Through a glass darkly

Seeing my malevolent face in the mirror, my benevolent soul shrinks back. (Mason Cooley)

They say those living in a glass house should be careful about throwing stones. If you can cast a stone with a look, my face has been dark with those looks. I can't keep my soul off my face these days.

He who has regrets cannot look at himself in the mirror. (Eric Cantona)

Paul says he saw as though in a dim mirror, waiting for heaven when his sight would be clear. Life is deceptively transparent at times, as though you could look into the future and see your fate. Yet these predictions are only that. Whether you believe life will forever cause pain or yield moments of joy, you may be right and you may be wrong. Only by walking forward will you know the truth.

The truth is, we walk into our futures armed only with hindsight. Like walking in a fog, we can only know our history and our present moment. I am working on the courage to continue walking when my history and my present drip with pain, trying to produce hope within myself that tomorrow could be different.

I cling tight to Paul's words, willing them to be true of me. Trying to force these trials into the box of "light and momentary troubles". I lift the burden from my back with muscles straining, trying to cast it onto the Lord's shoulders instead. It feels too heavy to transfer. I am pinned under it's bulk, ground into the soil by it's weight. As I lie there, finally stilling, ceasing to struggle, I inhale the dust and am comforted by those stories of the prophets, the saints who have called out to the Lord with the same desperation and hopelessness. Because, from our prostrate position, even His rescue seems unlikely.

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

Empty places

Grief became to her like breathing; she couldn't rise or go to sleep without the pressing feel of it against her heart, the weight of it like a suitcase she didn't know how to unpack. ~Karen White, On Folly Beach

The holiday season descends and with it the joy of the circle of family. Empty seats hover like ghosts - we don't set them, but they are there, in our hearts, as we look around at the beloved faces and the mind constructs a list of those gone now for this season. I read that some people set the places, an empty chair, a plate never dirtied; I wonder if those people know better how to unpack the suitcase of grief, that they can stare it in the eyes at the dinner table.

The circle of life continues though we resist the gravity of time's passing. I wonder, too, at God's wisdom that He empties and fills the pitcher at the same well, that we of finite passions could not possibly hold all the love for all those we lose and all we gain. Yet do the loves we lose ever really vanish, or is it the lacework on the tablecloth of life, the beauty around the edges that pulls hard at the heartstrings? The last lingering refrain of a song so plaintive we close our eyes hard against the joy and the still deeper pain of hearing the notes?

God is personal but also propositional; beyond our knowledge, and yet we can know (Ephesians 3:19). Human life is not a test of worthiness or a vale of suffering we must somehow rise above. It's a quest, and creation is a mystery - both in the wonder-full sense and in the Agatha Christie sense: a marvelous work, and a problem with a solution. ~from Janie B. Cheaney's August 14th article in World

Adversus solem ne loquitor

in these kaleidoscopic times

fragments of ourselves are scattered

yet as the earth slowly turns

the universe follows

our colours blend together

and everything falls into place

proving that we are stronger than

the sum of our parts

~ Anne Engelen

My new favorite book on suffering has my head whirling, new truths dissolving old fallacies and a deeper, more painful perspective emerging. I spin on the words of God to Moses: Who has made man's mouth? Or who makes him dumb or deaf, or seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? (Exodus 4:11, emphasis mine) I've heard three major arguments about the role of suffering for the Christian up to this point:

• suffering is an indirect byproduct of a cursed world that just "happens" or is "allowed" to affect the Christian;
• suffering comes from Satan, and is "allowed" by God;
• suffering is discipline directly handed down from God to punish sin in the Christian's own life.

In John 9, Jesus and his disciples come upon a man who has been blind from birth. The disciples ask, Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind? Jesus corrects them - their perspective is too limited...they need a new category! It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was in order that the works of God might be displayed in him. (v. 2-3) Charles Stanley puts it this way:

Is it possible that adversity can originate with God? All of us would be more comfortable if Jesus had said, "This man is blind because he sinned, but God is going to use it anyway." That would be a much easier pill to swallow. But Jesus leaves us no escape. Sin was not the direct cause of the man's blindness: God was.

