A Spring of Joy

Glimpses of our world…

  • This Breath That Wafts

    The breath that wafts
    from some blessed corner of Paradise
    gives sweetness
    to the bitterness of this region,
    it tempers the curse
    on this earth of ours.
    (~Ephrem the Syrian)

    A few days ago, I sat across from my oncologist at a routine six month checkup and found myself catching my breath once again. I have been struggling with back pain over the past few months. I assumed it was stress or the osteoporosis becoming osteoarthritis or perhaps the fact that I’ve had so many abdominal and chest surgeries that my core is weakened badly.

    But.

    You might be able to guess where this is going…

    I have a bone scan on Thursday. She is looking to see if there might be cancer in my spine.

    I am struggling, friends. I am tired of living life with a pit in my stomach, wondering and waiting.

    I am waking in the night begging God for no more cancer. Ever. Then lying awake for hours battling the lies of Satan who tells me I’m not worth God’s time or your time either. Lies. So many of them.

    Weariness fills my steps.

    And then… then it comes. The words of a song. The prayers of friends this morning. The phone call to encourage. The joy of children thrilling to life. The beauty of fall weather cascading upon us. Watching my Bear practice football (I do love being a football mom!). Chopping and stirring and creating delicious sauces and stews to freeze for the cold months ahead. Curling up for after school naps with my Bella. Moments. Beautiful moments that remind me that there is so much more to this life than struggle.

    Deep breaths.

    And I am covered with the sweetness of paradise.

    Thank You, Lord, that in the bitterness of struggle and the impatience of waiting, I breathe the sweet breath of Paradise with which You fill my days… sweet friendships, snuggly children, gentle breezes, warm kitchens, and delicious foods. Only You can give the eyes to see beyond the muck and mire. Only You can fill each breath with sweetness, for if I breathe in my own strength, I only smell and feel the curse. My days are already written in Your book, and my life is in Your hands. Only You can give me life to live, breath to breathe. Thank You for this life. Each moment of it.

    ,

  • The Luckiest

    She leaned into me, big brown eyes intent on my face, hints of a grin tickling her mouth, delight dancing over her features, and she whispered, “Daddy told me last night he’s the luckiest daddy in the world.”

    Yep.

    He’s pretty much right.

  • Sweet Reminders

    This past weekend we were at the beach for Labor Day and a weekend away as a family. Brian has been traveling a lot lately, and his work schedule really won’t slow down until the middle of November, so we are grasping every moment we can.

    It was a delightful getaway full of delicious foods on oceanfront patios, long walks on the boardwalk, family tag in the pool, waves crashing over us as we rode boogie boards, ice cream treats, sweet music, and just being together. (It also included a 6 1/2 hour drive down instead of 4, renting a surrey to bike the boardwalk and finding it had a broken steering column, and a sick child in the middle of the night, but those stories are for another time.)

    As I spent time watching my children play, I was struck by how easily and quickly they meet people. Bella girl would walk up to other children on the beach and ask if they wanted to play with her and build sand castles, then she would come running excited to tell me about her new friend. She found every baby in the pool and would chat with the parents and tell them all about how much she loved babies and how cute their baby was. The boys found friends to jump the waves and race together. One friend even had his mom call our room to invite Ash to join him for a movie.

    I watch Bri. He is the same way. He so easily talks to and greets people. He has no pretense, no clique, and few expectations. He just is who he is and asks the same of others. If he sees something that interests him, he’ll stop and ask about it. He’ll laugh with others and he’ll sit with others no matter where they are.

    I love this about my family.

    It is beautiful and convicting and a sweet reminder of what I am called to be—winsome and kind, friendly to others, and reaching out to those around me building relationship so I might show them that Christ is more than a concept, he’s my defining reality.

    Have I ever mentioned how gloriously thankful I am for my family? They teach me every day.

    Lord, thank you for weekends away—for togetherness, for laughter, for splashing and dunking and chasing, for quesadillas by the pool and full moons over the ocean. Thank you for teaching me through my husband, my children. They are such gifts and I take them for granted far too often. Thank you, most of all, that because Christ is safety, I am able to take huge risks for you. Would you give me the opportunity to love others as I see my family do–with great joy and abandon?

  • What are the Odds?

    Picture our little redhead, all bundled in her life vest on the back of a ski boat watching her daddy floating in the water beside her. “Come on in,” he calls to her, ‘I’ll hold you.” She knew it was a very deep lake, and the lake water was very black, and she knew she wasn’t a strong swimmer, and she was fearful.

    She inched over the side and sat on the ledge, and Brian’s hands reached for her to draw her into the water with him. She pushed his hands away, “No, Daddy.”

    He looked at her, “Do you trust your daddy?”

