The lantern in the trees

Hope springs eternal in the human breast; 

Man never Is, but always To be blest: 

The soul, uneasy and confin'd from home, 

Rests and expatiates in a life to come. 

– Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man (1734)

The forest floor is blanketed verdant, a carpet of spring dreams. Like the first thaw in Narnia, when Aslan is on the move, the drab of winter melts into the vibrance of spring. How poignant, hope springs eternal, in the first days of the new equinox. The trees bud in scarlet, umber, yellow, apricot. As colorful as the dying leaves of autumn, that last flame of life that burns bright as it goes quietly into the night of winter, the forest in spring is alive with light. Alive with new hope. Alive with the ascendancy of that great King to the great Throne.

It is a sign of the empty tomb.

A celebration in all of nature of victory over death.

Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,
At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,
When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death,
And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.
"By the Lion's Mane, a strange device," said King Peter, "to set a lantern here where the trees cluster so thick about it and so high above it that if it were lit it should give light to no man!"

When we just want to be DONE

We always wish for the easy road. Pray against trials. When the trial comes, we plunge into despair, as if when God says "wait", it really means "no". Hardships and difficulties ring with finality in our all-too-human ears.

It's a useless waste of time to look for people to blame, letting anger surge at those who seem to be holding us back. It only blinds us to the fact that the trial was forged in the Maker's furnace for our benefit.

We forget that a setback can be framed as "opportunity". We look down at our dirty feet, feel the exhaustion in our bones, and say we can't backtrack down the road of hard labor and do it all again. We are too blinded by our anger and disappointment to see the little bite sized pieces we have to do over. We forget that the hardest part of a hard road is the unfamiliarity with the terrain. Armed with our cognitive road map of each boulder and crevice to be traversed, the second time down the path will be much easier.

If our character is to expand to a Christ-sized dimension...if our self is to grow smaller to make room for His priorities, we must see trials as opportunities for growth rather than hearing the hollow sound of a door slammed shut forever. In the bleakness of the dark night that follows, we must see the starlight and moon, the little glimpses of hope that lead us through the darkness of the trial to the sunlight of the morning.

So grab your road map. Lift that heavy pick ax up onto your tired shoulder. Put your shoes back on those dirty feet. Follow Christ back down the bumpy road to the place where you have to start over. Let go of the fear lacing each step. He's with you on this road. You have a trustworthy guide. If you try to walk on instead of going back and getting it right, you'll come across this seemingly impossible section of the trail again and again. You might as well let yourself be led back to the starting point and walk it with Jesus today.

Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don't try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way. If you don't know what you're doing, pray to the Father. He loves to help. You'll get his help, and won't be condescended to when you ask for it. Anyone who meets a testing challenge head-on and manages to stick it out is mighty fortunate. For such persons loyally in love with God, the reward is life and more life. We have no one to blame but the leering, seducing flare-up of our own lust. Lust gets pregnant, and has a baby: sin! Sin grows up to adulthood, and becomes a real killer. So, my very dear friends, don't get thrown off course. Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light. There is nothing deceitful in God, nothing two-faced, nothing fickle. He brought us to life using the true Word, showing us off as the crown of all his creatures. (from James 1, The Message)

*thoughts after my dissertation was rejected for defense yesterday, as I start back down the path of revision today

Joining Joy in some truth-telling today

The purpose of mystery

I turned in my dissertation on Tuesday. I'm on pins and needles waiting to find out if I passed the written portion, so that I can travel down to South Carolina to do my oral defense. I was trying to describe written and oral defense to my kids while we celebrated on Tuesday evening, ice cream dripping down our chins. Rosy looked at me, confused, "What happens if you don't defend it, Mama? Will they tear it up?" While I laughed uproariously at this little 7 year old statement, inside I was wondering the same thing. What if they DO want to tear it up?

And why always with the waiting, God? Sometimes I feel as if I'm a professional at waiting. I'm always in the no-man's-land: waiting for news of cancer blood tests, waiting to get my hearing back, waiting to de-clutter my house until the dissertation is finished, waiting now for news of whether I passed or failed.

And so I ran to the Word this morning, trying to calm my nerves. And in the devotional book I'm reading right now (The Place of Help, Oswald Chambers - a book you'll only find in used bookstores these days), the title of today's reading is "At God's Discretion".

I pause, and say those familiar words from the Word, "Not my will, but thine be done." (Luke 22:42)

O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past tracing out! (Romans 11:33) The purpose of mystery is not to tantalize us and make us feel that we cannot comprehend; it is a generous purpose, and meant to assure us that slowly and surely as we can bear it, the full revelation of God's will be made clear.

Gifts unrecognized

I've said it now, to several people. Written it in e-mails to new cancer patients reached out to.

Remission. "I'm in remission."

It took months to feel at home with remission. After four years of cancer, owning cancer, being cancer, it felt strange and scary to be in remission.

Four years ago, on a hot June day in the cold air-conditioned hospital, I whispered a verse in my dying grandmother's ear as she struggled to breathe, her eyes wide and wild like those of a caged animal.

"God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of peace." (II Timothy 2:7)

When cancer first choked my throat, and my voice was raspy and tremulous, fear ebbed in. He quietly made his bed in my heart, and slowly built up walls and made a home there.

Cancer isn't like remission. When you hear you have cancer, it is an immediate change. You go from normal to cancer patient without stopping to breath in between. Remission was a slower process for me, like the first time you take a deep breath when the doctor tells you to, and use all your muscles to take in that air, and your lips quiver as you let it out slowly, trying to make the breath out last and not rush out all together. As you settle into the deep, measured breaths that calm your body and your soul, you quite thinking about it so hard. The muscles between your ribs relax. Your lips quite trembling.

That's remission. The first time I let out a remission sigh, it was hard work. Now I'm riding serene on the waves of breath in and out, no longer hurried or compressed by cancer's grip.

I realize that, although I haven't lived with a spirit of fear for these four years, fear is what motivated me. Getting to the 5 year mark would mean success, the 10 year mark a small miracle. Now I am almost to 5, and I'm in remission. I need to let go of fear as my motivator.

Fear is what drove me to gather up small joys. Fear is what propelled me to enjoy motherhood and love my children deeper. Fear is what rocketed me to a new peace with the everyday distractions and disappointments that inevitably come. Fear is what aroused the hunger to find the gift in every day alive, even if it was just the gift of being alive.

Cancer narrowed my vision for life, while at the same time expanding it. Like a zoom lens, it focused all my energies on the minutiae, pulled me toward the details of the moment, and my 10 year, 20 year, 30 year plans gathered dust because it had been so long since I picked them up and pondered them. My vision expanded to see joy in the hidden corners of life, to find beauty under cobwebs, to see His glory in a million small ways, sparkling like a fresh rain had just fallen over the entirety of my life.

I haven't decided yet if I want to zoom out. I haven't picked up my 10 year plan yet. I think I might live this way forever.

Yesterday is past, tomorrow is uncertain, but today is a gift. That's why it's called the present.

I think about the ways God used cancer to free me: free me to love, to live, to relish, to understand, to see meaning. Wisdom? Is that what cancer gave me? Perhaps it is that I finally, truly, believe and can walk in the truths of Matthew 6:25-34.

If you decide for God, living a life of God-worship, it follows that you don't fuss about what's on the table at mealtimes or whether the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body. Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God. And you count far more to him than birds. Has anyone by fussing in front of the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch? ...walk out into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They never primp or shop, but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them. If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don't you think he'll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I'm trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God's giving. People who don't know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don't worry about missing out. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes. (The Message)

Linked up to Lisa-Jo's prompt, "Gift"