A Spring of Joy

Today Coop and I stood at the window like we do every morning and waved goodbye to our kiddos. I love how he hops up next to me to look out the window as they drive out. I love seeing their faces light up and their hands signing, “I love you.” I love blowing them kisses and watching until the car is out of sight and asking God to protect and cover them this day.

Today I did it with tears streaming down my face and fought mentally against every pressing thought… “Who will wave to them all if this cancer doesn’t regress?”

Y’all.

It is an oppressive battle.

I fight that thought about almost. every. thing. almost. every. day. The holidays were sometimes agonizing with these thoughts.

To live with the neverendingness of treatment. The neverendingness of scans. The neverendingness of “if.”

I am face to face with my mortality every. single. day. Sometimes moment by moment. I feel it in my body. I can feel the spots where the cancer is, and it is painful in every way.

And the darkness.

The darkness is so real, so painful, so hard.

The fight is constant and overwhelming. I’ve been awake off and on since 2:30 this morning, crying out, praying, begging, reading, meditating, bringing the Word to mind, crying out and begging some more.

“I can give you a thousand things we don’t know–medical reports, accidents, jobs, tests, dates, babies, criticisms, hard conversations, even death. We don’t know what will happen tomorrow. But here is one thing you and I can count on: there will be new mercies from the Lord when we get there.” (~Kevin DeYoung)

I’m preaching truth to myself. He has my days numbered. I cannot change that. What I can do is live the days He’s given me in gospel light. Grace-filled days. Hope-filled days. Mercy-filled days.

Love-filled days.

It never fails.

He never fails.

I am weary today, and I am “lifting my eyes up to the hills from whence comes my help.”

And the lifting my eyes.

It is a struggle today.

But He.

He is the lifter of my head.

Ever leaning.

Ever thankful for all of you who lift me to Him.

Yesterday afternoon I dropped the children off with friends to make gingerbread houses, then I drove to a doctor’s appointment. (I’m seeing a speech pathologist to see if we can get my good vocal cord strengthened.) After thirty minutes of vocal exercises, the doctor could tell I was worn and sent me home, only I sat in the car for a few minutes to nap before driving. I walked into my empty house and cried.

I cried because there is so little I’ve done this year for Christmas. So few decorations. No countdown calendar this year. No stockings hung. No gifts wrapped. No cookies baked. Bri and I did most of our Christmas shopping online so I wouldn’t have to go out and about. It has felt cold and stale and lacking.

But, oh, friends. How wrong I was!

Not that I don’t grieve these losses, for they truly are losses, but there is still so much this season has held. It’s easy for me to get buried under the things I wish I had or did and miss out on all I have! All I’ve been able to do.

Two weeks ago, we went tree hunting and found a little scotch pine that we loved and brought home. When Brian put it in the stand and brought it into our den, we both stared incredulous. It looked nothing like the one we thought we had picked. This was a puny, Charlie Brown tree that put me in tears, then in fits of laughter. Brian was ready to go to a lot and just buy another one for me, but we decided it wouldn’t be a wise use of our money, and besides, our Bella-girl walked in and declared, “Oh, but it’s perfect!” She has always had that gift… to see the beauty in the broken. So we covered our tree with as many lights as we could and decorated it with ornaments that can’t break when Cooper attacks.

That same afternoon I watched as Bri and the kids put up lights on our porch. He brought out his phone and speakers and blared Christmas music and sang at the top of his lungs. I could listen to him sing all day. Bella danced and held lights and Ash ran around moving things and bringing boxes down. And Bear got to go to a water park birthday party with friends, so he missed all the insanity.

After that weekend I did nothing else for Christmas. I haven’t been able to.

And I’m learning that it’s okay.

There is so much more to this.

And yesterday my Brian braved the crowds and shopped for the stocking gifts, and last night as he helped me wrap them up, he told me how hard it was to shop for them. I was expecting him to talk about how hard it was to find stuff. Instead he fussed because he didn’t want to stop getting things for them. I love his huge heart.

Friends brought us supper last night (calzones for Italians–can’t ever go wrong there!), and we put on our new jammies from Brian’s mom (she made us “Team Davi” pajamas). We curled up together, all five of us on the couch, to watch the musical Scrooge which is my favorite rendition of the Christmas Carol (and just might be my favorite Christmas movie of all). Such redemption! I cry every single time.

This morning we stayed in our pjs and played Yahtzee and Bri made Cuban lattes and friends stopped by to bless us with gifts and presence (yes, I meant to spell it that way) and made the very hard of all this so very beautiful.