In these photos, grandmother and grandchildren bend in the parchment dry spring dirt to tie cotton rag flags onto twine demarcating the garden beds. Flags that remind little feet where to step; visual cues of the boundaries, the lessons already learned. And so it is with Charles Stanley, for me: a flag to remind me of lessons already learned, the free grace I was so eloquently taught as a child. This little book - my new favorite - is dogeared and underlined on nearly every page, first by my mother and now by my hand. When my suffering seems unfair, undeserved, there is a flag: the murder of God's own Son has yet to be avenged, and waits for the last day when He will judge from His throne. When my suffering seems purposeless, there is a flag: Christ has a goal in this, a goal so important it is worth my agony. When I fear I am alone in my suffering, that Christ has abandoned me, there is a flag: in John 11, when Lazarus dies while Christ tarries on the mission field afar, He was deeply moved in spirit, troubled, and wept. "He was not emotionally isolated from the pain suffered by those whose perspective was different than His own. When you hurt, God hurts." (Stanley, p. 21)

A Latin phrase I learned as a teen comes to mind: Adversus solem ne loquitor (do not speak against the sun). There comes a point, after the soul audit, after the weeping on my knees, after the begging for an answer, when I must simply stop fighting what I cannot change.

Suffering is unavoidable. It comes without warning; it takes us by surprise. It can shatter or strengthen us. It can be the source of great bitterness or abounding joy. It can be the means by which our faith is destroyed. Or it can be the tool through which our faith is deepened. The outcome hinges not on the nature or source of our adversity, but on the character and spirit of our response.

Stanley says something else that rocks my world today:

[I was] convinced that God could be trusted in the midst of adversity, that He really could work all things together for good if we adopt His definition of good and accept His system of priorities. I realized that God knows exactly how much pressure each of us needs to advance in the spiritual life. It was hard for me to stand back and watch others suffer because I was not aware of all God was doing for them on the inside. My perspective was limited to what was taking place on the outside.

You see the cancer at 29, the brain infection that came out of nowhere and struck down a perfectly formed child, the seizures I report and the food poisoning and the damaged pancreas and the breast tumors and the surgical complications. But what is happening on the inside - on the inside of me, of Aaron, of our whole family unit - is absolutely worth the anguish.

Truly, these are "kaleidescope times", we are scattering and blending into a fresh new painting together. This mural is far from finished. We're still putting up the flags. It is with little feet we still trod the carefully circumscribed pathways of this garden of faith. It is through this season of suffering that we learn to walk them with our eyes closed. The peace of God in our hearts is the hand of God clasping our small one. For even when He speaks no words, He is not silent. Even though unseen, ever present. Though He places the suffering here in our midst, so too He comforts and sustains.

::

Today, a woman wrote me that she accepted Christ after reading this entry from last week, and the verses linked there. She is, literally, from the opposite side of the globe. Today, in the midst of writing these words, my daughter had a 4 minute seizure of the worst kind. So He continues to bring glory through the blood, sweat and tears. So He wrings praise from lips trembling in fear. So He upholds when we are undone. Please lift us up in prayer. Amelia has an appointment at Mayo this afternoon, and we pray with groanings too deep for words...Father, please give this doctor wisdom to heal this precious treasure.

Mid-night journal

Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. ~ Philippians 4:6

This verse is an oldie, but goody (my brother Daniel used to say that as a small boy, and it still tickles me deep within to say it). Tonight I am up as the first pink glaze of sun appears in the pines out my bedroom window, heralding the end of night and beginning of another morn...up all night trying hard to put actions to this verse. It has been a night of prayer, a night of reading, a night of closing my eyes in near delirium and still the prayers flow and the sleep does not come.