    She stared right back, “Sort of.”

    That dear girl. Bri knew there was nothing for her to fear. Not only was she wearing a life jacket, but she would have been in his strong arms. She couldn’t get beyond the depth and darkness of the water or her own inability to swim.

    Oh, friends, I am so like my little girl!

    I look around and see the darkness and the depths of pain and fear. I have had so many nightmares in my life, and this cancer monster has sucked so much life from me. It is easy to live in fear, to wonder if tomorrow they will find another tumor or worse.

    Fear paralyzes me into forgetting who is waiting to hold me in the depths.

    August 27th.

    The day I can say I have been breast cancer free for five years!

    The five year mark is huge, friends, HUGE! My risk of recurrence has lessened even more… 89% of women who reach the five year mark do not have recurrence.

    We are thrilled to have reached this mark, and I love that it follows on the heels of such good news with my genetic testing.

    Y’all, fear still tries to squeeze the joy from this celebration. Satan is working overtime to rob even this from me.

    My timid heart says, “So what’s five years? I’ve had thyroid and colon, too. What are the odds? The odds are not in my favor.”

    I picture God smiling and asking, “Ang, do you trust your daddy?”

    And unflinchingly, I say, “Sort of.”

    The thing is, He’s trustworthy, and I long to trust him with a vehemence that says, “You, Lord, are the Maker of Heaven and Earth. To whom else can I go? Who else could I trust?”

    No, the odds aren’t in my favor

    But…

    God is in my favor.

    And whether or not I have a recurrence, He is still holding me. He is still working for me. He is fully worthy of my trust.

    And this… this is the picture that comes to mind, the heart of faith I long to own:

    He remembered being in a garden at dusk. The sky was purple and the lamps had been lit, and Peter was small. His father picked him up and tossed him high and then caught him over and over again. Peter’s mother was there, too…

    “Don’t drop him,” said Peter’s mother to his father. “Don’t you dare drop him.” She was laughing.

    “I will not,” said his father. “I could not…”

    Again and again, Peter’s father threw him up in the air. Again and again, Peter felt himself suspended in nothingness for a moment, just a moment, and then he was pulled back, returned to the sweetness of the earth and the warmth of his father’s waiting arms.

    (~from The Magician’s Elephant, by Kate DiCamillo)

    Is He trustworthy?

    Will He fail me?

    He will not.

    He could not.

    Think about it.

    He could not.

  • And the News…

    …is good.

    I heard from my geneticist at UVA today, and I cannot tell you what a sobbing mess I’ve been whenever I think about the negative test results.

    And in this case, negative is GOOD.

    I do not have Li-Fraumeni Syndrome (my children might think I still have You’re a Meanie Syndrome though), which also means my children don’t have it. And my knees are weak just typing this…

    All I could think about the whole time she was talking to me today was my Ash. He doesn’t have to be tested (the little two had a few years before testing was an option). Relief is an understatement.

    We are so thankful, so very thankful.

    As for what this means for the future?

    They are going to have a meeting about me in the coming weeks to determine what course to follow. When I was there last month, they stored some of my blood so they could do more genetic testing if needed. They plan to research what is best to test for and then they will clear it with us and move forward. So we are still in a bit of uncertainty.

    But of one thing we are certain: I do not have Li-Fraumeni Syndrome.

    And for today… that is enough.

    Thank y’all for praying. We are grateful for your love, and we are grateful that God chose to answer “yes” to our pleas. More than that, we are thankful that no matter what the result might have been, our God is the same yesterday, today and forever.

  • This Necessary Joy

    There are lives I can imagine without children, but none of them have the same laughter and noise. (Brian Andreas, Story People)

    The house is quiet. Still. Almost eerie.

    During the summer I often thought to myself (more resignedly than eagerly), “When the kids are back in school, I will get that organized or cleaned up. I’ll work on their rooms and rearrange and get boxes and neaten things up…”

    The kids are back in school, and whenever I set foot in one of their rooms, I cry. The army men that would make me so angry when I stepped on them in bare feet… the lego pieces that are strewn through the playroom… the naked dolls waiting for someone to dress them and love them and comb their hair… the bag of balloons waiting to be worked into animals…

    How can I put them away?

    They are signs of the life we lived this summer.

    And what a summer we had! So full of fun and laughter and noise… not a perfect summer–it never is–but a wonderful one where the bucket list was long and the nights ran late and the adventures were joyful.

    Yesterday, they set off on a new adventure as they started school again.

    I don’t ever want them to think I am glad to be rid of them. I want them to know they are loved and wanted and that I am grateful they are part of this life, this home. But I do want them to know I am glad they are becoming who they are. They need time with their peers, with other adults, with people other than me, and their school is a safe and amazing environment for them to do just that.

