A Spring of Joy

Glimpses of our world…

  • And So It Begins

    Today my upper body feels like a punching bag. My head is killing me this afternoon, and my neck and chest ache. From what I’ve read, this is not uncommon for the first few doses of the chemo I’m on. It’s the drugs attacking the cancer and putting up a fight. I’m thankful for that, although I’d like it to be much less painful. I am taking tylenol and ibuprofen, and it seems to be helping relieve the pain some.

    I was able to work today and run a couple errands. I curled up for a bit with Cooper Dooper this afternoon and now I am cozy next to the fire, listening to the children chatter away while they fix snack and scheme about Christmas parties at school. Bella Boo has already changed into her dress-up outfit for the afternoon. She cracks me up and brings me some much needed delight.

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    Yesterday was a hard day.

    But the love from so many of you… cards in the mail, a phone call with my dear Bethy, texts and emails, prayers and love. You helped make a hard day easier.

    The emotions of walking into that center for more than just a check-up hit me a lot harder than I thought they would. My sweet mama was with me. I honestly don’t know what I’d do without her.

    It was a long afternoon, but I think that’s mostly because they were busy with playing catch-up from the holidays and it was my first chemo again. I had papers to sign and forms to fill out and explanations to hear. The sheet of possible side effects was very long which took me by surprise considering they call this a “gentle chemo.” I think the difference is that many of these side effects are very manageable and less debilitating.

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    Still, seeing the alert on my chemo bag, taking the pre-doses of anti-nausea meds, having the nurse sit with me during infusion to make sure my veins could handle the chemo… it all brought back so much pain from the past and fear for the future. It is so much to take in, to comprehend, to feel…

    Yet.

    There is hope.

    There is hope that this chemo will knock the cancer out and I’ll just be on maintenance doses for the future. There is hope for a cure for cancer. There is hope that God will remove cancer from my body completely. There is hope for a new normal.

    But there is more than that.

    “It is Advent right now, and this year especially, I’m really thankful for Advent. Advent is about waiting, anticipating, yearning. Advent is the question, the pleading, and Christmas is the answer to that question, the response to the howl. There are moments in this season when I don’t feel a lot like Christmas, but I do feel like Advent.” (~Shauna Niequist)

    Even in the howl of advent, there is hope.

    Christ came. Christ lived. Christ died. Christ rose. Christ waits. Christ returns.

    There is always hope.

    Sunday night we sat with our children and talked about how life would change the next day, how we would begin a new normal.

    “I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
    “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

    We are choosing hope. We are choosing faith. We are choosing love.

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    #teamdavi

    This is our rallying cry.

    Thank you for rallying around us, with us. We are so very blessed by you.

    (For those of you wondering, I’m realizing my explanation from my previous post may have been confusing. Chemo is only once a week on my “weeks on”, so I will have chemo on Mondays two weeks in a row, have a week off, then two weeks on, week off, and so on and so forth. Thank you for asking.)

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  • What Now?

    Many of you have been waiting and wondering. I know, because many have asked me, “What now?”

    We’ve been waiting and wondering, too.

    Yesterday we finally saw our oncologist, and may I just say again, “She. Is. Wonderful.” She made it clear that she is with us in this battle, that this isn’t her dictating to us what we should do, that this was our plan to work on together.

    I will start chemo on Monday. It will be week on, week on, week off.

    Right now we know for certain of one chemo that I will receive; however, there may be a second type added in (there is more pathology they are waiting on) which will target a protein for which my cancer is testing positive.

    This will be a more gentle chemo than what I’ve had in the past. We won’t know for sure until I begin, but it usually has tolerable side effects and low toxicity. That is encouraging to hear. Obviously, she can’t promise that it will be the same for me, but we are hopeful I will be able to feel fairly well.

    As for how long I’ll be on it? There is no end in sight. I will basically be on some form of treatment until we choose to stop or until it can no longer fight the cancer in my body… or until they find a cure.

    That part was a bitter pill to swallow.

