Pipe dreams

Thyroid cancer is a long-term commitment. I remember being told, "This is something you will live with for the rest of your life." But those words don't soak in at 29 when you are holding your 8-week-old baby, nursing him, trying to picture what having surgery will look like. You simply can't fast-forward years into the future to imagine the rest of your life. And today the forever part is here, and I am wasted-exhausted, the wrung out dirty dish rag hanging limp over the lip of the stainless steel sink. I am the dead grass, the wilted weed, the dry and curly leaf hopelessly clinging. Hyperthyroid because spring is here, and my body uses all it's energy to keep on chugging, none left over for the extra things like cooking, laundry, loving, working.

The yellow of my dad's cattail stained glass bleeds warmth into his study, where we sit and talk about academic papers and projects for our next few years as colleagues - our dream come true. I sit in the warm light and imagine being a professor with him, and it seems like a pipe dream. Hardly worth wasting mental energy on the dreaming.

Later that Friday, I watch my children snuggle their stuffed animals in the peace of nap, and I wonder what pipe dreams play over their brainwaves in technicolor. I reach up to touch the matted grit of my own Mama's comfort object, Twinkles, the white elephant with his floppy red ears and the wind-up music box that still works 50 years later. I wonder how Twinkles played into her musicianship and the compositions that flow straight from her heart stuck close like glue to God's, wonder if Twinkles was the first of those pipe dreams of music for her.

Pipe dream for me is someday surviving spring and fall without this deep pull toward the grave, as I feel myself sinking away from life others know, and I feel the cancer patient. Pipe dream is being truly healthy. It hasn't seemed my fate ever in this life, but I pray anyway. Why not keep praying the thorn be removed? Can I say, with Paul, that God's strength is made perfect in weakness? (II Corinthians 12:7-10)

I page through my gratitude journal for this week, written in red, a first for someone who writes everything in black. And there I see that yes, He is made perfect in my weakness. That the little joys keep meandering through my days like a thread of gold woven into the tired gray fabric of sick days and fatigue. Eva Cassidy, long dead of cancer, sings my children to sleep for nap, and I sing with her, too, after reading these little gratitudes:

My life goes on in endless song

above earth's lamentations,

I hear the real, though far-off hymn

that hails a new creation.

Through all the tumult and the strife

I hear it's music ringing,

It sounds an echo in my soul.

How can I keep from singing?

Oh though the tempest loudly roars,

I hear the truth, it liveth.

Oh though the darkness 'round me close,

Songs in the night it giveth.

No storm can shake my inmost calm,

While to that rock I'm clinging.

Since love is Lord of heaven and earth

How can I keep from singing?

Lord, how can I keep from singing?

Oh, how can I keep from singing?
~written by Robert Wadsworth Lowry, 1868~

Excerpted from my gratitude journal, #282-311:

283. The blue and gold of the hot steel of the maple syrup boiling pan

285. Singing again in front of an audience

289. Amy loving therapy

292. God teaching me gently to SIMPLY BE with Him without words

297. Unexpected piano time with my best friend

299. Tears

301. Raw honey

304. Proposal edited

305. God's grace to work through exhaustion

307. Music - wild miraculous soul-melting - at church

310. Icicles in mudpuddles

311. Joy in the lament

A weary prayer

I had my cancer doctor appointment yesterday. Potentially good news this time, which is a relief - but I won't know anything for sure until after my scan, which has now been set for "as early as possible". Given it is Christmastime, the "earliest possible" for me is January 3. I get injections the 3rd and 4th (Thyrogen - praising God anew for the insurance that allows me to pay for this $25,000 shortcut and remain on my medications). Then the electric blue pill - a mini dose of radioactive iodine 131 - for the scan on the 5th. After 9 a.m. on the 5th, I will be on my own without family once again. This is the hardest part of every year. You would think I'd be clamoring for a week off by this point, but I learned the hard way that it is an experience along the lines of "It's a Wonderful Life", and I would rather never do it again. Depending on the dose, I will be away from home for 5-7 days for the sake of my kids. Many disagree with me on this, but as a stay-at-home mom with homeschooled kids who like to crawl into my bed at night, I'm standing firm on my choice to take the most cautious road.

I learned that my lab values are climbing at an alarming rate, and that I am profoundly hypothyroid. Which means I have the following list of symptoms - great fun in the deep of winter here in the Midwest, let me tell you!

• Severe fatigue
• Sleepiness, sometimes sleeping up to 20 hours per day (not there yet, thank God!)
• Depression, forgetfulness, feeling in a "fog"
• Unexplained weight gain
• Severe sensitivity to the cold/feeling cold all the time
• Pale, dry skin
• Hoarse voice and sore throat
• Puffy face and swollen eyelids
• Elevated blood cholesterol/increased risk of heart attack
• Pain, stiffness, and swelling of joints
• and about 100 other things!