How many times had patients sat there waiting for her to announce her decision after a similar moment of respite? Invariably the decision was based on science and statistics, a conclusion crosschecked and attained by logic. What a cask of horrors, she now thought, lies concealed in this moment of respite! Dontsova had known what she was doing when she had concealed her pain from everyone. You only had to tell one person and irresistibly the avalanche was set in motion, nothing depended on you anymore. Her ties in life, which had seemed so strong and permanent, were loosening and breaking, all in the space of hours rather than days. In the clinic and at home she was unique and irreplaceable. Now she was being replaced. We are so attached to the earth, and yet we are incapable of holding onto it. She was so used to taking personal charge of everything that even today she couldn't leave a single person without making at least a month's mental forecast. She was getting acclimatized to her misfortune. She examined, prescribed, and issued instructions, gazing at each patient like a false prophet, while all the while there was a chill running down her spine. These were the thoughts that plagued her and weakened her normal resolute cast of mind. She looked at one patient...they had given so much of themselves to try to save this quiet Tartar, yet all they had won was a few months' delay. And what miserable months - a pitiful existence in an unlit, unventilated corner.

It made Dontsova realize that if she rejected her own yardstick and adopted Sibgatov's, she could still count herself lucky. ~ from Cancer Ward, by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, true stories based on his own 2 year battle with cancer in the mid-1950's

As the bleeding heart blooms in the spring afternoon sun, I contemplate losing a part of self. Not just figuratively, like last time, but literally this time. I agonize over the prayers I've prayed of willingness for cancer. I long for a different, easier way.

I walk around the house, and see the writing literally written on my walls...the signs that open the door for this kind of trial, let God in to tear things down and build them back in a totally different shape. I start at the front door, and the words flow in this order: with God all things are possible. As for my house, we shall serve the Lord. Love like there's no tomorrow. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. Verses, sayings that reflect our intimate understanding in this marriage and house that this is only temporary. The suffering is temporary, the joy is temporary, the work is temporary.

What am I supposed to do with the fact that we are so far outside the realm of normal experience that most people are simply confused by our story? We have asked ourselves and each other times innumerable whether this is a wake up call. We still don't see it, if we are being woken to something...and that is so frightening! How much further might God push to show us what we seem to be blind to? And might it not be a powerful Evil that foists this suffering upon us? Might we have something in our future that is so definitely for God's glory that Satan might try to destroy it? And why, then, would God allow it? Could we really be a modern day Job story, a modern day David, hunted and oppressed and beaten and crushed? Could we share the sufferings - and deliverance and beatitude - of Paul, Timothy, Noah, Moses, Elijah, heck, all the prophets?

The next step comes Wednesday. I have surgery at 10:30 a.m. to remove the lumps. They will be biopsied for cancer, perhaps sent to a specialty lab if they come back one certain type...follicular, the type of thyroid cancer cell origin, and also possible in the breast. We may know immediately - and I may lose my breast on Wednesday, too. Or it may take weeks. But at least the lumps will be out, gone, frozen in liquid nitrogen and sliced and examined and done with. What follows is a big question mark that has me sleepless, petitioning, taking fear into my two hands and throttling it with Scripture. So many questions have no answer...but what to do? is not one of them. I simply pray. I plead. And I read.

Our hope is in You, Maker of heaven

Caleb was up for a brief time this morning. Other than that half hour, he has been laying down in bed, mostly sleeping. He continues on the IV fluids and hasn't really taken anything to drink since yesterday in the E.R. His diarrhea doesn't seem to be slowing down much yet, and it is still bloody. We did collect a sample last night and sent it off to Mayo for analysis in their superb lab there. This morning, we saw an infectious disease doctor, who is consulting the CDC and local health department for possible clues as to what this infection could be. All of the physicians continue to suspect E. coli 0-157. If that is the case, antibiotics could cause irreparable damage to Caleb, so as of now, he is not receiving any specific treatment for infection.

He is at Luther Hospital, room 4129. I anticipate he will be here for several days. We have been blessed with lots of Thomas videos, snacks, and toys dropped off by friends. Right now, the girls are home with Grandma Nel and Grandpa Ken, who graciously came just to take care of them. I am still hoping to be able to go to Todd's funeral tomorrow, but it doesn't look like either Aaron or Caleb will be out by then, so we shall see. Continued prayers are the absolute top thing on our list of needs right now!

