A Spring of Joy

Last night I was on the phone with a friend who learned this week of her breast cancer diagnosis. The sighs are deep, and I needed this today. Perhaps you might, too?
(From January, 2008)

The cries were piercing over our baby monitor, waking me from a deep sleep. Bella calling out for Mommy in an agonizing wail. With Brian in Northern Virginia, my parents stay with me to help care for the children, and Mom jumps at every chance to hold her grandbabies. I soon heard her tender voice soothing Bella, but the wails only intensified. She screamed louder and louder, calling my name with desperation, stabbing my heart with each sob. I didn’t know what caused her cries, but I was certain of one thing. My child needed me, and I would go to her.

As soon as Mom handed her to me, Bella stilled, snuggling in my lap, thumb in mouth, soft hiccups as she burrowed deep into my arms. The room darkened as Mom left us alone, and Bella murmured a soft, “wock, wock” as we began the gentle sway back and forth, back and forth. Within five minutes, her deep sighs whispered to me that she was asleep, and I held her. I knew I could put her back in her crib and return to my bed, but I had no desire to. I wanted to hold her like this forever. So we sat in the rocker, and I breathed in her sweet baby smell all powdery and fresh.

As I sat there, my head started to nod and I’d snap back awake not wanting to end the moment. I considered for a second taking her to bed with me, more for my sake than hers. Then the realist in me set in. There would be no way to prevent her from rolling off Bri’s side of the bed. I’d never get any sleep because I would worry about her all night. Then I’d be cranky and impatient with the children the next day. I knew it was for her good and mine to put her back down even though I didn’t want to. I ached to hold her, and it was as comforting to me as it was to her to have her in my arms.

Jesus loves to hold me like that. I have talked with, heard from, prayed for and cried over so many of my friends (old and new) who are struggling and suffering. There is a part in every one of us that cries out for Jesus like Bella cried for me. And He runs to us and He holds us and He comforts us. He promises to be there whenever we call, and He will never nod off to sleep. He is awake all night with His loving arms of protection around us. I held Bella and worried about my own comfort, my own needs, yet He gave up all of His. For me. For me!

I run to so many other things for peace. It’s easy to bury my head in a book or project. Yet only One thing satisfies. Only He will bring the comfort I truly need and truly want. And as it was for my Bella-Girl with her Mommy, my heart cries out that no one else will do. Only I could calm her restlessness, just as I long for His arms around me when I wake full of fear. When I hear of others whose cancers have returned, and I know there are no certainties for me, one thing is certain. I am inscribed on the palms of His hand. My name is written in the book of life. And His strong arms are holding me now and every second of my tomorrows until He calls me home.

Francis Schaeffer wrote:

The Christian is the really free man–he is free to have imagination. This, too, is our heritage. The Christian is the one whose imagination should fly beyond the stars.

Have you ever thought about that day? Wept in anticipation? Dreamt of that moment when you are in His presence?

I often picture what it must be like–every sense heightened by perfection. Breathe in the sweet aroma of Christ with me. Feel the heartbeat under His chest and think of yours, sinless. Laugh with Him as your body moves pain free forever. Look down at your robes, spotless white. Hear His voice saying your name, a name He loves. Taste His tears mingle with yours as you weep together for the final time, old friends finally reuniting, because you have known each other for all these years.

Imagine with me for a minute how it will feel when the most powerful arms in the universe embrace you. Those arms will be wonderfully familiar, because those are the arms that are holding you now. No pain, no cancer, no accident, no emotion, no lie, no heartache, no broken dream, no death, no person, no sin can steal that from you. Will you take a moment and feel His arms with me? They are there and they always will be.

“Forever is composed of nows.” (~Emily Dickinson)

She giggles after each page she reads and looks up at me with sparkling eyes to watch my reaction. I can’t help but smile at her, and I try to capture each giggle in my memory banks so I won’t forget the sound.

