Deliver us from evil

We had an amazing weekend camping with our friends and co-leaders from small group, the Bergs.  They brought swords for all the kids and we had knights and princesses slaying dragons, storming gates, and defeating giants throughout the campsite all weekend long.

In the early morning hours Saturday, the campground was hit with a storm of amazing proportions.  We were awakened by the crack of a tree getting hit by lightening somewhere near by, and huddled in fear and awe as electricity arced over our tent ceiling and we were showered with sparks.  Later, when Katy and I left the relative safety of the tent to use the bathroom, we found that our tent was surrounded by a 3-5" lake of water and a swarm of toads fleeing the monsoon-induced flooding.  Aaron commented that it seemed almost Biblical, this storm we were riding out in a flimsy nylon boat.

We survived the night.  We woke in the morning and heard the news that a truck a mere 50 feet from our bed had been struck and completely destroyed by the lightening bolt.  We toured the paths around our two campsites, and found that the bolt had first hit a tree about 30 feet from the Thul tent, then traveled through the root systems, exploding and burning the roots and leaving eruptions in the earth like an earthquake.  We had felt the static electricity, and it did seem to cause me some trouble with my pacemaker and Amelia a day of clustered seizures.  The neurologist confirmed that abnormal exposure to electricity can briefly worsen seizure disorders.  Luckily, the electrical system of my pacemaker seems to be functioning fine.

We had planned to borrow a metal pop-up camper from a friend, but plans fell through at the last minute.  I wonder now if we would have been hit if we had been connected to the ground with a large metal jackstand.

Despite the odds of being struck, we were.  The fingers of electricity traveled beyond the Berg's tent, between our tents, and beyond our tent.  Three fingers, like claws in a desperate attempt to grasp us.  Defeated - the fingers spread out and our tents slipping through.  Despite the odds of surviving a direct hit, we did.

With every passing day, this string of trials seems all the more absurd and indescribable, even to those of us going through them.  Aaron and I agreed, in the dark of night last night, as we reflected on this weekend: we are glad the Bergs can corroborate our story.  It doesn't seem believable.  Who goes through what we've been through, and then gets struck by lightening?  What is it we are up to...as a church, even as a family...that garners such an uninterrupted and focused attack that comes at us from all angles?  Is there something about our mission, the church plant we've recently taken part in as a church, what we're teaching these children, that doesn't sit well with evil?

As we come out of an amazing and refreshing weekend, we are hit again with more trials and more blessings at home.  My pacemaker incision is infected, and I spent the evening in the ER getting a big dose of IV antibiotics.  Now I am on an oral antibiotic and need to go to the cardiologist again tomorrow to have the incision looked at.  More appointments sucking up time.  Amelia's seizures are still clustering after the lightening strike over the weekend.  Would you pray healing for us?  Would you keep both her and I lifted up in prayer?  I am faced with surgical revision of my pacemaker pocket, living without the pacemaker for a few weeks while I receive antibacterial treatments deep within to treat the pocket in my chest.  In addition, I am at risk for an infection of my heart muscle.  Amelia broke both of her cheekbones in her fall last week, and will need surgery on her nose if she suffers another injury to it.  We need protection.  We need Jesus.

This morning, Caleb accepted Christ - at least, we think he did.  When one of our babes does this so early, we watch for months, not sure whether to believe their belief or not.  So far, not one of the children has surprised us, though.  Katy got saved at almost four; Rosy at three; and Amy and Caleb both at around 2 1/2.   Time will tell.  I praise God for Caleb's sweet words in prayer this morning.  "Dear Lord, thank you for this day.  I sorry I do bad things.  Tank you for sending Jesus to pay for my bad things.  Tank you for saving me from my bad things.  I want you save me, Jesus."

You calm the storms at night
You turn the dark to light
You're everything and that
is who You are

My savior
my healer
redeemer
that is who You are
creator
my maker
my father
that is who You are

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.

The disappearing "country kid"

I remember them - us - vividly: dust-covered, clothes worn for 3 or 4 days at a time, no shoes, white teeth flashing in smiles cracking through the brown skin, grass stains and scratches like sunlight in the garden. I remember long days with only moments spent indoors. I remember baseball games attended in your play clothes so you could get dirty. I remember a distinct notion of difference between "good clothes" and "play clothes", and I remember the list of activities we had sorted in our childish brains...with all the "fun" stuff in the column under "play clothes".

I remember the way the metal playground slide burned your thighs in the brief moment before you went whizzing down. I remember the rust on the bolts, and the creak of the swings, and the worn dirt tracks around the equipment where a thousand pairs of feet had worn the grass and plowed a rock hard groove into the dirt beneath. No wood chips, no rubber tires ground up, not even sand. I didn't grow up in a cushioned world that anticipated my every fall.

I realize now how my mother may have felt, watching us scale slides several stories high, imagining the tumble back down the 20 foot ladder, or worse - over the side at the top, with the thump as body smacked bare ground. But I also now understand the choice to let us keep climbing.

I have always fought against the tide, even as a "country kid" amongst other country kids. But it wasn't my clothes or my attitude that made me stick out back then - it was my height, my brown eyes, my dark hair. The fact that we were home schooled in the pioneer days of home schooling. I still stick out today: cancer has made me throw caution to the wind and embrace things in life that are less than conventional. I don't just climb up the ladder and go down the slide once, a quick remembrance of a bygone day. I go again and again, my laughter joining the children's in the hollow in the pine forest playground.