That's the list of the non-embarrassing side effects I'm suffering so far. The doctor is confused about why my thyroid levels seem to be going backwards as he treats me. Two options: 1) the remaining cancer has finally finished dying and my body has no internal thyroid hormones, so I just require higher dosage (the potentially good news that my anti-cancer diet has done the trick); or 2) I have developed such a severe thyroid hormone antibody level that I can no longer convert the hormone in my body and my pills have quit working. This will mean a switch in medication that will make it more difficult to suppress my cancer - and my symptoms.

I guess all I'm up for today is reporting the "news". I am tired and my fingers hurt so typing is difficult. I also received news this morning that a close cousin's baby was born at 26 weeks (a full 14 weeks early), weighing 1 lb 4 oz. He is a sweet little thing, but so tiny! His pictures brought me to tears as I so clearly remember these tiny ones...we had a few in the pediatric ICU I worked on who came to us for heart surgery and stayed for many, many months. Please keep little Ian Louis Gumtow in your prayers.

To this tiny one trussed up, brought out so soon by complications for his mother...Lord, I try to wait on you, but I beg for strength for the weak and weary. I haven't felt like I'm riding an eagle in a very long time and how I long for your rescue. Amen... Come, Lord Jesus! (Revelation 22:20)

Strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord

We will wait upon the Lord, we will wait upon the Lord

Strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord

We will wait upon the Lord, we will wait upon the Lord

Our God, You reign forever

Our hope, our Strong Deliverer

You are the everlasting God

The everlasting God

You do not faint

You won't grow weary

You're the defender of the weak

You comfort those in need

You lift us up on the wings

Like eagles

~ by Benton Brown, my favorite version here sung by Jeremy Camp ~
based on Isaiah 40:27-31

Lamenting the loss of normalcy

Sometimes it just hits you in the gut like a ton of bricks.  There is nothing left in your life that is normal.  You watch, on Facebook, at church, through blogs and e-mails, as your friends and most of your family progress through a "normal" life, with fun pictures of holidays, updates about jobs, all the little details that make up "normal".  And you realize there is nothing left you can claim as normal.  I found a photo taken a few weeks before we lost normal.  What brings the tears the quickest is my children, my husband.  He looks so young.  I look at Caleb - just born - and Amelia, not even 2.  They don't remember "normal".  I see Katy's innocence.  I had never asked to learn to do laundry or cook a meal or clean a bathroom yet.  She has had to grow so fast.  And Rosy, so easy going and self-motivated and happy.  She just gets lost in the shuffle of the non-normal.  How can I make my peace with these losses??  How do I see this as a gift??

One of our last days of "normal".  Two weeks before my cancer was found.

Life was messy, and crazy, and hard work.  And wonderful.

Most cancer patients go through this, as their life gets ripped to shreds by cancer, its treatment and the treatment side effects.  An even smaller number continue to go through this for a long period of time.  That is where our family fits, once again in the statistical margins, defying the definitions and the predictions.  Even worse, it's not just cancer that has our number.  It's everything from infections to accidents, and "normal" life problems gone awry, like food poisoning and routine surgery or vaccinations.  Nothing goes "normal" for us.  Not in 2 1/2 years.

I walked into the bathroom today because I forgot.  I looked, for the first time, at the remains of the toilet.  It's not just broken.  It's shattered.  It stuns me, when I see what I hit and with what force, that I am typing right now.  That I have one hairline fracture and a small amount of bleeding in my brain and this will probably go down in life's history as a fantastical and horrific...yet short-lived...memory.  Just mire at the very bottom in the clear water of the rest of life.

I have to write it, this broken heart that longs for the day when I look back and realize no one has been in the hospital for several months.  The day when I realize that I have actually managed to care for my own children for a whole month without asking any relatives for help or spending any exorbitant dollar amount on childcare.  The day when I realized I've cooked every meal and swept every floor and wiped every nose and taken every picture and maybe even passed a test or gone on a real...restful rather than healing...vacation.

I know, deeper or truer than most, that life is a gift and every day, however flawed, is a blessing.  I know that my life is already a half-blown seed pod, and I need to be mindful of how and when and where I blow those seeds remaining.  But there is such longing to just be normal again.  I remember with longing a day I was frustrated because I forgot about dinner until 4 p.m. and had to rush to defrost something.  I look back at a day when I cried over the 10th poopy diaper and pleaded with God for an "out" from the drudgery of motherhood, and I laugh at my near-sightedness.  I recall a vacation when I fought with Aaron because of a difference of opinion about a leisure activity, and I wish I knew then what I know now.  I also know that, should God ever grant "normal" life to me again, I will forget all of this, most of the time.  I will take things for granted, and throw away blessed moments for the sake of my pride, and I will choose the wrong things to spend time on, and I will wound people and shock myself at how stupid I can be again so quickly.

