A Spring of Joy

A few weeks ago my glasses broke. Split right down the middle, so I duct taped them back together because I must have them to drive. (Yes, I duct taped my glasses. Yes, Brian made fun of me. Yes, it was hilarious.)

I bought new ones.

I love my new glasses.

I can’t find my new glasses.

I have searched up and down and all around.

You know what else I can’t find?

The car keys.

We’ve been using the spare van key for 2 days now.

I forgot to pay our credit card bill. The one we pay in full on time every time.

Oh, and I forgot the library books were due. 35 of them for 5 days.

My life feels as discombobulated and rambling as this blog post does.

And I still don’t know what to say when people ask how we are doing. I want to say, “Well, I can’t find anything. I’m uncharacteristically forgetting things…”

I want to tell them WHAT we are doing… well, we’re busy getting this done or I’m trying to get to the bottom of to-do lists so everything is together for Brian and the children on Monday or we’re enjoying as many things on our summer list as we can.

But how am I doing?

I’m discouraged. I am tearing the house apart frantically looking for those keys and my glasses and lost library books, because I think that somehow if I find them and fix things then I will feel fixed inside, too.

Ultimately, it’s about loss of control, because I was under the illusion that I had some control to begin with. I want to feel in control of something in my life, because I am getting ready to go be cut open so they can tell me what cancer has done to my body. They will tell me what I can or can’t eat for weeks, months. They will tell me if and what treatment will be and when it will start and when to be places and what to bring and what to wear.

A friend asked Brian yesterday how we were doing. How I was doing specifically. Brian had to share with him my recent diagnosis, and he told him. “I’m done praying for you all. I am going to be kicking and screaming and throwing things for you all…” That’s how my prayers feel…

Frenetic.

Drunken. Like Hannah’s pray in the temple. Pouring out all bitterness of soul before the Lord.

Begging God for mercy for us, for Brian, for our children. But not just for us. For others… new cancer diagnoses in the life of a friend… hurting hearts from painful broken relationships… tragedies striking leaving friends reeling in agony… Every day I hear something new. This doesn’t even touch the ones i am already aching with and for and begging for healing and strength and protection.

Oh, for all of us. I pray.

Mostly I pray to see Him, because this fallen world seems more fallen these days.

I sing to Bella-girl at bedtime as I’m tucking her in.

She is just sad and scared these days. We all are.

But I remind her God is watching us… the angel of the Lord encamps round those who fear His name, to save them and deliver them from harm. Those lions roar with hunger, we lack for no good thing… We picture it together. A whole host of angels watching over us. And I sing…At all times I will bless Him, His praise will be in my mouth. My soul makes it boast in the Lord…”

This is what we do. When it all feels hard and hopeless and out of control.

We acknowledge that it is hard, that we are not in control, and that there is hope… there is always hope.

“Nothing can reach us, from any source in earth or hell, no matter how evil, which God cannot turn to his own redemptive purpose. Let us be glad that the way is not a game of chance, a mere roll of dice which determines our fortune or calamity–it is a way appointed, and it is appointed for God’s eternal glory and our final good.” (~C. H. Spurgeon)

His glory.

Our final good.

That is our hope.

Even if I never find my glasses or my keys or get to the bottom of piles of files or make that photo book I want to make. Even if I die.

There is hope.

My final good.

The Gospel doesn’t stop being true when life is hard.

That which has carried me through life will carry me to safety, to Jesus, to final good.