    We are struggling to take in the extensive nature of this… the neverendingness of it all. That was the part that was so disheartening and overwhelming. To live with death so palpably in my body… to always wonder if it has exploded/spread… to always be receiving some form of treatment… it is all so very much to take in.

    We shared with our church small group last night how different life looks when you are face to face with your mortality. It’s a constant learning and growing process. We are taking deep breaths and settling in for the battle.

    But we are thankful.

    During our Thanksgiving service Sunday night, our pastor shared, “Contentment is what is behind thankfulness, because without contentment, we think we deserve more from God than what we have.”

    Yes!

    I got up this morning to a snow covered yard, and I sit in cozy a home next to a roaring fire. I have cooked sausage and onions for the stuffing and have a twelve pound turkey in my fridge. The boys are sleeping in and Bella is in awe of the snow. Cooper is causing all kinds of trouble, but his sad face when I fuss at him melts my heart. Bri’s sister and her family are preparing to come fill our home with family and laughter and beautiful noise for the holiday.

    God will never withhold from us what we have to have.

    He has given us so much. He has given us life. He has given us His Son. He has given us each other. He has given us you.

    And He will give us the grace and strength to face this new lifestyle, and He will grow us as we learn it. It won’t be easy. We will struggle. We will fail. We will fall. But He will lift us up, and He has surrounded us with many who will walk with us, struggle with us, and carry us when we fall. Of that we are certain.

    Thank you, friends, for your love, your support, your care. I don’t say it lightly when I say how very blessed we are.

    Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.

  • Wednesday Nights

    Wednesday nights are one of my favorite nights of the week. I work my long day on Wednesdays, pick up my children from band practice and after school program, and pull into my driveway as the light is beginning to fade. We unpack from school and work, the children begin homework and I dig through the fridge to find whatever leftovers we have. It’s on my weekly menu–Wednesday: Leftovers–yet somehow I don’t have enough these days. My boys are eating too much (as evidenced by Ash-man’s recent growth spurt finding all his pants too short, yet still to big in the waist).

    By 6:30, we are clearing the table and I’m cleaning up dishes and a few minutes before 7:00, I see that first face at my back door, and somehow he always makes me laugh. This curly-headed boy who has finally started sixth grade and can be with his friends in youth group. They keep arriving, middle school boy after middle school boy, here for small group. I chat with them about their week. They ask me how I’m doing. They wrestle over who gets what chair and who’s going to steal a seat from Tim, their leader.

    Tim arrives, more boys in tow, and he brings his son, who is here to play with Bella. S arrives in costume weekly, and she is waiting, usually costumed herself. This week, I heard him tell her, “I’m a different person this week.” his voice is remarkably low for a seven year old, and she laughs and says, “Well, who shall I be?” And they run off to the play room to dig through our costume box.

    Last night, that curly-haired boy arrived with his saxophone. After I went upstairs to read, I heard strains of music–scales, then the Pink Panther theme, then the jingle from the Nationwide commercial. Bri, curled up next to me, laughs. “He’s really good!” Yes, he is, very good. Then our Bear, who is dying to join them but has to wait a year, grabs his trumpet and works his way through Jingle Bells, and there is much laughter below us.

    I love Wednesday nights. I love these boys. I shake my head at the adolescent humor and curl up each night with a book or my laundry to fold. My room is above the den where they meet, but I can hear nothing but the hum of conversation, the occasional rising of Tim’s voice to regain attention, the quietness of prayer, the bursts of laughter.

    Last week my Bear spent the whole time upstairs on FaceTime and then playing an online game with a friend in Japan… a friend who used to be part of this very same small group before his family moved.

    There is something so comforting about this. I’m not sure I can even voice what it is. There is something about knowing these boys are here, studying God’s Word, learning about relationship… being boys. It is one of the many gifts in my life that I am asking God to let me keep.

    It is hard these days to hold everything with open hands. I am feeling stripped of so much, and I fear so much more will be stripped from me. And yet, I ask him (I ask Him even now as I type) please, Lord, please help me trust You. Help me hold this world, these gifts with open hands, knowing they belong to You in the first place.

