A Spring of Joy

This morning I found myself getting all verklempt as I sifted through memories from Facebook and iPhotos. I do love that feature in those apps—a sweet reminder of days gone by.

It’s a date that will live in infamy—today being the 77th anniversary of Pearl Harbor. And several years ago I had made six dozen of my pappy’s chocolate peanut butter chip cookies… Bella-girl just made them again this week. And I think of my pap and nan, both eighteen, drawn into a battle against world domination—-him in France and Italy, her on the home front. And I think of my Ash, almost seventeen, and I shudder.

On this date eleven years ago I was recovering from a second thyroid cancer surgery, feeling the agony of my neck sliced open again and fearing what this spread throughout my neck meant.

Through the years I’ve sat in the library at the Homestead for a company retreat with Bri filling my heart and mind with truth and journaling; I’ve seen the Civil Wars in concert; I’ve celebrated a Dallas win over the Redskins; and I’ve posted several pictures through the years of my loves at our favorite Christmas tree farm of 20 years!

One of my favorites is when I learned that my five year old Bella-girl does not love “Satin”, she loves God, and I belly laughed when I saw the picture again.

It’s easy these days for me to look to the future and fear for what it might hold, to wonder what living life will look like as I sit here today curled up under a heated throw achy and nauseous, mouth sores forming, side effects of a medication that will hopefully stop cancer in its stomp forward in my body.

But the truth is I’ve had that question, that struggle, for decades, ever since my first thyroid cancer 20 years ago.

And I look at all God has given us. Of the life we have lived here for His glory when we feared we might not have that life together. It is so much, y’all, so very much.

My favorite memory of all for today is when Bella-girl was three and we sat on the front porch waving goodbye to the “brudders” as they left for school. She looked at me with those sparkling eyes and whispered, “Mommy, yet’s sing da song da birds are singing.”

Oh, y’all.

Yes.

Let’s sing their song… and the song of the angels. Let’s sing in exultation, “Glory to God in the highest. And on earth peace, good will toward men.”

He holds it all: the past, the present and the future. And as the waiting of Advent howls, the hope of glory comforts, and the love of the present surrounds us.