It’s the same giggle she makes each time she asks me for something in Go Fish. I scrunch up my face and pretend to be upset when she asks for a whale and I must hand over the three I am holding. She counts up her eight sets and my four, and she covers her mouth overjoyed with her win.

She finds me reading and asks me to play. We spend an hour in her room. She is my daughter and her dolls are my grandbabies, Belle and Maribel. I knock on her door and make my grand entrance, “oohing” and “ahhing” over how big her babies have gotten and how much I have missed her and them. She giggles again and enters in the play, and we are caught up into an imaginary world–one that I long to see become reality.

We pile her dollies into her stroller, and I teach her how to swaddle Maribel, and we go for a walk downstairs to visit Grandaddy (that’s Brian) at work. He is on his computer and his face lights up when he sees us, but hers lights up even more as he joins in our world, delighted with our visit.

When I must “leave”, I kiss those babies and hug my girl, and head downstairs to make supper, and I hear her humming in her room as she tucks them into cribs and folds their blankets. As I pass through the hallway, I peek in on Bear who is struggling to learn a new song on the piano, and I tousle his hair, “You sound great, kiddo.” I whisper to him, and his face lights up. “Do you want to play with me?” So I pause a moment to play a duet with my boy, and he is happy.

My Ash-man comes in from outside where he has been swishing a ball through a hoop for hours, content in his quietness to persist in learning. “Hi, Mom,” he says breathlessly. He smells of woodsmoke, and I can feel the chill of the weather on his clothes. He reaches in the fridge and steals a grape, ducking his head when I catch him and playfully swat his arm. “Wanna play Rummy?” I start supper, and we begin our game, and like always, he wins, and I smile, content to be gracious in loss to my 10 year old.

We sit around the table together, all of us, and I think about those who leave empty spaces at other tables, and a mixture of sadness and gratefulness wells up in my heart. We eat together, laugh together, share our days together, and then I pick up our book, and we are transported into an imaginary land, and eyes sparkle and breaths are gasped and my heart is filled.

This past week has been been full of heartbreak, and the monotony of pain seems to ache constantly in my soul. Get up, go to work, clean house, fold laundry, drive carpool, piano lessons, grocery shopping, try. not. to. cry. try. not. to. weep.

Then I look around.

So much beauty.

These days.

And here is the beauty of it all.

The days may feel monotonous, but the people in them aren’t.

Each day there is a new story to discover, a new joy to welcome, a new adventure to imagine.

So whether it’s racing cars in Mario Kart and teasing the boys when I beat them (which is becoming more rare these days), or whether it’s picking up Maribel and pretending to rock her to sleep, I see it in their eyes.

The joy of time together, of spending my moments doing something more worthwhile than what I had been intending to do beforehand.

The days are all too fleeting. The moments slip through my fingers like holding onto drops.

Which moments will I grasp?

Will it be the moments that matter to them?

Will it be the moments that impact eternity?

Or will I look back with regret over how little I’ve really lived WITH them?

The grief is there. The loss of my friend. The struggle of health. The news of others aching, hurting, grieving… They are all real. They are all hard.

But if that is all I see.

I will miss all this.

What happens. It matters, my friends. It matters.

It was on the way home from a picnic–I was in the van with the children, and we were stopped at a traffic intersection on a slight incline. The pick-up in front of me was full of boards (full meaning the entire back up to the bed cover), and the tailgate was down because that was the only way for the boards to fit lengthwise.

(Y’all might be able to guess where this is going…)

When the light turned green and we both accelerated, the boards slid out of the back of his truck and right into the path of our van. I slammed on the brakes, squealed some tires, and stopped just inches from the boards. At the same time I watched in the rear-view mirror as the guy behind me half-turned so he wouldn’t rear-end me. The truck and boards and my van were all now in the middle of a busy intersection, and I sat there, gripped the steering wheel, and took a few deep breaths.

As I looked up, the driver of the truck got out, shook his head and threw his hands up to his hat, ripped it off and raked his fingers through his hair. The desperation on his face was palpable. I smiled and gave him a couple thumbs up to let him know I was okay and that somehow it would all be okay. The guy behind me moved back, so I could reverse out of the intersection, turn on my hazards, and watch the line of cars on my right side fly around me.