God willing, tonight we will make our way to our church’s Christmas Eve service, and I declared that even if am curled up on the last row under a blanket, I will be there. I will cry as Brian picks up his trumpet and fills the sanctuary with God’s faithfulness in the form of music, and I will cry as I listen to my dad’s beautiful tenor voice sing beside me, and I will cry as I hug former youth group kid (now so many adults) after former youth group kid, home for the holidays.

God willing, We will spend our Christmas morning quietly as our family of five…er, six… sorry, Cooper. Then we will go to my brother’s home, and I will curl up on the couch under a blanket. I will tease my nephews, and I will sit with my dad, and I will share stories with my brother, and I will eat my mom and sister-in-law’s scrumptious food and I will watch all the festivities with quiet joy… thankful that I am here, that I am with my loves.

And that is all that matters.

If we didn’t have a tree or lights on our porch, if we didn’t have stocking gifts or Christmas ham, if we didn’t have Scrooge or egg nog, if we didn’t have friends baking with our children or bringing us cheer, if we didn’t have a single family tradition, it wouldn’t change the truth of Christmas.

When the fullness of time had come…

Jesus came. Immanuel. God with us. Christmas.

For thirty-three years’ time…

Jesus lived a perfect life. He died on the Cross to pay for my sin.

After three days’ time…

Jesus rose again. He is alive. Death is conquered. Easter.

When His time is come…

He is coming again.

This.

This is what we celebrate–not the family traditions that I hold too tightly, not the sparkling lights or the yummy stew, not the Christmas Eve candle lighting or the gifts under the tree. And the hard of our life right now, this is still the time He has chosen for us. We celebrate Him. But isn’t it such a gift that He allows us to celebrate with all the rest, too?

“I am not alone at all, I thought.
I was never alone at all.
And that, of course, is the message of Christmas.
We are never alone.
Not when the night is darkest, the wind coldest,
the world seemingly most indifferent.
For this is still the time God chooses.”
(T. Caldwell)

Because it’s her birthday, I thought a repost was necessary. Written six years ago… the truth of these words doesn’t change. Happy birthday, dear Bethy.

“They say we go to college to find our husbands, but I’m convinced we go to college to find our bridesmaids.”

These words, uttered Saturday from the maid of honor at the wedding we were attending, struck me. Across the reception hall, I looked at my friend, Beth, the maid of honor from my own wedding. Her head turned, searching for me in the crowd. Our eyes met and we both immediately began to cry.

Thirteen years ago, she stood in all her blond gorgeousness to share at our weekly Campus Crusade meeting. “I’d like y’all to pray for…” I don’t remember what her request was, but I remember being struck by her ability to share her heart so freely, so willingly. I’ll also never forget that deep Virginia, Louisiana, Texas accent. I hear it every week on the phone still.

We met every week in college for Bible study, then accountability, then just to hang out in the Airport Lounge and talk, our southern accents lilting through the air. We danced like crazy girls at Nut House parties, and we dreamed like school girls of our own weddings. We did each other’s hair on graduation day, and we endured the rain and watched our perfect coifs wilt. She celebrated every step of my relationship with Bri, and she stood beside me at my wedding. She toasted our future.

I will never forget the picture of her out the back window of our car on our wedding day. Standing alone at the edge of the parking lot, hands clasped over her heart, tears streaming down her face. She left for a job in Wisconsin the week of our honeymoon. And I wept over the loss. Then God saw fit to bring her back… one month before my thyroid cancer diagnosis eleven years ago.

She held my hand the day of my first thyroid cancer surgery (and asked the nurse if she could have some of my drugs to calm her down). She sat with me for hours the day we lost our first baby to an ectopic pregnancy. She watched the birth of my two oldest children (and made my husband watch The Bachelorette in the hospital room while I marched the halls). She missed the birth of our daughter by 4 days. She lived only blocks from us for years, and yet we still talked on the phone every single day. She dreamed with me of her wedding day, and often talked of how she wanted me pregnant in her wedding (I’ll still never figure that one out).

She met her future husband, and we welcomed him into our lives. They came to our door to share the news of their engagement, and it was the same day we discovered we were pregnant with our Bear. And seven months later, I stood in all my eight-month pregnant glory and wept like a child when I hugged her in her wedding gown. And then she moved… to seminary with Dale. And I wept like a child and asked God why He was taking my friend so far away again.

She has struggled with her health, and almost three years ago now, we piled in the car and drove 12 hours out to St. Louis, because I HAD to see her. I HAD to hold her. I HAD to know she was okay. And then 6 months later, she came back here because she HAD to see me. She HAD to hold me. She HAD to know I was okay. And she stood next to me and cried as my long, dark locks were shaved off my head… the beginnings of my chemo and the emotional drama that would be my life for months… now almost 2 years.