Aaron is doing slightly better, with improved abdominal pain and slowing of his diarrhea. He is trying some clear liquids, his first sips since Saturday afternoon. If that goes well, he will progress to soft foods tomorrow and perhaps be allowed to go home Thursday or Friday.

Wallpapered in truck stickers from the enamored nurses!

My Bible opened today to Psalm 146: Do not put your trust in princes, in mortal men, who cannot save. When their spirit departs, they return to the ground; on that very day their plans come to nothing. Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God, the Maker of heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them - the Lord, who remains faithful forever. He upholds the cause of the oppressed, and lifts up those who are bowed down. Although we are thankful for 21st century technology and good doctors, nurses, and hospitals, our hope does not rest with them. We rely on the Lord to sustain us, protect us, and heal us, and direct those who care for us. Praise God that I do not hope in mere men, but in the God who made us all, the God who is not bound by time or circumstances, and can see the beginning and the end of every fearful situation I face.

Precious child

Amelia's neurology appointment on Tuesday bore some bad news. Aaron and I were right, the symptoms are subtly but surely returning as we weaned the steroids yet again. She was placed back on a stronger dose of steroids to keep the swelling and demyelination in her brain at a minimum. The longer she goes without healing, the more question there is about an underlying condition, or permanent brain damage. It is beyond heartbreaking to imagine our perfect, beautiful girl growing up unable to track with one eye, falling over and crashing into things, requiring six hour naps, having language and small motor skill difficulties. It is so hard to think that she may have permanent disabilities because of an illness that so suddenly, mysteriously struck out of the blue.

Yet I trust she is in His hand. He cares so infinitely much more about this dear child than do I. Hard as that is to imagine.

Keep Amelia in your prayers, as she is throwing up occasionally, having the afore-mentioned subtle changes that indicate increased swelling or demyelination, and taking longer and longer naps each day. Weird how, with one bad experience, you constantly feel at the edge of an unseen precipice. My pain continues as well, unresolved. Hoping the infection isn't taking stronger hold in my abdomen. Praying some doctor, somewhere, will someday have a clear answer and God will heal me.

La troisième fille

Amelia is resting peacefully tonight after we tweaked the way her medications are given to her throughout the day. She reacts to her antibiotics, and she also gets very agitated with the medications they give her to prevent the reaction. Giving them very, very slowly seems to be the ticket...but it's difficult to talk busy nurses into doing it that way! We have a great nurse tonight, and Amy is doing better because of it.

Amy saw 19 different doctors today, and had 26 visits to her room from nurses. That's a lot of people in and out! Tomorrow I am hoping to keep visitors minimal so that she can rest and recover. She seems to be much less overwhelmed with 1-on-1 attention, and can actually converse and do fun things like paint (although the coordination issues are still a problem). Like many people with brain problems, she is easily overstimulated and has difficult performing optimally when rushed or sensing failure to meet expectations. I am hoping to optimize her recovery by providing lots of calm, quiet opportunities for her to use her fine and gross motor skills in a less chaotic setting. I bought her some fun toys and games today and look forward to getting a chance to do more of that and less cartoon watching tomorrow!

From a medical perspective, she is continuing to be about the same. We did have one piece of excellent news: her white blood cell count and other lab work that indicates her bacterial infection level all improved on the antibiotics. The team of doctors feel she is fighting both a viral and bacterial infection, which makes her care a bit more complex. Amelia is still more alert than yesterday. She has developed worsening nystagmus (eye twitching) that is interfering with her ability to focus or track objects with her eyes. She has also developed a tremor in her arms and hands, head and neck. She is tremoring a bit even in her legs as she is sleeping now. Her neurological exam showed hyperreflexia (increased reflex and twitching activity) and ataxia (lack of coordination) as well as poor hand-eye coordination. So far her intellect and speech are unaffected. As a mother, this detail is so important to me. While I shudder to think of having to help my dear, perfectly formed daughter work through physical and occupational therapy to learn to walk again - a definite possibility as the days pass without progress - it is like water to my soul that God has spared her, those parts that make her most unique, beloved, and beautiful to me. Her humor, her nuances of interaction with others, the way she puts words together...those are the most important parts of Amelia Irene to me. So thank you, Lord, for sparing those through this difficult illness.