A cross-processed photo from Mother's Day.

It is kind of like yearning for childhood as an adult.  This longing for something easy for a change.  It is like looking at photo and wishing you could cross-process it and bring out a new color that you know is there, you just couldn't grip it with your camera lens.  God says to give up my life to find it.  Okay, Lord.  You've got my life.  It's long been given up.  Please help me find the new one in the wreckage.  Please heal us.  Please rescue us.  And please let me never forget.

Home. Bed. Heaven.

I skipped everything I *thought* I wanted to do on the way home from the hospital yesterday...even walking in to Walgreens for a few essentials.  Coming out of the hospital after the pacemaker was a different experience - felt great.  Yesterday I felt more tired and more on the verge of nothingness than I have since my college days.  Which is interesting.  Back then, I thought it was my heart making me so tired, but now I wonder if it is the many, many times I hit my head when I fainted.  As soon as I got home yesterday, I went to bed and I really haven't gotten up yet, except for brief intervals to use the bathroom and have a drink.  I forced myself to eat something this morning, as I have no appetite yet.  I haven't had to take any pain relievers as my pain is totally relieved by sleep (of course, I wake up to the crushing headache).  It is a relief to be free from the nausea and confusion that the narcotics were causing.  My dear mother and friends are surrounding me to care for my children.  How I dearly pray that I never have to ask them for this type of help again!

I have a Grade III concussion (American Academy of Neurology), because of prolonged and repeated loss of consciousness, seizure, memory lapse, and neurologic deficits following the injury.  I have an area of "multiple petechial hemorrhage" - bruises from broken blood vessels in the gray matter of my brain - near my ocular orbit (the hollowed out space for your eyeball) and in my temporal lobe.  Right where Amy has her brain injury.  I guess I am not feeling poetic, only somber, and I am very, very tired. It took me several hours to write this and I just want to conclude with a list of prayer requests:

1. Doctor's permission to travel to South Carolina on Friday.  The ocean sounds so healing.
2. Protection for my brain as it heals - no permanent damage and no seizure, migraine, learning or emotional disorder later on in the healing process.
3. Rest for me and lots of connection time with my lonely kids.
4. Energy to write a presentation to be given on Wednesday of next week in South Carolina.
5. Wisdom about how much to be involved at school next week, if I am allowed to go.

*** Also, did you know overripe bananas have another use? Check out the fabulous banana & lime jam that is supposedly hot right now in Australia and Jamaica. It is better with 3 parts white sugar to one part brown, in my opinion.  Hilariously, because I was so tired, I looked for a post that I had already written and just needed to edit.  This was the only thing I hadn't published.  :-)

Paths to exhaustion

Stress is one way to lose energy: I've been bleeding resources to that quite a bit of late. Daily life, fraught with small needs and simple consumption of time and motivation, exhausts resources in a different way. Children with the flu, laundry that is consequently out of control once again, and a Mama with no immunity left to fight the flu off. The latest cancer scare is over for the time being, and I've reached a stalemate in the battle to diagnose and treat my fainting episodes. For now, I am clenching my jaw and putting shoulder to harness in an everyday, work-at-home world. And praising God for every minute of work I have left in this body of mine.

A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? (Ecclesiastes 2:24-25)

Remember finals week?

...where all genuine worship starts, and where it often returns for a dark season, is the barrenness of soul that scarcely feels any longing, and yet is still granted the grace of repentant sorrow for having so little love: "When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you" (Psalm 73:21-22)...He is also glorified by the spark of anticipated gladness that gives rise to the sorrow we feel when our hearts are lukewarm. Even in the miserable guilt we feel over our beastlike insensitivity, the glory of God shines. If God were not gloriously desirable, why would we feel sorrowful for not feasting fully on His beauty? Even though this falls short of the ideal of vigorous, heartfelt adoration and hope, yet it is a great honor to God. We honor the water from a mountain spring not only by the satisfied "ahhh" after drinking our fill, but also by the unquenched longing to be satisfied while still climbing to it.

~ Worship, Desiring God, John Piper


My eyes burn, my thoughts spark sluggishly from one topic to the next. Ahhhh, finals week. All my synapses are consumed with the intellectual tasks at hand, with nary a spare moment to think of anything else. Even writing these few paragraphs feels like trying to squeeze water from a rock! I have been blessed this week with help with childcare (thanks, Mom & Heather!). And I've gotten a lot done. Today a paper is just about ready for submission to an international journal, imagine that! Would be wonderful to see some success in the publication department.