We take our kids to t-ball in the country. But there are no country kids to be seen. These kids are scrubbed bright, and there isn't a well-worn shirt in sight. I spot more Prada and Gucci than Lee and Wrangler, and every car in the lot is spotless and new. Apparently no one else drives a beater, chasing down the curves of the country roads with the windows open wide and the kids giggling on the bench seat.

Most of the tall trees have been cut down, and the old metal slides were sold as scrap a few years back. All to make way for the plastic play center with all it's pseudo-activity accompaniments: plastic climbing wall instead of the knotted rope, plastic swing seats that promise never to creak, a twisty slide with bumps to slow you down, and warnings on every post that children must always be accompanied by a watchful adult.

A few of the old playgrounds still exist. The dirt divots under the swings, the pine needles the only carpet to cushion their falls. When we visit them, we are the only ones on the playground. Doubtless they will soon be replaced with something newer, better and safer.

I find that even harder than being a country kid is growing up to be a country mom. Gucci and Prada aren't my style. The new car doesn't fit in a one-income budget. The laundry is already piled high in the queue, even though my kids sometimes (*gasp!) wear their clothes for more than a day at a time. I've had to alter the country lifestyle a bit so that we aren't on the receiving end of too many sideways glances. The kids only play on the dirt pile on bath day. We keep a stack of "good clothes" for town trips. We try to make the kids wear shoes at least some of the time.

So here's to the country kids, who revel in the life they find waiting outdoors. The kids who don't worry about wrecking their jeans when they go about their play. And here's to the country moms, who wear their "play clothes" to t-ball games and let their kids get dirty and let them spread their wings on the playground every now and then. I wish there were a few less magazine articles touting "the simple life", plastered with photographs of picnic tables dressed out in full linen and iced drinks and dainty finger foods that take hours to prepare. I vote for a little more of what really constitutes "the simple life" - the dirt-under-the-nails, gravel road, sandy, sweaty kind of simple life where you're too busy working and playing to worry about appearances.

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.

Furled up

I am a flag on a still night; the dead oak leaves, curled and rusty, whose deafening rustle penetrates my storm windows on winter nights; a fern in the sweltering sun. Curled up; spent; exhausted; brittle and small. This latest illness has completely tapped whatever reserve I have left after a winter of rampant sickness in our home. I found myself deep in a "pity party" last night, blaming my current illness on cancer and my subsequent lack of functional lymph nodes, which mobilize the immune system. I have four left up under my ears, and they are the size of half-dollars, working so hard to make up for the team they've lost. My dear husband stayed home to tend hearth and humanity yesterday, and I spent the majority of the day in bed. It is never my wish to do so, as I know there will be a mountain to do the next day, feeling better or not, if I leave my work for 24 hours. This was no exception...and it dawned on me in the evening that I had fallen far behind on schoolwork. So, aching and arthritic, I dragged myself upstairs to spend two hours studying. In doing so, found an article in a medical journal that snapped my bad attitude back into a right perspective. There is so much deeper suffering happening all over this country, every day. Shame, shame for lamenting a few lost lymph nodes and bad head cold!

So, that is cleared up. As usual, I have no right to feel sorry for myself - and why waste time doing it, whether or not I'm in the right? That being said, I am left with the very visceral, physical, real truth that I am less now than I was last March: 8 lymph nodes and 2 parathyroid glands less, not to mention the dear, butterfly-shaped thyroid gland whose presence I miss daily! The latest pathology report from the University of Chicago showed that there were 2 parathyroid glands in the section of thyroid removed. This was news. Previous pathologists did not find them. This would explain my difficulty regulating calcium since the surgery, and confirms that I need to be on daily calcium supplementation. To learn more about the parathyroid glands, click here.

Brushing past

These musings have been rumbling in an unspoken corner of my mind for weeks, ever since I took these photos in my backyard after a February blizzard. How like the fingers of a woman, these branches. Buds of maroon fertility sit like painted nails on the fingertips of these branches, heralding the coming of spring, the warming of the earth and running of the sap for maple syrup. Hands outstretched, this little sapling offers me her gift, crystalline collection of heavy snow. Frigid offering. I snap that photo, and brush past in a hurry to the next one. Turning back, I notice her empty fingers. Offering spent, gift brushed aside. A moment of callous oblivion from my shoulder, and she holds that hand outstretched, barren.


This image has stayed with me. In conversation last night, I probed too deep in a friend's confusion. Oblivious, self-centered, wanting to win an argument or at least expose uncertainty. Brushing past without paying attention. Friendship can shrivel so quickly, relationship falter, love evaporate.

When I see hands full, outstretched to me, I pray I notice. I pray I pause. How then to fulfill that Proverb, as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another (27:17)? How to sharpen each other without scarring each other, to be authentic, and truth-filled, yet not harsh and uncompromising? To put one of Jesus' last edicts into action, Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. (John 13:34-35) I want to be motivated by love, expressing love.

When I go, let me not be the woman that brushes past the tree and never sees the gift. Let me be remembered as a woman who loved.