I wasn’t sure what to do. Should I leave the kiddos in the car and help him? Should I pull over and into a bank near us and help? Fact is, I was stuck by cars behind and beside me.

Then it happened…

I saw a man on my left run up to the intersection. He was a friend from the picnic we had just attended who had parked alongside the road. He started picking up boards and loaded them back on the truck. The driver’s paralysis ended, and he clapped him on the back and began to pick up the boards, too.

That’s all it took.

From every angle people left their cars in the middle of the road, parked at the gas station near us, and ran from inside buildings nearby. Within minutes, the truck was loaded. The driver grinned and shook hands and nodded his head and thanked everyone, and I cried (I know y’all are surprised by that one).

All I could think about on the way home was the beautiful picture of community I had just seen. I thought about the family I have surrounding me, about the friendships I cherish, about the strangers who have made themselves part of my life because they care.

Y’all, isn’t this what it’s about? Walking alongside the ones who are needy and hurting and struggling?

It’s about helping the lost and confused, the ones who are running their fingers through their hair and wondering how they are going to pick up the pieces of the messes they leave on the roads of their life. It’s stopping our lives for a moment to carry a load they can’t lift themselves. It’s stepping into the busy intersections of their lives and risking ours to care, all the while knowing we might get hurt in the process.

It’s being Jesus’ hands and feet and heart.

THAT is what many have been to me. THAT is what I long to be for others.

It is community work.

Trust me, I know. Because without my community, I would still be standing in the middle of the street, shaking my head, staring at the mess and wondering how on earth I was going to live this life.

And I ask myself, “Am I willing to be the one? Am I willing to start? Am I willing to take the risk and step out in faith to help and have others follow?”

Am I willing? Am I searching for ways within the limitations of my suffering to still reach out?

It is the work I am called to do if I call myself a Christian.

It’s hard work. It’s sacrificial work. It’s time-consuming work.

But it is good work. It is necessary work. It is beautiful work.

“Carve your name on hearts, and not on marble.”
(~Charles Haddon Spurgeon)

It wasn’t anything spectacular. In fact, in some people’s eyes, it might have seemed a waste of a night together.

The kids were tucked in bed, and Bri and I curled up on the couch with Rocky Road Ice Cream and coffee from the French Press and we turned on the Emmy Awards. It was unintentional. We had planned to watch something else, but Jimmy Fallon and Tracy Morgan sucked us in. I could comment on how vapid it was or about some of the absurdly ridiculous choices in gowns or the unbelievable amount of ego in the room, but that wasn’t what it was about. At least not for us.

For us it was laughing together at the occasional hilarity and marveling at the brilliance of script writers. It was chatting about our life and the things we are doing at work. It was sharing stories about the kiddos from the weekend and reveling in the joy they bring to our life. It was another political discussion as Bri ranted and raved, and me learning yet again what a brilliant man I’m married to. It was crying through the In Memorium segment as I reflected on what people like Andy Griffith brought into my life and just how short that life is. It was sitting in stunned sadness as we read how a friend of Brian’s from before college lost his wife far too early and unexpectedly, and then cheering for friends who were at the hospital for the arrival of their next child.

It was a mix of life in front of a TV show that many would say was a waste of time. And perhaps you could say the TV show was.

Had we watched the movie we planned to, we wouldn’t have had the time for all of this. Two and a half hours of just. being. together. Us. Sharing life.

And that is what it was all about.

Thank you, Lord, for Rocky Road ice cream and hand ground coffee beans. Thank you for laughter and humor and the gifts you have given to men and women in the film industry to bring us some beautiful work. Thank you for children who brighten our lives, for the work you have called us to, for a country with many freedoms we take for granted. Thank you for quiet moments together in grief and for the joy of new life. Thank you for each breath. This life we live together is not always easy, but it is beautiful.