    They came home after their half day yesterday excited. “This year holds promise,” Ash grinned, as he ate another chicken nugget (our celebratory lunch at Chick-Fil-A).

    Promise. I love that word. It’s so full of hope. Just like our futures.

    We ran errands and then came home to me fussing about messes and trying to organize where school things would go. We set the table for our traditional back-to-school night dinner of Homemade Lasagna and Salad and Fresh Cantaloupe from our garden, and the kids had us quiz them with spelling and math for the whole meal, Bear’s dimpled grin and Bella’s furrowed brow making us laugh. It fills me with peace–seeing them this way.

    As hard as it is for me to let my little arrows fly, it is a necessary joy, and I love where they are going!

    Fly strong and straight and true, little arrows, fly high!

    “Education is not filling a pail but the lighting of a fire.” (~William Butler Yeats)

    ,

  • The Boy He Is… The Man He is Becoming

    He sighs deeply on the couch next to me, and I reach over to ruffle his hair ever wondering how long before he won’t allow me to keep doing this gesture of love.

    This is not how he wanted to end his summer. This is not how I wanted summer to end for him, for us.

    Two and a half weeks ago he started with a high fever, then swollen glands and a rash, and then the diagnosis:

    Mono.

    What? He’s only ten. Isn’t that for high schoolers and college students?

    He has borne this struggle well, and I am proud of him. We have changed plans numerous times and canceled hang out times with friends. He’s endured doctor’s visits and bloodwork and has courageously faced whatever he needed to do. He’s missed a lot these past few weeks, giving up much of our summer fun to sleep 16 hours a day, and though disappointment was always evident in his features, he has taken deep breaths and accepted his lot.

    Then it happens.

    He sits next to me on the porch swing and says softly, “It makes me realize how it must have been for you, Mom.”

    I look at him, a bit taken aback, “What do you mean?”

    “Being sick. Not going places. Having to say, ‘no’ all the time. It must have been really hard for you.” He leans his head against my shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, “I’m sorry it’s all just been so hard for you. I’m sorry I didn’t understand.” I wipe at the tears now streaming down my face.

    I can feel his grin. “You’re crying again, aren’t you?” So I punch his arm playfully, and we laugh together until he says gently, “It’s okay. I don’t mind if you cry. I’m used to it.”

    Oh, that boy!

    We’ve had a lot of conversations these past few weeks as we’ve been home together, just the two of us. He isn’t afraid to ask questions, and I’ve shared story after story with him about life. He laughs and puzzles and at one point he shook his head, “People are really hard to understand sometimes, aren’t they, Mom?”

    Ha. That’s the understatement of the century, isn’t it? But by just acknowledging the question, he’s opened up another door to the language of grace–learning that people aren’t always like us, nor do they have to be.

    I have seen how much of the boy is still in him. He’s needed me to be with him, to snuggle him, to squeeze his hand and encourage him when the needle sticks were deep, to care for him and help him feel better.

    But I’ve seen that there is man in there, too. The man he is growing into… thoughtful, kind, and secure with a heart of gold.

    He amazes me–the strength of his will yet the gentleness of his heart.

    I look at him.

    And I see him.

    Boy and man… and I am overjoyed with what I see.

    Thank you, Lord, for my Buddy, the first of our three miracles. Thank you for long conversations and porch swings flying high. Thank you for patience under trial and for learning the language of grace together. Thank you for healing and for growth (for both of us). And thank you for the boy he is… and the man he is becoming.

  • A Sort of Quietness

    At the darkest moment in the first tale of Narnia, when Aslan’s tortured and humiliated body lies stone dead on the Stone Table, Lewis tells us what Susan and Lucy are feeling:

    I hope no one who reads this book has been quite as miserable as Susan and Lucy were that night; but if you have been—if you’ve been up all night and cried till you have no more tears left in you—you will know that there comes in the end a sort of quietness. You feel as if nothing was ever going to happen again.

    Obviously, only one whose misery had taken him to this devastated “quietness” could write these sentences. Lewis had known such misery as a child, and he knew it again as a middle-aged man. Yet it was quiet directly out of this misery that a story for children came—at first a bumbling story, flat and uninspired, but one that Lewis could not ignore. As he wrote when all the Narnia stories were done, it was only when the great lion Aslan “Came bounding into it” that he stopped bumbling and the whole story began to move in its proper course. “He pulled the whole story together, and soon He pulled the six other Narnian stories in after Him.” And into Narnia he also pulled Lewis, and us.

    (from The Narnian, The Life and Imagination of C.S. Lewis by Alan Jacobs)

    Isn’t this how it is?

    When darkness surrounds me, some days it might even feel as if it defines me (although it doesn’t really), there is misery and desperation.