Consequently, I feel my spiritual life is a bit limp this week. I appreciated this quote for Piper, which reassures me that longing is worship as much as feasting. This is a week of fatigued dragging myself into God's presence with little energy for joy or service. So I lay that at God's feet, too. Along with simple praise for strength and brain-power for a busy week of schoolwork.

Time flies

When you read these, I, that was visible, am become invisible;
Now it is you, compact, visible, realizing my poems, seeking me;
Fancying how happy you were, if I could be with you,
and become your comrade;
Be it as if I were with you.
(Be not too certain but I am now with you.)
~ Walt Whitman

Busy days, these past few following vacation. Days full of re-training children to routines and ways of being and thinking here at our home. Days of readjusting for mother and father, as well, to the rhythm and hum of everyday living after days awash in the sun and surf a thousand miles removed from reality. Days, too, filled with service. Cooking, cleaning, and preparing beds for our old host family from the Berlin mission trip in 2006. A mere 24 hours after our arrival home, they came, smiling, from vacation at our pastor's cabin. The children meshed well, being similar in age and attention span, and we had a delightful day full of getting to know all of them again. What a blessing to serve saints visiting from a far off field, listen to stories of God's grace and power ministering to a different land and people.

On to the next task, then. Another group to feed tonight. Two school assignments yet to be started, which should be finished. Some freelance writing I haven't even glanced over, due yesterday. Doctors to call, research to do regarding my own health situation (when - if! - I get the chance). Busy, busy. So time flies by and soon I will look back on eighty years of this business called living. Wonder where the time went.

And days go by...
I can feel 'em flyin'
Like a hand out the window in the wind.
The cars go by...
Yeah it's all we've been given,
So you better start livin' right now,
And days go by...

We think about tomorrow then it slips away.
Oh, yes, it does.
We talk about forever but we've only got today...
~ Days Go By, Keith Urban

Grated

"The Lord led me," and on looking back we see the presence of an amazing design, which, if we are born of God, we will credit to God. We can all see God in exceptional things, but it requires the culture of spiritual discipline to see God in every detail. Never allow that the haphazard is anything less than God's appointed order, and be ready to discover the Divine designs any where. Beware of making a fetish of consistency to your convictions instead of being devoted to God. I shall never do that - in all probability you will have to, if you are a saint. It is easier to be a fanatic than a faithful soul, because there is something amazingly humbling, particularly to our religious conceit, in being loyal to God. ~ Oswald Chambers, from My Utmost for His Highest

(I feel a bit like the soap on this plate: vibrant color, catching the light in the shards that are left, but feeling a bit "grated down" at the moment. Photo is my box grater sprinkled with soap flakes while making homemade laundry soap last week. Of course I have to use yellow soap - others use a variety of recipes!)

Today I spent another morning in the emergency room. I fought tooth and nail to stay away, but eventually had to give in after over 24 hours of chest pain. On the new drug I was started on, I feared that this really could be a heart attack or oxygenation problems in my heart. So I submitted, and wasted another morning at the hospital. In short, what I found out is this:

• A pacemaker is not a good option for me at this time, according to my current cardiologist. Although my fainting episodes follow a distinct cardiac rhythm pattern, my heart rate remains too close to my baseline heartrate for a pacemaker to effectively treat me. Treating the low heart rate with a pacemaker may not work, for one, and may also damage my heart over the long run.
• The drugs that will help me have significant risks. The cardiologist is slowly adding medications, starting with midodrine, which raise my blood pressure (hasn't worked so far); then sertraline, an antidepressant that will dull my nervous system response to changes in heart rate; then ephedrine, a stimulant that will raise my heartrate; and finally, disopyramide, a drug that helps regulate my heart rate. The side effects of these medications, briefly, include: heart attack, stroke, bleeding disorders, confusion, fast or irregular heartbeat, paralysis, tremor, memory impairment, headache and blurred vision. To name a few. Just something to keep praying about!
• Fainting this frequently can cause problems with memory, my job as a mother, and my heart over time. Every time I faint, that means oxygen is not getting to my brain. I have already been restricted from driving, heights, swimming, walking on busy streets, holding hot liquids, carrying my children while walking, heavy lifting, sports, and anything else that could cause danger to myself or others if I should faint in the midst of the activity.

I leave in a week for South Carolina. It is my desperate prayer that I have some relief from the frequent fainting episodes before I leave. But I also freely admit that my prayer is self-motivated. I have absolutely no idea what will bring the greatest glory to God in this time period. I have dreams of completing a PhD and using it to better the world, by teaching students here in our privileged country, and perhaps even starting a school in a third world country someday as a missionary. But, like everything else, I lay those mixed worldly/eternal dreams on the altar of God's infinite wisdom. I will accept whatever He does in this situation, hopefully with the thanksgiving and praise that I so desperately long to demonstrate despite my human weakness (read: pride, ambition, goal-orientedness).

