Standing still

If you stand still too long, the detritus of life begins to cling. Before too long, you look down and you can't see yourself any longer; only the barnacles of everything that's pulling you under the surface. Try to tear it off, and you'll bleed out.

He asks us to abide: stay under. Trust Him for oxygen when sobs wrack. Trust Him for a relief from this insurmountable pain of life that will someday come. That day when tears are wiped away.

But this year I asked for less. Revisionist that I am (aren't we all?), I want to say I want less of this. Less pain, less work, less abiding. But that's not what I meant by less. I meant less of me. Is this what it feels like to be reduced, refined, re-envisioned? Scraping off barnacles with a sharp stone while I struggle to stay here in the searing moment, sit with the pain?

Death is easy - you don’t know you’re a ghost

The fee is taken out nice and slow

While you’re walking around with your cardboard crown

We think we are kings

Wisdom warned us but our flesh is strong

we’ll find our own way we’ll  get along

Who knows what we need

But

life costs so much

Someone paid for the damage

the damage we’ve done

How else do you explain all these open graves we’ve got

Someone must have paid

‘cause life costs

~From Life Costs So Much, Christa Wells~

I want to fly away, fly away. Get away. Be someone, someplace else. Get out of this old skin around bones that ache. All the world is gray but I know somewhere, sometime soon, the colors will bleed back in. Right? Tell me so. Make me believe.

You don't have to ask me why

Because I know you understand

All the treasures of my life

Are right here in my hand

Suspended in a moment

No more breath to catch

If you hold on to your end

Maybe we can make this last

This is the greatest time of day

When all the clocks are spinning backwards

And all the ropes that bind begin to fray

And all the black and white turns into colors

I don't want to build a wall

Or draw a line across the sand

This is the greatest time of day

When there's no you and there's no others

And all the rules grow wings and fly away

And all the black and white turns into colors

Grace Potter sang this song, "Colors", for me on Friday night

Oh, I hope this doesn't go on very long

before the skipping stone hits the surface of the pond

Refine us

She is better today, fevers persisting, but with a dose of energy from the spinal tap and the antibiotics flowing every 3 hours. Dark circles under her eyes, she shuts them against the fluorescent light, showing off her new owl teapot with eyes squeezed shut.

The flurry and adrenaline of the initial decision making fades on hospital day 2, and we and the doctors begin to contemplate those hard questions that still persist without answer. Why does she get infections in her brain repeatedly? It's nothing like the question "why does Caleb have allergies all year every year". This has such significant consequences to her health, intellect and quality of life that we must find an answer.

Aaron says it, anguished, as we walk to the hotel for a few minutes alone, kids happy in hospital with Auntie Rosalie. "Why, whenever we start to thrive, why does something like this always happen?" I don't know. I can only offer what I'm learning about accepting your cross without fighting it. Carrying one cross - the one given - instead of two - the one given paired with the anxieties we let sneak in like foxes in the vineyard.

I don't ever want to lose this little life. I don't ever want to wait too long, or miss the symptoms, or run into doctors again who refuse to treat in the early stages. How do we function like this? The older girls and I have a long talk after Caleb sleeps this evening, and talk about refining gold and silver. How it requires high heat. How God is allowing that high heat through trials into their young lives. We read the verses in Malachi that were like timber beams holding up the sagging sanctuary of my heart this morning, before I headed out to the hospital, head shiny and cold in the winter-like winds.

Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap: And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord, as in the days of old, and as in former years.

The truth remains. He has always rescued us. We are all alive together still. The needleprick on Amelia's back is just a dot, no bleeding, no complications. The antibiotics seem to be working. We have every cause for praise in this, as in all the previous trials. God is great and good, here in this day of suffering. What a lesson to learn, at 6 and 8! May these children grow up with a deep, visceral understanding of what it means to wait on the Lord, trust in His mercy and grace in the most difficult of circumstances.

Come, come and meet us here 

Come and touch our tears 

That we may weep no more 

Come, come and meet our pain 

Come and lift our lame 

That we may limp no more 

Come that we may want no more 

The doubters pray for your signs and wonders 

All the cynics say 

You’ll let us go under 

But we’re here to stay
God, will you come by here? 

Come, we have nothing else God 

And having You we want for nothing 

No death, life 

Angels or demons 

No depth, height 

Can come in between us 

And Your love, Your love, Your love, love