    Y’all, last week, Tim had me come downstairs and briefly share my story. The boys had been learning about loving one another… so he had them pray for me.

    To hear them. Oh, y’all, I wish you could have heard them! To hear Tim pray and in his prayer showing them how to pray. Five middle school boys, ages 11-13, lifting me up, my family up, asking God for healing and for trust. It was so beautiful, so humbling.

    Last night while reading, I fell asleep to that comforting hum of muffled conversation below me. I woke to laughter and hilarity and wrestling and dog chasing. It was loud and boisterous and bombastic.

    And, yes, it was comforting.

    Oh, how I love these Wednesday nights.

    Oh, Lord, bless these boys with a heart for You that only grows deeper in love and faith and trust. May they grow strong and wise and brave and true and follow after you all the days of their life. Thank you. Thank you for each one of them. They are gifts from you, and I am blessed. So very blessed.

  • The Post I Didn’t Want to Write

    This is the update I didn’t want to write…the one I don’t even know how to write.

    Remember how last post I said, if the pathology comes back different, we bag the whole thing and start over?

    We’re bagging it.

    The pathology came back, and oh, my friends, I am so broken. This is breast cancer recurrence. This is no surgery and this is chemotherapy as soon as they can start it. This is not curative, this is hoping to keep the cancer at bay and send it into remission. This is a new lifestyle for us.

    This is scary as you know what…

    A few more bullet points for y’all:

    –the cancer is not in my organs, bones or brain, only in some of my lymph nodes in my neck and chest and one near my liver.

    –they took a bunch of bloodwork and will use that along with pathology to determine best kind of chemo to give me. The chemo will not be as severe as I had before, but it will be longer term.

    –the fact that the cancer took seven years to recur is good prognostically, because it means it moved slowly.

    –we don’t have much more than this to share. We have a lot of questions still, too, as we begin again in the unknown yet known.

    We are broken. We are scared. We are reeling. We are so very, very sad.

    Today we celebrated at a wedding of two wonderful, beautiful, sweet friends. When the doors opened and the mother of the bride walked in, I thought I was going to throw up and all I could think was, ‘Please? Oh God, please?”

    I believe God could heal me tomorrow. I believe they could find a cure for cancer. I believe this could go into remission for a very, very long time. I also believe that God doesn’t make mistakes. I Know the truth is that if none of the above happens He is still good.

    Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.

    Last night at supper our dear Ash prayed for God to help us to live whatever He had for us. *sigh*

    I just want us all to see more and more of Him.

    Roughly a year ago, my Brian and I sang this for our church congregation:

    “Though tonight I’m crying out
    Let this cup pass from me now
    You’re still all that I need
    You’re enough for me
    You’re enough for me”

    Oh, friends, will you pray for us to find Him enough?

  • My Neediness

    An update to a post I wrote years ago when asked about our needs… it seems so apropos now. I’ve added to it. I’ve changed a few lines. But the heart of the message is the same.

    (As you read this, please take the time to blow away the chaff of my scattered mind and find the grain of my heart.)

    Over the past few days I’ve had several people ask, “What do you need?” I’ve thought a lot about the answer to that question, and the practical, black and white, type-A in me wants to make my list of things. Well, let’s see… I’ll eventually need help with childcare… meals… carpool… anything else?

    Oh, yes, well, I need to get things done. Things like getting my home as organized as possible, updating emergency information on the kids for sitters, figure out what life will look like for them if/when we travel and have surgery. Gosh. I need to figure out Christmas and shop and get a tree and decorate. I need for things to feel somewhat normal for a bit.

    And somewhere in all of this is Thanksgiving and my mom’s birthday (on Thanksgiving Day!). I have to celebrate with her somehow! I need to celebrate with her.

    Practical.

    I’m tired of being practical. I’m tired of being a slave to my “to-do list”. I’m tired of trying to distinguish my needs from my wants.

    What do I need? Wow. Loaded question.