As a nurse, I know that God uses the weakest bodies to teach the most confounding lessons. My body is no different: He used it today to show nurses and doctors that a submissive and quiet spirit is possible...nay, even humor!....in the face of life-altering and confusing illness. May I meekly and humbly let this body be used, despite the aching desire that fills me to succeed and complete this degree, without the humiliation of crumbling like a rag doll in front my whole class and venerable professors.

I found strength this evening in this beautiful post from a woman battling spinal cord injury.

Well, at least I'm not a goat...

God didn't say it would be easy... He just said it would be worth it.
(today's dose of comfort courtesy of mass chain e-mails from "God")

So I fainted 16 times yesterday. To comfort myself, I looked up baffling diseases on the internet (hey, it could be worse!) and watched the hilarious video of the fainting goats...again. I feel an odd sense of kinship with these goats. After all, I fainted at least once every hour I was awake yesterday. Not too conducive to getting much...er, anything!...done around my house, or on the pressing projects due at school. I am also starting to really wonder how I am going to function in a week and a half at school for full 8-12 hour days. That should be interesting!


My cardiologist is, in a word, baffled. No idea what to do with me. Never has treated anyone who faints this frequently (I've heard this before, believe me). He is concerned about the pacemaker, because if what they are catching on the event monitor is really true, I might need a defibrillator, and I also will need chronic pacing on days like today. Which, over 10 years, is fine. Over 50 years...now that could be a problem. When I faced decisions regarding cancer treatment, I dealt with the same double-edged sword. Don't treat it, and it might kill you - or destroy your quality of life. Treat it, and it might significantly shorten your lifespan - or destroy your quality of life. As difficult as fainting 16 times in one day is, the truth is that my quality of life is still pretty high. I can't swim, drive, climb ladders, run races, hold my children while walking, bike ride, snowboard, or supervise my children doing any of those aforementioned activities. But I can still talk, walk, write, comfort, read stories, cuddle, feed, diaper, instruct, enjoy. That's a lot to risk if the pacemaker isn't going to eliminate the fainting - just reduce the frequency.

I emerged from yesterday having fought off one seriously bad bout of depression, another wave of anger with the traditional Western medical establishment, and a disturbing stint of chest pain. I hit my head only once, so I think it's safe to say that my mind is functioning up to par. And I have no idea what to do next. I guess I will spend the next week pushing "record" on that event monitor many more times than I planned. I'll probably miss out on swimming with the kids over the 4th. I won't be helping with the driving or errand running anytime soon, that much is certain.

I still pray the pacemaker would work. And that the doctors will hurry the heck up and figure something out!

Hear my cry, O God; listen to my prayer.
From the ends of the earth I call to you, I call as my heart grows faint;
lead me to the rock that is higher than I.
For you have been my refuge, a strong tower against the foe.
~ Psalm 61:1-3

What will you do with today?

I woke to a silly love note from my husband. A melon sticker on my fridge. It's probably been there for a few days, tucked amidst the chaos of birth announcements and children's drawings under the magnets on the fridge door.

...if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children,
how much more will your heavenly Father give
good gifts to those who ask him!
Matthew 7:11

Being sick induces many people to doubt God's love, faithfulness, or even his existence. In my life, the opposite has been true thus far. Because it has made each moment sweeter, each blessing more fragrant, each day longer and brighter and more cherished. The way the sunlight glints off the drop of sweet watermelon nectar falling from my son's cherry lips, the way he holds his fingers just like his father would...this man-child glimpse into my husband's past and my future...

In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider:
God has made the one as well as the other.
~ Ecclesiastes 7:14a

I can lament that the fruit is gone, that my days pass so quickly and I wonder how many more are left. Or I can see the beauty in what's left. The pink glow on the edge of the rind. The glossiness of the wet fruit lying akimbo in a pile of discarded beauty. The joy that is left in each of my days, between ambulance rides and chest pain and exhaustion. The sweetness of each kiss from my children, the warmth of my husband's embrace in the wee hours of the morning. What's left is different, not less.

Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
Psalm 90:12

Sink your teeth into today. Slip into my skin for an afternoon, and bring the beauty of today into focus. The sunlight of this glorious morning warming your child's hair, bringing each strand (which He has numbered!) into focus out of the shadows of this dawn. Perhaps the cool dew on the ground as you weed your garden. Or the tang of the orange juice - miraculous fruit! - as it assaults your taste buds with breakfast.

