by instrument (Pomplamoose is my favorite band of this sort - although they use two musicians, not one). I probably should invest in a better microphone - I am using the headset I use for videoconferencing for school! I enjoyed the creative outlet of recording this song in 11 tracks, errors and all. The story of the past 2 years begs telling in some sort of synoptic form. I pray that the suffering we have undergone leads many "sons to glory". There are two things that make it worth the pain: knowing I will have jewels for this to cast at my Savior's feet; and praying that our example of faith leads someone to Him. It will be worth it all, when we see Jesus/Life's trials will seem so small, when we see Christ/One glimpse of His dear face, all sorrow will erase/So bravely run the race, 'til we see Christ! (Esther Kerr Rusthoi, When We See Christ)
If you interested in trying your hand at the "one man band" thing, contact me and I will send you the links to the free software that enables you to do so with a laptop and a microphone.
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)