    I need people in my life who aren’t afraid of my neediness. I need to hear those knocks on my door and open them to see people to hug me and cry with me. I need to see those emails in my inbox from friends who are authentic and are struggling with all this, too. I need to know friends aren’t tired of me and I need to know they aren’t going to tell me how I should deal with this (trust me, laughter is not the best medicine, although it can be good for the soul). I need to hear voices on the phone or voicemail telling me they’re praying.

    I need space to grieve. I am tired of loss.

    I need to feel B’s arms around me every night telling me he’s here. That he’s not going anywhere. That he’s not giving up on me, even though my “warranty has run out” (Not long after we got married and all my health problems showed up, B jokingly asked my parents, “Does she come with a warranty?”).

    I need to take time to breathe. To look for the joy in each day.

    I need “perfective” (that’s perspective in Bear language).

    I need to stop putting disclaimers on my blog and not worry about appearing like I have it all together, because I don’t. I sin in my struggle. I place expectations on myself and others that aren’t healthy.

    I need to know that my friends are taking care of themselves. That they are getting check-ups and looking for lumps and eating healthy and doing what they are able to care for themselves so they can be here for others and not have to go through what I’m going through, because I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.

    I also need to know that my friends are in community, that they are building one another up, that they are sharpening one another as iron sharpens iron so they can be there for each other and for others who will suffer.

    I need you to not compare your struggles to mine as if yours are somehow less (or more). Oh my friends, we all suffer. We all have been given our cups to drink, our crosses to bear… no one has the market on suffering. I praise God for those of you who are well. I weep with those of you who are hurting (whether it’s physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, life event, whatever).

    I need you to share your lives with me, to not be afraid to tell me the good, the exciting, the beautiful. I want to rejoice with you and laugh with you and be excited with you. And I need you to not be afraid to tell me the bad, the mundane, the ugly that you struggle with, because I want to pray for you and love you and point you to Jesus as you have pointed me.

    I need to hear truth. I am weary from preaching it to myself over and over and over, but I am afraid I will forget the truth in the mire of all of this, my mangled life. So I keep preaching and I need you to preach truth to me, too. Give me the Word of God because that is the truth I need.

    I need to hear that it’s not God punishing me for my lack of faith. It’s not God up there banging His head against the wall thinking, “She’s just not getting it, so let’s give her MORE cancer.” God doesn’t work like that, although I want to put Him in a box and think He does. No, God is grieving with me. And I need to know that. To be reminded of that. That He is with me, even when I don’t feel His presence, even when the fear overwhelms.

    Oh, yes, the fear. It looms.

    Elizabeth Berg wrote a novel called Talk Before Sleep. It is a very raw, very real, very heartbreaking look at the loss and pain of cancer and a friendship that is strengthened through it (and not necessarily one I would just recommend to anyone for various reasons). She writes through the eyes of the friend…

    “Today is Thursday. Tomorrow is Friday. It scares me, the way tomorrow keeps coming. I look in the paper for a good comic strip to bring Ruth. All of them today would only hurt her feelings. Try this sometime: read the comics as through time were awfully short. You will be hard-pressed to find anything funny. You will understand irony. You will put down the paper and look at the way the sun happens to be lighting the sky and you will be thinking one word: please.”

    Please. Please?

    There are days where I think I need to hear I have tomorrow. But then I remember that it is today for which I am responsible. That God still holds tomorrow in His hands. All my tomorrows. And that I will spend eternity in Heaven with Him and there will be no tomorrow… just forever.

    As I’ve read Berg’s book, I’ve noticed there is something lacking. Hope.

    And that is one thing I need, too.

    Hope.

    It is one thing I know I have, but it’s one of the things I need to be reminded of in a world that can sometimes seem so hopeless.

    I need to thank you. All of you who are loving and praying and encouraging and lifting us up in our weakness.

    You are gifts to us from the hand of our Father.

    HE supplies all our needs.

  • Information and Bullet Points

    This morning on the way to school, my Bear and I held hands for most of the way. I reached back to grip him when I heard his breathing get faster and heard the catch in his voice. This is how we live these days… gripping each other in the moments and holding onto grace and truth. We are begging God for His healing hand to make it all go away, but we are praying, “Your will be done.”