Living like you're dying doesn't mean completing your Bucket list. It means realizing afresh the gift this life is, that each breath is a miracle in itself, and means that there is something left in the purpose and plan God created for your life that you have yet to accomplish.

All the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
Psalm 139:16

I became a friend a friend would like to have.
And all of a sudden going fishing
Wasn’t such an imposition.
Well, I finally read the Good Book,
And I took a good long hard look,
At what I'd do if I could do it all again,

I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter,
I gave forgiveness that I'd been denying.
Some day, I hope you get the chance,
To live like you were dying.

Like tomorrow was a gift,
And you got eternity,
To think about what you’d do with it.

~ Live Like You Were Dyin', written by Craig Wiseman

A long day

...my spirit faints within me; my heart within me is appalled. Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love, for in you I trust. Make me know the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul. ~ Psalm 143:4 & 8 (ESV)

Another day of chest pain and palpitations. Hard work to keep up with the kids and the house. I am worn out. The cardiologist thinks it may be time for a pacemaker, but will probably decide to try medications first, depending on the results from the 48-hour heart monitor I am currently wearing. My appointment is June 1st. Thanks for your continued prayers.

Give to the wind your fear
Hope and be undismayed
God hears your sighs and counts your tears
God will lift up, God will lift up, lift up your head
~ God Will Lift Up Your Head, Jars of Clay

Enemies as reminders

If it were not for the adversaries who make us conscious of our impotence, how would we learn to trust God's omnipotence? Lord of the armies of heaven, I praise You for your power to conquer. Teach me to trust your power, not mine.
~ Elisabeth Elliot, A Lamp Unto My Feet



What are the enemies in your life that remind you of your impotence, your inability to succeed? My enemies have changed over the years: today they're the piles of unfolded laundry; the child who pees on floors and furniture despite my best efforts; the unexpectedness of cancer; my own laziness and procrastination. Yet without brokenness, without failure, what would I have to write about? The richness of life lies in the whole spectrum of experience, not just in the joyful, successful chapters.

Loculation

I came across this word while writing a set of procedure guidelines for nurses today. It means "the formation of numerous small spaces or cavities within a larger cavity". It reflects something that has happened in my heart as the years go by. Around age 20, I started to notice that there were some pretty big abscesses in my character: infected, hard lumps that were getting more and more visible to the casual observer as time went on. Around age 25, I started the painful process of opening these flawed areas up for exploration, drainage, healing. It's not an enjoyable thing, to watch that smelly, icky stuff drain out for all the world to see, and to watch it heal, all scarred over. Now I'm finding that, if I don't let God probe deep enough in those tender spots deep within the wound, I am allowing loculation to occur. And years later, I have to open the whole thing back up again, because there were small areas within the large one that didn't get cleaned out well enough the first time around.

I was laying in bed a few moments ago, putting my sweet smelling baby to sleep. Thinking back over my morning. I am so tired, deep in my bones. I wake up tired, I go through my day tired, and I go back to bed just as tired. There is none of the usual ebb and flow of energy these days. And I am tired of being tired! As I audit my last few weeks, from a soul perspective, I really can give myself pretty good marks...for the most part, I've had a good attitude about this whole ordeal. But the last few days, I've been struggling to accept my situation and keep moving forward. Inertia is one of those physical laws of the universe that really applies to this situation: as the mud gets thicker on the tires, eventually they're going to stop spinning. Everything is going to freeze up. And that's where I finally am at. Physically, emotionally, and spiritually, I am getting to the end of my [human] rope. At this crossroads, I have to decide if I'm going to let God step in? Or if I'm going to struggle, and moan, and throw myself another good old pity-party? What did I learn last time, when I let God probe into this painful old wound called selfishness? For really, what I'm asking - begging! - God for, is for life to easy again, for life to go the way I expected. To somehow revert to pre-cancer. To just get my normal problems back.


Deep inside, I know that isn't the solution. Life wasn't that much easier before cancer. I would quickly forget how much worse it could be. Right now, I'm going to go lay down, say a little prayer that God's grace will cover my unfolded laundry and unplanned supper, and rest these tired bones awhile with that sweet smelling baby.

Standing in the moment

Let not our longing slay the appetite of our living. We accept and thank God for what is given, not allowing the not-given to spoil it. This is the call. This is the order of our lives. We can commit them to God, and accept them from Him...we believe in a God who is in charge. We are not for one moment of our lives at the mercy of chance. We see the pattern of duty that lies before us and take it to be the will of God, so that the power of our own emotion to weaken our resolve is not a threat. We know, as the psalmist knew, "My flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."
~ Elisabeth Elliot, paraphrased from Let Me Be a Woman


This is the day which the Lord has made; I will rejoice, and be glad in it! (Psalm 118:24)

I am tired. Worn out. Wishing that this stage, this being tired all the time life of mine, could be over soon. Yet in this moment, He's shaping my heart. He's molding me to withstand...who knows what? More sleepless nights with a hard-to-console baby in the future? More months of hypothyroidism with even more children next year, or two years from now?