Four months ago, her little Emma entered the world, and I missed being in the delivery room by 2 weeks. But we drove out, because I HAD to see her, I HAD to hold her, I HAD to know they were all okay. And the drama for all of us continues. Beth and I joke about how we are already little old women in our thirties… but we also dream of the day when we will be Wal-Mart greeters and dye our gray hair purple and blue.

We said good-bye again yesterday as she and Dale and Emma drove away from our house, and I cried. So much life we have lived together over the past years. So much we have shared. So much love and loss. So much suffering in our cup, but so much encouragement to pour over each other. So much clinging together to the sweetness of a Savior Who has given us more than we could ever imagine. He gave us each other.

I went to college and I found my husband, my soulmate.

But I also found my bridesmaid, my heart friend.

I am blessed. So very blessed.

Since this post, there have been two more cancer diagnoses. She’s had another baby girl. She still struggles with her own health. She still shows up every time my life crashes around me–whether it’s in person or through the constant texts and phone calls. We still carry so much love and loss in our loves, so much suffering in our cups, so much sweetness of our Savior. And we carry each other.

She tucked a few strands of red hair behind her ear and bent low, “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.” Gentle words streamed sweetly over me, and I curled in a ball of pain in my bed.

Earlier I had been trying to help her with a friendship bracelet she was making. We were almost to a good stopping point, and the aches I had been experiencing from chemo turned unbearable. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t sit. I dropped the bracelet I was holding and burst into tears, “I can’t, baby. I just can’t.” I knew it would make her cry. “Please don’t cry about this,” I begged her frantically. “I’ll help another day.” I knew her disappointment, and she cried. And I curled up on the couch in the next room and cried in my pain… for her pain.

Brian and I ended up getting into an ugly spat… my unrealistic expectations vs. his lack of attentiveness. Isn’t it always this way? How pain blinds us to the team we are? Forcing us to be intentional and really work at things that were once easy?

I had to go upstairs to bed and just walking up the stairs was a chore.

You know when you have the flu, and everything in your body hurts to move? That is what I was experiencing, only the worst part was my chest and abdomen. So much pain.

I crawled into bed fully clothed and cried. She and Bear came to me while Bri was with Asher, Bella bringing her Digger Dog and finding my old Digger Dog to join him. She and Bear wrapped around me on either side and cried with me.

“I don’t like it when you cry, Mama.” she said.

“But sometimes we just need to let her,” Bear said and started rubbing my feet. “Does this help?”

Oh these dear ones.

“Bear,” she said, “Where’s your Bible?” He brought it and she opened it to Psalm 23. She read over me, gently, sweetly, beautifully. She found Psalm 37 and read that one to me. Then Psalm 34, the one I used to sing over her, and she read over me.

Bella Boo Reading Psalm 34

Bear scrambled to get his iPad and snuck some pictures of us and a selfie, because pics with Bear wouldn’t be pics without a selfie. He cracks me up.

It was comfort. It was encouragement. It was a glimpse in their hurting hearts, too… and what heals them.

Two hours later the pain hit again with a vengeance. Not even my ambien would help me sleep through it. Ash-man heard me crying and jumped down from his bunk and came. “Are you okay, Mom?” I nodded and told him what was going on.

“What can I do?” he kept asking. He needed something to do. “Just pray for me, Buddy.” He grabbed my hand, knelt by my bed and prayed. We talked a little bit about how it is easier to just push all this down, to hide from it, to not acknowledge it, and I thanked him for coming to me, for reaching out to me.

“If I just push it all down, I just get angry, Mom. This. This makes us both feel better. I just which I could fully fix it and make it all go away.”

“Oh, my Ash-man, you did the most powerful thing could. You prayed to our most powerful God.”

He held my hand for a while more and knelt next to the bed with his head on my shoulder, then he went back to bed.

Oh, y’all. I have questioned so often through these past years how this could be good for my children. It made sense for my growth, but how? How is this fear, this pain, this life good for them?

I have no doubt that it is. I know God is making them exactly who He wants them to be.

He’s giving me eyes to see a glimpse of who they are becoming.

And I am overwhelmed by what I see.

For Our Children

Father, hear us, we are praying,
Hear the words our hearts are saying,
We are praying for our children.

Keep them from the powers of evil,
From the secret, hidden peril,
From the whirlpool that would suck them,
From the treacherous quicksand, pluck them.

From the worldling’s hollow gladness,
From the sting of faithless sadness,
Holy Father, save our children.

Through life’s troubled waters steer them,
Through life’s bitter battle cheer them,
Father, Father, be Thou near them.
Read the language of our longing,
Read the wordless pleadings thronging,
Holy Father, for our children.

-Amy Carmichael, from “For Our Children.”

