A Spring of Joy

One Saturday for pizza and movie night, we watched “Fellowship of the Ring” yelling “Nerd!” laughingly at each other whenever one of us would quote the movie before the quote actually came. At one point, during a hard pass, Saruman’s voiceover speaks as the fellowship climbs, “If the mountain defeats you, will you risk more dangerous road?”

Y’all, I feel defeated these days. The mountain of treatment is hard. My body is so broken and I’m in constant pain and my depression is crushing and my chemo brain is so bad. Some days I do wonder if this mountain will defeat me.

But then I sit with my Ash and talk through life and questions and struggle and hear all about days. And I catch up with my Bear and hear all about his days and his girlfriend and his work and his Bible study. And I curl up to read with my girl and we share quotes from our books and she shares her days and dreams with me. And I sit with my Bri and we plan next steps for small facelifts we want to do inside our weathered farmhouse of a home. And, like every family, we work through hard things, and we fight and we forgive. And this looks nothing like defeat.

My friend, Donna, mailed me a mustard seed a while ago. “One for you and one for me.” she wrote. So that we could remember faith as small as a mustard seed. She’s walking her own mountainous road these days.

Faith as small as a mustard seed. Will the mountain defeat me? Perhaps. But that tiny seed sitting on my dresser for me to focus on every day reminds me the mountain can be moved. And I will, in the strength God gives me, fight even more dangerous road… I will fight for my life and my loves and I will, as the psalmist says, “live to declare the works of the Lord.”

My faith has been shaken by cancer. Shaken hard. The effects of brain surgery are hard. And my new chemo is brutal. I have days where I just weep and beg God for mercy upon mercy. I had infusion treatment today and I just want to cry.

For 28 years cancer has been part of my story. But y’all, the sureness of my Father God’s love for me cannot be shaken. And that has been far longer than 28 years. That has been from eternity past. The mountain cannot ultimately defeat me; neither can more dangerous road.

And so, like I’ve said ever since I started this blog many years ago: we will live.

We will live today for Jesus, caring for each other, for our family and friends and for our neighbors.

God still owns tomorrow

… and He owns the mountains we have to cross, too.