When you're this tired, it's easy to let the doubts creep in. Plenty of people would support me if I said I'm maxed out. That I don't have the physical, emotional or spiritual reserves to handle any more on my plate right now. Of course, I'm being flooded with suggestions of that nature since spreading the news of our planned adoption. Yet deep within me resonates that "voice of truth" - the quiet breath of the Holy Spirit that tells me of grace that covers a multitude of ills. Ills like lack of energy, human incompetence, mothering a houseful of toddlers and preschoolers. God is great - He is certainly big enough for the paltry demands of my life!

But the waves are calling out my name and they laugh at me
Reminding me of all the times I've tried before and failed...
But the voice of truth tells me a different story
And the voice of truth says "Do not be afraid!"
And the voice of truth says "This is for My glory"
Out of all the voices calling out to me
I will choose to listen and believe the voice of truth
~ The Voice of Truth, Casting Crowns

Growing slowly old

I will not be made useless
I won't be idled with despair
I will gather myself around my faith
My hands are small, I know,
but they're not yours they are my own
cause where there's a man who has no voice
there ours shall go singing
In the end only kindness matters
I will get down on my knees and I will pray
We are God's eyes
God's hands
God's heart
~ Hands, Jewel

I've mentioned my hands before this. They are the most ravaged by the radiation and hypothyroidism. Sounds silly, I suppose, but it's been difficult for me. It has also given me more empathy for my husband, who suffers chronic joint inflammation, probably due to osteoarthritis, and a dear friend of mine who suffers rheumatoid arthritis. My hands look old. They are covered in wrinkles, they are dry, callouses have formed over each knuckle, and the fingertips are covered in cracks and stains that I can't seem to scrub out. They are constantly sore, and I can't write by hand much at all during my weeks of recovery after being off my medication for six weeks in preparation for the latest round of tests. They ache so badly that it wakes me up at night. I can describe all this pain to little avail...hence the photo of my newly ugly hand. All this aching and falling apart of such a small, inconsequential body part reminds me of the verses that compare Christians to parts of a body: The eye cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of you," nor again the head to the feet, "I have no need of you." On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. (I Corinthians 12)

Under the heading, "Joy of the Redeemed", I found these words of encouragement in Isaiah 35:
Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way; say to those with fearful hearts, "Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you." Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.

As I process the latest news about my cancer this week, I come constantly back to the foundational truth that there is no knowing in this life. That tomorrow is an unknown, today is a gift. I am grateful to know that I will be home with my children again until December. I pray fervently that cancer stays far from me. Yet little harbingers of the long wait and battle ahead keep coming in like waves into a peaceful shore, turning the rocks over to reveal new beauty and undiscovered ugliness all at once. Other cancer survivors warn me that years of clean scans and undetectable labs are often followed up by recurrences of cancer, metastasis and more surgery and treatment. This particular type of cancer is the "long haul" type - something I am likely to have on my radar for the rest of my life now. Just like my hands. A constant reminder that the fleeting days are passing swiftly. So I abandon this writing now, to go redeem the time.

(Romantic as that may sound, I plan to "redeem" it by folding my laundry!)

Stretching toward blue skies

It is easy to feel barren instead of full. Sodden instead of saturated. Wasted instead of well-used. Abandoned instead of alone with God. Irritated instead of thankful. Cloistered instead of protected.

These are hard days, these "rubber meets the road"days when faith is put to big tests and there are no easy moments or choices. I stretch my aching arms towards heaven and give thanks, mindfully, sentient, in spite of all (because of all). Who am I to curse the whirling wheel or despair of the clay of which this pot of mine is made? I look forward to days, after this current firing in the kiln, when I will know what the Potter is making. I will see it's purpose. Today I trust and I flip the negative thoughts and feelings on their heads like coins flat on a smooth sidewalk. I am still flat on the sidewalk, trampled on. But I choose heads up instead of tails turned.

You're the strength in our weakness
You're the love to the broken
You're the joy in the sadness
You Are

Greater things have yet to come
Great things are still to be done...
Where glory shines from hearts alive
With praise for you and love for you

~ In This City, Bluetree

One misty, moisty morning

My mother used to sing us a little esoteric nursery rhyme on days like today:

One misty, moisty morning, when cloudy was the weather;
I chanced to meet an old man, dressed all in leather;
He began to compliment, and I began to grin,
"How do you do? How do you do? How do you do?" again.