Yesterday a friend posted on Facebook the question, “What is on your grown up Christmas list?” Without thinking I wrote down, “A cure for cancer.” Believe me, y’all, that is ON. MY. LIST.

But I wrote it without thinking (which happens far too often in Facebook-land).

See, the friend that asked has a dad who has suffered with debilitating bone pain for over 10 years, a mom who has suffered health issue after health issue after health issue, and a daughter who is special needs and requires most of her mom’s strength daily for care. None of them have cancer…but they suffer immensely.

I realized what I had done and it hit me–it’s easy for me to get consumed with the very hard that is in front of me and lose sight of the very hard that is in front of others. Yes, I want a cure for cancer, but I want her dad cured, and her mom healed, and her baby girl to be okay, and for all of this stinking ugliness in the world to go away.

I thought about the three friends I know who the week of Thanksgiving lost parents. I thought about the woman I stood and wept with at our Thanksgiving service whose husband died unexpectedly in October. I thought of others suffering: those who have lost children, those who have lost parents (my mom lost both her parents in the space of one week this summer), spouses, or siblings, those separated from the ones they love, those who long to conceive and can’t, those with physical pain that incapacitates, those with physical and mental handicaps, those with the internal pain of depression or anxiety and other “hidden illnesses”, those with loved ones who have deserted or betrayed them, those who suffer(ed) abuse. Oh my goodness, y’all, the list goes on and on and on.

It reminded me of a post I wrote last November after sitting in the cancer center listening to an old man seethe bitterness all over the waiting room as he faced suffering and death. He raged against the monster that had ruined his life plans.

~~~
There was an awkward silence, and I felt every gamut of emotion run over me. My internal wrestling match began as fear chilled and then indignation ran hot. I wanted to scream, “Do you NOT see me sitting here? Do you think THIS is the life any of us had planned? Cancer at 24 then 34 then 35 then then 38 and now…?! You want to complain… well, let me tell you…” I could have gone on and on in my mind, “And how about my friends who have lost wives, parents, children to this disease to other diseases? And what about those whose lives are hard in other ways? What about this person and that person and…” My brain seethed.

As quickly as it came, the indignation slipped away as the Spirit moved my anger to compassion. I’ve been there. It’s so easy when you are suffering to be blinded to everything around you. It’s so easy to get into our own little bubbles and think the world revolves around us. It’s easy to forget that everyone around us has their pain and struggle and suffering, too.

There are as many different types of grief and suffering in this world as there are people in it. We all carry something, and no one (not one of us!) has the market on suffering.

I found my heart broken for this man, for my friends, for my family. The answer rang in my mind, “Do you think this is the life any of us planned? Well, let me tell you… let me tell you about my Jesus, my suffering Savior.” That is where I need to go. Where we all need to go. I sat there and prayed for God to open up a door for me to speak, but their eyes never turned in my direction and the moment never came…

Then across the room I heard an elderly man talking to one of the cancer center volunteers, “Oh, I’ve had a lot in my life. There are things in this life that are more painful than cancer. But oh! I’ve been blessed.”

She smiled at him and said, “What are some of your blessings?”

He listed off his life, his family, his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. “Look, the sun is shining today.” He pointed out toward the parking lot. “I have so much, and I have my Jesus.”

Tears welled and I was blown away by the contrast. “If a person can be grateful,” the volunteer said, “That’s a blessing in itself.”

The nurse came and called my name. As I stood up, the angry man looked up at me and the familiar shock at my age registered in his eyes. He looked questioningly at me. I nodded, smiled and waved. He returned the nod and wave, but not the smile.

This life is hard. This life is full of unplanned things.

And yes, gratitude is a blessing in itself. But it’s so much more than that.

We have been given some amazing gifts in this life, and we have much for which we are thankful. I long to have my eyes opened more and more to the gifts God has given me, but conjuring up some sense of thankfulness from within me won’t work.

It’s not about the gratitude.

It’s not about the gift.

It’s about the Giver.

I am grateful because my Jesus gives me the strength to walk this suffering. To walk literally carrying, death in my body is hard, yes. But He carries me.

And we, my friends, we carry each other.

Yes, I wish for a cure for cancer. I always will. But more than that…

I wish for the grace and strength to endure the unendurable until Jesus comes back to restore fully what sin has broken.

I have prayed for you today. If you are reading this, I’ve prayed for you–some of you by name. I’ve asked God to be with those of you who suffer and give you measures of strength. I’ve asked Him to show you Jesus in your sufferings. I’ve begged Him for peace for myself and for you in whatever chaos you find yourself. And I’ve thanked Him that He is worthy. He can be trusted. And that He is the Savior. Our suffering Savior.

Thank you for walking this road with me. May we suffer well together.