Jesus was in it.

Looking your mortality in the face is good medicine for ill perspective.

I was up in the night with the kids.  All three of them at different times for differing, yet similar reasons.  I was tired.  I had not been feeling too hot myself; but here's the thing:  Jesus was in it.

From the settling of one child into a recliner so he can breathe and sleep at the same time, to holding another one when his cold-medicine-induced dreams encroach upon his waking. Jesus was in it.

Not long ago, I'd have been a cranky and begrudging Mommy; frustrated at the intrusion of their needs upon my own - how ugly. 

Last night all I could think, feel, or hear in my own head was, "Thank you, Lord.  I am here.  They need me, and I am here.  Just like you promise yourself to be.  My beloved preacher husband is sleeping peacefully in the next room, because I am here to carry this end of the load tonight.  Thank you.  Thank you, Father. Tonight this is how You restore my soul."

He is so good, and so generous.  Oh, that I may see it and highlight it for all of you sweet, weary ones who tirelessly serve... Jesus is in it.  Grandparents, husbands, wives, parents, sisters, all you precious people: there will come a day, when your loved ones long for your presence; but you are away. 

For today, let us be all the way in, at the side of our sweet Jesus.

Into the cookie jar...

The irony of my last post and this new post sitting right here on the page together is not lost on me.  So much for living my life without cancer.  In His sovereignty, God has determined that indeed I will not live my life without cancer... not in this body.  Here's the good part:  I am so completely overcome with gratitude, I am hardly able to convey the deep richness of my internal experience!

All throughout my life - in church, at home, in relationships, on my own - I have said and sung true words about God and His goodness to me.  I have begged at times for His will to be made manifest in my life.  I have so many favorite worship hymns that declare these ideas...

...take my life and make it thine, it shall be no longer mine...
...use this ransomed life in any way You choose...
...all I have is Christ...Jesus is my life...
...Jesus is all the world to me...
...I will be still and know You are God...

I have no conscious memory of uttering these words with a deceitful heart, although in hindsight I see how my choices and attitudes along the way betray that fact.  It seems to me now that I have, with one hand lifted in praise, held onto my life, my desires, my plans for the future in a tight fist behind my back, like a child who will not give over that extra cookie she wasn't supposed to have; but had managed to grasp on her own. 

Of course I can only see that now.  I couldn't see it before...I have sincerely asked God to examine my heart and my motives along the way and to bend, change, transform them according to His will for me.  I have been frustrated when it seemed He was neither giving me what I wanted nor changing my appetite.  Do you ever get mad when God won't give you permission to eat that extra cookie; but He also won't pry it out of your sticky, chubby toddler hand?  I have.  I do.

The thing about metastatic disease is that it is like a splash of cold water in my slumbering, self-oriented face.  In one stark, tectonic moment everything changes and I realize that I don't need the cookies!  My months long prayer for a change of appetite and clarity of circumstance is answered in a shocking and unexpected way and I am recalibrated.

When we came back to the States, my life-vision suddenly narrowed...simply survive.

In cancer time, the peripheral vision of my heart was completely lost.  Most of my prayers sounded something like, 

"... and please let me live past ...

My dreams vaporized like a morning dew 

in the flaming heat of the sun.

Earth continues in its orbit.  

Time passes on.  

Chemicals metabolize and hair grows back.  

God cares for us.

My hopes grow.  

I graduate, somehow, into a place of greater faith...

...each treatment finished, 

...each consequence mitigated.  

We fill the hearts and minds of our children with 

precious family memories along the way.  

And yet... 

I have only just come to realize that I have lacked the reaching forward, 

stretch-out-on-your-tip-toes-and-take-a-chance 

pulse of life.  

I am too young to be this old, my best years behind me.

Breath.

Talk. 

Rage.

Work. 

Sing. 

Wonder.

Rest.  

Teach. 

Love. 

Worry. 

Wait...

Wait...

Wait...

Wait...

WHAT  AM  I  WAITING  FOR?!? 

Admittance to Eternity?

Yes; but... that's not 

grateful or faith-filled.

 

Twenty cancer-free years?

If they were coins in my pocket 

to save and spend

To get my life back.

from whence? and how?

Is there not more?

God, my Father, did you not

REDEEM

and

 PRESERVE

unto life abundantly?

My five year day is coming.  

This is my year.  

I am weaker than I once was; but stronger than I have been. 

I don't know quite what it means some days.

This is the year that I stop 

living "life after cancer" and start 

living "life without cancer."

May my Healer Redeemer be glorified in my expenditure of the time and strength He's given.  

May I be found worthy of the endowment.

Merry Christmas!

The work of his hands...

Dad has been working on this piece most of the year, it seems.  I told him what I needed, and he designed it for me.  The beauty of this pantry is hard to describe; but the value of it is absolutely beyond articulation.  He poured himself into every pencil mark on the plan, and every stroke of the sandpaper.  He is generous and strong and I am anchored by this symbol of his presence in our home.  Thank you, Dad.

Red in progress

Sun Star