Seeing her in pain is heart-wrenching. When her back, neck and head pain make her arch, posture, and scream every time I lift her to take her to the bathroom, it is like a beautiful vase hitting the floor, shattering everywhere. So hard to endure, for everyone in the room. I am grateful she is finally in a hospital and able to rest and receive fluids by the I.V. so that she is not constantly in pain and distress. What a blessing.

At 9 p.m., Amy and I had a few minutes alone and watched some of the Wild game. This made me giggle, as my dad was with me in the hospital when I was little, after a fall from a tree house. He made me watch the World Series with him...no cartoons! I was pretty disappointed. So tonight I nixed the cartoons (trust me, she watched plenty of Dora and Clifford earlier!) and we watched hockey. She began talking to me, more than a few syllables for the first time in many days. I caught some of it on video so all of you who read and pray and love could be reassured that she is still Amy! I hope you enjoy. I think some of the shakiness, eye jerking, and lack of coordination is somewhat visible, but it's not too bad.

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!)

Peering in on cancer

Yesterday my tumor was mailed from Mayo in Rochester to the University of Pennsylvania. My mortality on dry ice. Questions frozen for another expert look. I joined hands with the women of history: Samuel's mother savoring the babe at her breast before handing him over to become a prophet; Rahab, waiting for deliverance in a tall room along the wall of the city; Mary, breathing in the embalming spices left by the Magi as she tends her toddler son, the Savior. Staving off death in living life. Breathing in it's fragrance in every ordinary moment, comingled with all the smells of the day.

Today I kissed my husband with new longing. I disciplined my son with new urgency. I planned for the future with my daughters. I came to the brink of fear in the most average moment - throwing a ball, surrounded by Midwesterners at a holiday bowling league pot-luck. Suddenly I was suspended in the icy tide of fear, the salt of tears stinging the cracked corner of my lip as I pulled my soul back in and bit down hard on the reality in front of me, hauling back the transparent sigh of my heart about to escape, awful, loud, awkward.

Cancer is the house; I am on the doorstep. I've looked in all the windows and I've learned a lot about this house: I know many of it's textures, and smells, and what type of person lives there. But it isn't something I own yet. I linger on the threshold and inspect. I don't know if I will live with cancer for a month or ten years...if this will be but a hostel in which I camp for a night, or if I will be in cancer's rooms, waiting for test results once again a decade from now.

Please pray with me that I don't have to cross that threshold on Christmas. I am praying that the results of the latest tests on my tumor are either positive, or stayed by divine grace until after the celebration of new life. That this Christmas is a beautiful, momentous, memory-filled time of rest with my family.

This song resonates with me...it always has. It is speaking - watering - my soul today.

How deep the Father's love for us,
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure

It was my sin that held Him there
Until it was accomplished
His dying breath has brought me life
I know that it is finished

I will not boast in anything
No gifts, no power, no wisdom
But I will boast in Jesus Christ
His death and resurrection
~ How Deep the Father's Love for Us, Stuart Townsend

The everbearing fruit tree

Who among you fears the Lord and obeys the voice of his servant?
Let him who walks in darkness and has no light trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God.

Behold, all you who kindle a fire, who equip yourselves with burning torches!
Walk by the light of your fire, and by the torches that you have kindled!
This you have from my hand: you shall lie down in torment.

~ Isaiah 50:10-11 ESV

Here I am: Eve. Standing at the foot of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good & Evil. Reaching up for the fruit, believing open eyes are better than faith, knowledge is better than trust, power is better than rest. The age-old struggle that began when the world was barely turning on it's axis; the temptation that speaks deep in the heart of every woman, everywhere. For me, it is cancer that draws me closer to the tree, my hand stretched forth to pick the fruit. Like a moth to a flame, I run from the unknown into the closely clinging bony grip of Death, knowledge, power.