    Yesterday’s appointment with my ENT was good and hard and informative and exhausting. I’m not really sure how to update or where to begin, so this will be a very informative blog with bullet points for you.

    —They still do not have all the pathology back. They should have it later in the week. Initial look suggests that this is recurrent papillary thyroid cancer (my second recurrence).

    –The cancer has spread. It is in nodes in my neck and down my chest on either side of my trachea.

    —The cancer has NOT spread to my lungs or to any other organs.

    –There are several ways to go with treatment, and I am being referred to another hospital close by here to get their “take” and see where they would have us go.

    —Yes, you read that right–“where they would have us go.” He is recommending we go to one of several hospitals (in various parts of the country) equipped to do this surgery (it is a HUGE surgery) as well as to get best treatment for the cancer. He has given us suggestions and we are researching to see what would be the best fit for our needs.

    –I may or may not have to have radioactive iodine treatment again.

    –I may or may not have to have chemo.

    –They do not know why the radioactive iodine scan came back negative for thyroid cancer. He is going to talk to my endocrinologist. They can do something with recumbent TSH to make my cancer respond to the RI again, so that’s a possibility.

    —He is hopeful. Surgery with radioactive iodine treatment is probably curative. That’s such a beautiful word, isn’t it? Curative.My young age (did you hear that, y’all? Young) along with general strength are factors in my favor for beating it.

    –All told, surgery would probably be January (all the appointments, phone calls, prepping and planning take time).

    —In the meantime he is recommending I have my vocal cord medialized. It would be outpatient surgery where he injects collagen into the healthy cord to swell it this helping it vibrate against the paralyzed cord to make my voice stronger, help with coughing and aspiration.

    —If it comes back as something other than thyroid cancer, we throw all this away and begin planning differently.

    I know there are a ton of questions. I have a ton, too. I am writing them down and starting my little…er, big… information notebook for doctors.

    Two questions keep popping up: how are you? and what do you need?

    As for how I am… how we are? Overwhelmed. Exhausted. Worn. Scared. Hopeful.

    Cancer is painful. Physically very, very painful. I have a good bit of pain in my neck and chest, and I fatigue easily. It literally hurts to breathe. By 8:00 every night, I’m crashing… then not sleeping (except last night when I got nine hours!)… so usually I wake tired.

    We are sad. The children are scared. Brian is worn. My parents are undone.

    We are choosing life. We won’t stop living. We won’t stop laughing. We won’t stop worshiping. We won’t stop trusting and clinging and hoping. We won’t stop fighting as long as we are able.

    As for what we need? I honestly have no answer for that right now, but it will come in time, I’m sure. I just need y’all to keep doing what you’re doing… loving and praying and encouraging and surrounding us with truth.

    “I wanna know a song can rise from the ashes of a broken life…”

    He is for us.

    We know this. We cling to this.

    Thank you for walking alongside us. We are so very, very blessed. Of that we are certain.

  • Simple Gifts and Eyes to See

    It has been a rough few nights. The pain from my biopsy is dissipating, but took longer than I expected. The waiting is hard. The wondering what this all means. What are our treatment options? Will I have surgery (or surgeries) again? Why did one scan show up normal and yet the biopsy show cancer?

    So many questions. So much desperation.

    Friday night Bella girl came down with a high fever. Yesterday Cooper Dooper got my glasses (the ones we just bought last month). Destroyed them. Cold weather (polar vortex hype anyone?) is coming and we just found out last week our chimney liner is cracked (apparently we had a chimney fire at the end of the season last year… ack!) and needs repaired before we can use it. Bella Boo has been begging me for school pants, because none of her uniform pants fit. Not to mention her need for winter clothes because she’s an April birthday so size sevens become too small, but eights are too big because she’s petite, so we always wait to see where she’ll be size-wise before we get her “winter wardrobe.”

    How? When? What?

    All of these things feel insurmountable these days.

    But they’re really not.