Today is that misty, moisty morning. The warm sun gave way to sheets of frozen rain drilling holes in the remaining snowbed, the sizzle heard from inside the warm kitchen nook. The cottonwood and the pine, my favorite trees, are married up in the hazy cold, arms entwined, stallwart survivors of a 100 winters past.

I think the whole family has been feeling a little misty, moisty and gray. The lingerings of our bad cold plague all of us, and the weather isn't helping much. While I feel bleary eyed and stiff this morning, my girls are blithe and limpid in the face of headaches and sore eyes. What a difference thirty years make!

Holding hands

Today was a gray day, and perhaps that's why I feel so tired. Amy's hands are always in mine if my hands are available. She likes to hold the web between my thumb and forefinger. This is her ultimate comfort. This particular photo was taken the night she developed haemophilus B influenza and became so ill. I was looking through photos today, and this captured how I feel. Secure, comforted, but not myself.

There is no one like the God of Jeshurun, who rides on the heavens to help you and on the clouds in his majesty. The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms. He will drive out your enemy before you, saying, 'Destroy him!' So Israel will live in safety alone; Jacob's spring is secure in a land of grain and new wine, where the heavens drop dew. ~ Deuteronomy 33:26-28

Rain

Remember, our message is not about ourselves; we're proclaiming Jesus Christ, the Master. All we are is messengers, errand runners from Jesus for you. It started when God said, "Light up the darkness!" and our lives filled up with light as we saw and understood God in the face of Christ, all bright and beautiful. If you only look at us, you might well miss the brightness. We carry this precious Message around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives. That's to prevent anyone from confusing God's incomparable power with us. As it is, there's not much chance of that. You know for yourselves that we're not much to look at. We've been surrounded and battered by troubles, but we're not demoralized; we're not sure what to do, but we know that God knows what to do; we've been spiritually terrorized, but God hasn't left our side; we've been thrown down, but we haven't broken. ~ II Corinthians 4:5-12 (Message)


We woke up to a slow, cold February rain. In Wisconsin, rain in February is invariably accompanied by sleet-driving winds and icy driveways. I woke up expecting sun, or snow, or at worst, a gray wind. Rain wasn't in my plans. Nor my childrens...magically, they awake to every day as if it were a surprise to be discovered. No plans to be lived up to, or destroyed.

Raindrops on the windows, freezing before they ran the length of the pane. A new experience for the youngest of the three girls. She was in a state of awe, tracing their tracks down the windowpanes and gleefully waking her sisters at first light to share the bliss of a rainstorm in February.


Cancer is my rain in February. Unexpected, it raises the stakes. I feel as though I am thoroughly entrenched in my adult mindset, looking out on a dreary day with fatigue and hopelessness and disappointment. Cancer is a ride down a path I didn't see coming, a fork in the road that I would rather not take. To my children, it is an endless myriad of discovery as we explore the depths of God's grace and plumb the well of His eternal kindness. I looked at the rain today with fresh eyes, and cancer with it. An allegory is so much easier to grasp than real life.

Details

I want to clarify the details of the "non-news" I received from my doctor today. I got more information from my husband, who has permission to view my electronic medical record. Slides of tumor samples were sent to Pennsylvania in the end of November, and the analysis of those samples revealed more invasion of the capsule (the membrane that surrounds the tumor and protects healthy tissue) and an area suspicious for blood vessel invasion. What this means, in plain English, is that my chances of tumor spread to distant parts of my body just went up. After analyzing these samples, the pathologist requested that my entire tumor be sent to her for a more detailed analysis. As someone with medical background, my heart skips a beat when I hear things like this. In my experience, this means bad news 9 times out of 10. The final report of her analysis of my tumor in it's entirety is what my doctor didn't feel comfortable sharing today. And that is what has me on the edge of my seat, waiting for more news.

Tonight I am resting in the bone-weary pre-Christmas state following a long day of bustle. Baking, cooking, wrapping, making gifts, cleaning, and packing for several holiday car trips with four kids has filled my plate already, even without these latest events! I am headed to bed - shortly before 1 a.m., which is record time for the week before Christmas!

Praise:

• Aaron got Christmas Eve off unexpectedly!
• I get to play in the church band for the Christmas Eve service tomorrow - and I can SING! God gave me my voice back, and I am excited to use it!
• Healthy, happy children
• White blanket of fresh snow for Christmas
• Family, friends, food, beer, wine, presents, laughter...

Pray:

• Spirits peaceful, resting on God during this time when worry creeps in (especially for Aaron and I and my parents and other family members)
• Our neighbors who lost their daughter today, the day before Christmas Eve
• My children, that this worry over cancer wouldn't touch them too deeply this Christmas season