Ask any cancer patient which stage they would prefer to be in: the angst of not knowing, in those early stages of discovery, with no statistics to lean on and no answers to quote in the long, dark hours of the questioning night? I am in that place, standing next to my cancer in the midnight blackness of the diagnostic wait; nothing hurts, nothing is broken, and without the magic scalpel of medical imaging - body scans and ultrasounds - my cancer would still be nebulous and stealthy. I long to be in a place of knowledge, the treatment stage when people rush to cure and cut and clean up the mess of mortality that grows like an ink stain on linen, cancer spreading ugly fingers of stain into the snow white body of youth and health.

That is what I - as patient with cancer - long for. Yet I - the oncology nurse - know this is a foolish quest. I have seen the patients dragged down and sodden on their beds, racked by the treatment, the curing, the cutting, the cleaning up. I have seen their eyes call out from dark sockets for relief. I have held them, and caressed them, and mourned for their many small losses - hair, and strength, and the ability to eat or drink or speak or laugh. Why would I, knowing this, ask to be transported to that stage? Have I so quickly forgotten what it means to leave this blissful state of not knowing to be brought out into the stark, sterile light of a surgical suite, answers in hand and self torn away piece by piece? Better to close my eyes and walk in darkness, holding the steadfast hand of my Savior, then to beg for knowledge, light the torches handed to me by human hands and walk forth into the bitter truths armed only with mortal knowledge and power.

I can taste the fruit of Eve
I'm aware of sickness, death and disease
The results of our choices are vast
Eve was the first but she wasn't the last

And if I were honest with myself
Had I been standing at that tree
My mouth and my hands would
be covered with fruit
Things I shouldn't know and
things I shouldn't see

Remind me of this with every decision
Generations will reap what I sow
I can pass on a curse or a blessing
To those I will never know

~ Generations, Sara Groves

New reality

Have courage for the great sorrows of life, and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.
~ Victor Hugo

Tonight my body is worn from a day spent catching up on a million things that had been laid aside for cancer treatment. My heart feels worn, too, the jagged edge of fear wearing away at the veneer of Christmas spirit I've thrown over my eyes. As though the dam might break if someone saw too clearly what lies beneath the surface. Waiting is so hard. In Deep Survival, I read that survivors are those who adapt to changes in reality: absorb new truth, and act on it, rather than the old truth with which they are more familiar. I struggle to integrate this new truth, cancer, with all my old truths, mother, wife, student, daughter, friend. I have made many decisions in life based on a simple algorithm: if I gain more information about this, will if affect my ultimate decision? I can't seem to fit that with my current circumstances. If I learn that I have more cancer, or less, than currently believed, will it change my ultimate decision? Of only one thing I am certain, and on this rock will I rest my weary head tonight: knowing more or less about my cancer will not change where I am going when I die.

In bitterness of soul Hannah wept much and prayed to the LORD. And she made a vow, saying, "O LORD Almighty, if you will only look upon your servant's misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the LORD for all the days of his life, and no razor will ever be used on his head." As she kept on praying to the LORD, Eli observed her mouth. Hannah was praying in her heart, and her lips were moving but her voice was not heard. Eli thought she was drunk and said to her, "How long will you keep on getting drunk? Get rid of your wine." "Not so, my lord," Hannah replied, "I am a woman who is deeply troubled. I have not been drinking wine or beer; I was pouring out my soul to the LORD. Do not take your servant for a wicked woman; I have been praying here out of my great anguish and grief." Eli answered, "Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him." She said, "May your servant find favor in your eyes." Then she went her way and ate something, and her face was no longer downcast. ~ I Samuel 1:10-18

So much to learn from such a small passage: I can pray out of great anguish and grief; I can expect to feel those things in this life. I will be deeply troubled. I will pour my soul out to the Lord. And then I should go away, go back about my business, and my face should no longer be downcast. I pray the clouds in my spirit lift tomorrow.