    Bri took the boys yesterday to friends’ house to cut wood, and they worked and chopped and brought home a truckload to get ready for winter. And he brought with him fresh organic chicken broth and the chicken it was cooked in so we could make soup. And a packet of popcorn from a dear lady who has prayed for and loved our family for countless years. And the boys unloaded the truck and our little woodshed is half full now (only another truckload to go…).

    Our chimney expert (who is amazing, so local friends call me if you need someone!) has everything ready to go once we get approval from the adjuster, and insurance will cover chimney damage once we’ve met our deductible. We have auxiliary heat, so we won’t freeze or anything if the chimney doesn’t get repaired before the cold sets in.

    Bella’s fever came down, and I took a quick shopping trip with her yesterday to Once Upon a Child and found pants and sweaters and a few winter dresses… not to mention a Christmas dress she fell in love with that is green and sparkly and will look absolutely gorgeous with her red hair.

    The glasses? Well. I’ll have to get another pair unfortunately… but it’s doable. Just frustrating. I’ll wear them, all scratched and dented to drive, but other than that, I’ll be glasses-less for a few weeks, I imagine.

    And Friday? Y’all, let me tell you about Friday… the anesthesiologist was a friend of ours. He found out about my biopsy and sedation and called and made it happen that he could be there with us. And the radiologist was amazing… checking and double checking my scans before he did anything (because there are two arteries and a vein surrounding the tissue) and showing an immense compassion that was moving and beautiful.

    I struggle with desperation these days.

    Desperation to see God in all of this. And I do. Oh friends, I do.

    This morning as I was prepping pork for my crockpot, I wiped a shelf off in the fridge forgetting the shelves are movable. It moved with my cloth and smacked me in the lip. “Lord?” I said, “Really?”

    Then I laughed at myself for getting upset with God over a shelf. A shelf.

    By His grace, I haven’t gotten upset over any of this other stuff… over cancer and chimney fires and fevers and destroyed glasses that we’ll have to pay for again… none of it. “Oh, Lord,” I sighed, “I just want to see you.”

    My Bella girl, curled up on the couch, called to me, “Mommy, are you crying?”

    I went to her and we snuggled and cried, and she prayed for me. There is nothing so humbling as hearing your child pray for your heart. “Dear Lord,” that sweet, sweet voice whispered, “Please don’t let my mommy die. Please help her get through all that is coming for us. Please help her stop crying. And please help all of us to believe in you and your being good no matter what.”

    Oh, my friends. Heart breaking and heart healing.

    You see, all this time He is showing that He is here. That He is with us.

    The chimney fire? Could have destroyed our home. The fever? Only lasted 24 hours. The glasses? I can see without them, and we can get another pair. The shopping and the food? He always provides a way. The biopsy? Surrounded by good doctors who care, who love, who pray.

    The shelf? A fridge full of food.

    And this morning, my dear friend, Nat, will walk in the doors of church. I haven’t seen her in three years. We will worship together. We will eat Sunday dinner together. We will talk and share and catch up, and I will meet her man.

    As I wiped up the counter after prepping the pork (onions and wine and spices and deliciousness), I looked at my stove and saw this:

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    Oh, my friends. Flowers from my mom and daddy. Deliciousness in a crockpot. Spoons that were my nanny’s hanging over my stove. Wine. Water for green tea. Edges of a bag that came home with food for our family. Garlic in a crock made by my sweet Ash years ago…

    Beauty is everywhere. Simple gifts.

    He is showing that He is here.

    He is giving me eyes to see.

    “Believe God’s love and power more than you believe your own feelings and experiences. Your rock is Christ, and it is not the rock that ebbs and flows but the sea.” (~Samuel Rutherford)

  • Overwhelmed Yet Certain

    She ran to my lap and crawled up, hands over her ears, “Don’t say cancer! Don’t tell me Mommy might have cancer again!”

    And I was undone.

    We shared with the children last night where we are in all of this. We were hoping to wait to give them a more certain diagnosis, but there is just too much going on and things moving so quickly that we knew they needed to know rather than wonder.

    Brian shared the facts and then the truth. We don’t have certainty about whether this is cancer or not, but we do know what’s certain–God is with us.

    It was hard. They were all clingy. Ash-man’s big brown eyes just gazed at me knowingly. I could read his thoughts, “This could be bad.” I mouthed, “I’m okay.” to him and he nodded, his hair falling over his eyes, his face no longer readable. He bent over our puppy and stroked him. Bear just hugged me with those Bear hugs that have literally knocked me on the floor before (I kid you not… ask Bear sometime about the time I fell on top of him because he hugged me so hard) and told us how scared he is.

    Yes. Scared. We are all scared. I see it in Bri’s eyes, his efforts to care for us as usual, his offers of help, his lingering kisses.

    We still have no results from the PET scan; however, we do know the biopsy will be tomorrow morning. (The doctor was planning this biopsy no matter what the scan showed.) After a phone call or two, and my doctor once again advocating for me, this will be under sedation, which I desperately need… It is a CT-guided needle biopsy. It will go in between the carotid and jugular, and now (thanks to one of the surgeons who go to our church encouraging me to ask for this) I don’t have to stress about holding perfectly still. God is showing His care for me over and over again.

    And He is showing Himself through your care. We have been given a tremendous gift to have so many communities that surround us and care for us. The calls, the cards, the texts, the emails, the visits, the meals. Last night a dear friend brought by three pizzas from Papa John’s. He hugged us all and then went on his way. We curled into each other on the couch in front of a movie and were just together, holding hands, heads on shoulders.

    This waiting mode is hard. We are in limbo… in the unknown…There are days where all I can pray is, “Lord, I need you. Lord, please let it not be cancer again. Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.” I am overwhelmed by your prayers for me. You give words to the cries I cannot pray.

    Yes, we are overwhelmed. Y’all, I do not say this lightly. Thank you for your love, your care, your hearts for us, your prayers.

    ,

  • My Theme

    Last night it happened again. She came in the night, shivering, and crawled in between us. She curled her body into mine and whispered her cold. In the dim light of our room, I saw Brian’s head lift off the pillow for a moment. I reached across sweet Bella who was already in her dreams again, and I found his hand, and we gripped each other with our daughter in between. Her head fell to my shoulder, and I breathed in the scent of her and tried to stop tears from falling. This is where I want to be. Cozy and snuggled and warm and safe.

    In her book, The Hardest Peace, Kara Tippets describes it perfectly what she experiences with her own daughter… what I feel when Bella curls up with us in the night.

    “But all she knows is the warmth of my touch, here, today and the kindness that greets her in her living…What she longs for is my closeness, my touch, my kindness to meet her each cold evening when she sneaks quietly into my bed to be near me.

    She no longer asks for entrance next to me in the little hours of the night. She quietly enters by my feet and finds the warm curve in my back and returns to the comfort of her dreams next to her mama. Years will give her understanding like they gave me, but today, sitting next to my love is enough. The other day she proclaimed that she never wanted to leave my side, that I was always the warmth she liked best. I said nothing, only snuggled closer with a hope for more days. More and more days of loving her. I want her to look back and see herself a daughter of love.”

    Yes, this is where I want to be.

    Cozy and snuggled and warm and safe.

    Life doesn’t feel very safe right now.

    And as Satan comes in the night (I call 4:00 a.m. my “witching hour”) and whispers lies, the warmth and the safety dissipate into coldness and wrestling and fighting the lies that have stemmed from years ago…from growing up in a church that said that any suffering was punishment.

    And Satan screams at me in the night…

    “See, you have always loved beauty, beautiful things, fashion, trends… you have lost your beauty and your femininity is so scarred and marred. This is the punishment you deserve.”

    “How many times do you make singing about yourself, your gifts, your talent, how you sound, instead of really worshiping? Now your voice is gone. This is the punishment you deserve.”

    “See, you have made an idol of your family. You love being a mom and a wife more than you love anything else including God. They will lose their mom and wife. This is the punishment you deserve.”