Stages

Raw ingredients...formless, full of possibilities, only potential. A pile of scraps on the floor, a sweater ruined in the wash.

Yet you brought me out of the womb;
you made me trust in you even at my mother's breast.

From birth I was cast upon you;
from my mother's womb you have been my God.
Psalm 22:9-10

Beginning to take shape under a skilled hand. In the middle stages, things often look strange and unfamiliar. The Loch Ness monster looms instead of what I had created with my mind's eye. It is tempting to give up - I am certain things won't turn out well in the end. I can't imagine what good will come of persevering at this point.

Do not be far from me,
for trouble is near and there is no one to help.

I am poured out like water...
My heart has turned to wax;
it has melted away within me.

My strength is dried up like a potsherd,
and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth;
you lay me in the dust of death.

Psalm 22:11, 14-15

In the end, it all comes together. What was once a pile of fuzzy, useless scraps will be cuddled and treasured in it's new form. It isn't a monster after all...it just needed a few more pieces added and a few finishing touches to bring out it's character. My perseverance paid off.

For he has not despised or disdained
the suffering of the afflicted one;
he has not hidden his face from him
but has listened to his cry for help.

All the rich of the earth will feast and worship;
future generations will be told about the Lord.

They will proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn—
for he has done it.

Psalm 22:24, 30-31

My heart is steadfast oh God
And I will sing
With all my heart and soul
Music for the King
And I will awake the dawn
With my praise to You oh Lord

How great is Your love
So much higher than the heavens
With faithfulness that reaches the sky

~ How Great is Your Love, MercyMe

Praise God for family and friends, hugs and tears, food and fall colors. Praise God from whom all blessings flow! Happy Thanksgiving!

nearly November

Happy moments, PRAISE GOD.
Difficult moments, SEEK GOD.
Quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD.
Painful moments, TRUST GOD.
Every moment, THANK GOD.
~ author unknown

I remember when I was a child - and an avid reader beyond my years - I thought for many months that "Anon" was the greatest poet I had ever read! This little quote is profound but there is no one to credit.

Today has been a bleak day, one of those near-November days when the winds of change are cold and distinct, hinting at driving snow and skeletal trees and gray furrows in the field across the street. The sun came in long streaks of pale yellow through clouds racing across the horizon. My heart felt exactly like that - my children popping like little bursts of joy in a day that included much pain and processing of what is to come in the next few weeks. I had delightful times with my friend who is here to help. Even her sometimes-silent companionship felt like sliding into a warm bath of comfort. I also had aching breasts, literally a physical longing to comfort and love my little son, who spent the day beating at my chest, pulling my shirt, and crying to nurse. He is asleep now and I am left with no solution to my immediate problem.

I feel like I am stepping forward into an abyss of unknown - how will Caleb be fed? Will the children bear emotional scars from this long time spent apart? What will I do and think while I am away? What will my scans bring to light - an end in sight, or more suffering to come? The sense of the Everlasting Arms beneath me was faint today...sometimes I can literally feel the pulse in those wings, feel them bearing me up and their strength and power so close I can almost touch it. At other times, I wonder if I imagine them after all, struggling with disbelief and the cascade of temporal sorrows that abound wherever I turn. Today I felt just a flicker of the Comforter in the very peripheral vision of my day. I pray for renewed closeness and joy tomorrow.

"Rejoice in the Lord always [delight, gladden yourselves in Him]; again I say, Rejoice! Let all men know and perceive and recognize your unselfishness (your considerateness, your forbearing spirit). The Lord is near [He is coming soon]. Do not fret or have any anxiety about anything, but in every circumstance and in everything, by prayer and petition (definite requests), with thanksgiving, continue to make your wants known to God. And God's peace shall be yours, that tranquil state of a soul assured of its salvation through Christ, and so fearing nothing from God and being content with its earthly lot of whatever sort that is, that peace which transcends all understanding shall garrison and mount guard over your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. ~ Philippians 4:4-7 (Amp)