    “You are a Pharisee. You write this blog more for what people think of you than to bring honor to God. See, see how little you’ve written these past couple years… Your words have been stolen from you. This is the punishment you deserve.”

    Oh, friends. I know this is not so. I know God doesn’t work this way. This is gospel-less thinking.

    I remember sitting with our church counselor years ago, and asking him about suffering as punishment, trying to discern truth from the lies of my past. John looked outside at my children, ages five, three and one.

    Do you love those children?
    Oh, yes, So much it aches.

    Did they sin this morning? Disobey you? Not listen to you?
    Oh, yes. They do it every day.

    Pick one.
    What?

    Pick one.
    Pick one for what

    Pick one to give cancer to as punishment.
    Oh. my. stars. I would never…!

    Exactly. And God’s love for you is so much greater than yours could ever be for your children.

    Y’all, I need to tell myself this every single day. That the Gospel says my sins are covered. That Jesus came to earth and lived a perfect life and died a sinner’s death to pay for my sins. All of them. He has borne my punishment. He has given me His righteousness.

    That. Is the Gospel.

    Years ago, Brian and I sang a duet of one of my favorite hymn re-writes during church, Red Mountain Music’s “There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood.” I was humming it today, letting the words pour over me.

    “And sinners plunged beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stains.”

    All their guilty stains.

    All of them.

    Not some of them. Not just the ones they remember to confess. Not just the ones they’ve “conquered”.

    Every single stain of sin is gone because of Christ.

    He bore the punishment.

    That. Is the Gospel.

    As I enter that PET scan on Tuesday, this will be the song echoing through my mind…

    “E’er since, by faith, I saw the stream Thy flowing wounds supply,
    Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.”

    My faith is small… not even a mustard seed it seems these days. But it sees the stream.

    Redeeming love.

    That is the Gospel.

    That is the truth.

    That is what I must cling to when the fiery darts sting, when fear paralyzes.

    And I curl into this truth as Bella girl curls into us at night.

    And today I find safety and warmth and peace.

    Redeeming love.

    My theme.

    It shall be till I die.

    I am a daughter of love.

  • It’s All Wrong… But There’s More

    Four years ago I wrote this in the aftermath of enormous grief that engulfed our lives and our church. Today we will grieve as a church again, and it seemed a fitting re-post.

    ~~~

    It’s been one of those weeks, or rather months… where the grief hits like a tsunami and leaves me rolling and careening and gasping for breath as I try to comprehend what is happening around me in the lives of my loved ones and friends. Deaths, cancers, depression, loneliness, suffering, loss, surgeries, pain… every week there is a phone call that sends me reeling, and they are reeling and rolling and careening and gasping far worse than I.

    This past week has been one of the hardest for me, and I’ve spent hours on the phone or sitting with friends near and far, walking through a sadness that is seeded deep. But there is one thing that comes from every phone call: the encouragement that I, that we, that the suffering ones are holding onto something. There is hope beyond what we see, because God has given us the spiritual eyes to see beyond the wave that’s hitting. We’re holding onto Him. All of us. Clinging to truth that may not be visible in the shadow of the torrent, but it’s buried in our hearts, our minds, our souls, our very being.

    Jesus is worthy. Jesus is sharing in our sufferings. Jesus is grieving here holding our hearts and our lives, yet He is with our loved ones in Heaven. Jesus is with us, too.

    And in the aftermath, when we stare at the ruins around us, the carnage that has shattered our lives, we look and see clearly. We see that He is still holding us and He is the only One worthy of holding onto. There is no turning back, only walking forward, wading through the havoc, and clinging to hope. A hope that does not disappoint.

    “It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories… The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think…I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.” (~Sam to Mr. Frodo)

    ~~~

    My friend, Julie, wrote a post that shares the beautiful and creates a place to grieve the loss of man that so many of us loved. She writes, “Warren meant something to people, because he cared about people. You can’t fake caring. He was the real deal…”

    You can read her post here.

    Yes.

    It was a life well-lived.

    He will be missed.