    And yet, when Aslan bounds into it?

    My world becomes light again. (The light never was gone, I just was blinded by darkness.)

    The darkness doesn’t go away, but the light shines in it, through it, and my way becomes clear and quiet, and I begin moving in my proper course rather than stumbling and tripping or just standing still.

    It is easy for me to let the darkness paralyze me, to let anxiety wreak its havoc on my soul and to lose all sense of direction, purpose… really, all sense of joy in this life.

    But when my eyes are on Christ and not on my circumstances, my worldview is very different—my life view is very different—my daily view is very different. And the journey becomes joyful.

    The joy is not because the struggle has lessened. The joy is because my focus isn’t on the journey; it’s on the reason for the journey.

    And oh, the blessings He gives me along the way—my family and friends and home and work and health (and so much more)–they are all pieces of the joy He brings, and only He has pulled my life together.

    Even if my family is having a hard day or my friends are distant or my home is chaos or my work is drudgery or my health is struggling, it doesn’t change the fact that they are blessings. Each day is a gift. How will I choose to see it? How will I choose to see Him?

    Will I view life as boring and flat and uninspired? Even if life is hard, even if pain sucks everything from me, even if doubt plagues and fear makes it hard to be happy.

    In all of this, He is there, and His presence brings a sort of quietness.

    Christ bounded into my life years ago, and I am pulled in the direction of hope and hope brings joy. Some days that joy is bursting and exuberant and others it is just there, a stillness in the midst of chaos.

    But it is joy.

    And joy brings life.

    But of Zion it shall be said, “This one and that one were born in her”; and the Most High Himself will establish her. The LORD will count when He registers the peoples, “This one was born there.” Selah.
    Then those who sing as well as those who play the flutes shall say,
    “All my springs of joy are in You.”
    (Psalm 87:5-7)

  • Another Year

    (A re-post, because this is the story of our life, and the only change is the love grows deeper.)

    New beginning.
    “We’ll name her Angela.”

    New steps.
    “Wake up, sweetie. It’s your first day of school!”

    New freedom.
    “I passed my driver exam.”

    New heartbreak.
    “He broke up with me!”

    New growth.
    “Congratulations on your acceptance to JMU.”

    New friend.
    “Hi. I’m Brian.”

    New relationship.
    “A picnic together?”

    New love.
    “Will you marry me?”

    New journey.
    “I do.”

    New life.
    “The EPT is positive.”

    New grief.
    “I’m sorry, we couldn’t find the heartbeat.”

    New heartbeat.
    “It’s a boy!”

    New addition.
    “It’s another boy!”

    New joy.
    “It’s a girl!”

    New fear.
    “There’s no easy way to tell you this…”

    New relief.
    “Looks like the cancer is gone.”

    New normal.
    “We’ll figure this out. Together.”

    Never failing.
    “I love you.”

    New year.
    Happy anniversary to my faithful love. My one and only. My only one!

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  • Strong Muscles & Dimpled Grins

    “Hey, Bear,” I whisper softly, rubbing his back, “Time to get up, buddy.” (I feel like one of those moms on the P & G Olympics commercials.)

    He sighs deeply and opens one eye, “That feels good.” he mumbles as I massage his shoulders and work out a few kinks in his muscles.

    “You ready for another day of gymnastics?”

    His grin does me in, “Mmmm hmmmm,” he nods, afraid to move because then I’ll stop rubbing his sore muscles.

    He has been at a gymnastics camp all week. Nine to four-thirty. Every day.

    He loves it; in fact, he told me he doesn’t want to play football this fall. He wants to keep taking gymnastics classes instead.

    Whenever I arrive to pick him up, he is smiling and flipping and jumping and doing sit-ups and walking across the balance beam like a champ. His little compact body is getting stronger, and every morning he shows off his muscles to me, and his dimpled grin makes me all marshmallowy inside (is marshmallowy even a word?).

    “He has no fear,” his instructor told me yesterday, “He just tries everything, falls and gets back up again. His talent for this is natural. He listens well and does exactly what we say, and he’s good. He’s really good.”

    He has turned our den into a workout room where he practices tripods and headstands and cartwheels and bridges.

    I know I write often about the sadness of my children growing up, but this… this is the beauty of them growing up. They are learning who they are and where they are gifted. They are trying new things, learning to fail and succeed. They are choosing where they want to go and what they want to do.

    And when I watch Bear jump, point his toes and touch them with outstretched arms in mid-air with amazing form (yes, I know I’m a prejudiced mom) for only three days’ practice, my heart wants to burst with pride.

    Yes, my heart is sad each morning as he rides off with his daddy. There is a lump in my throat as I watch his little hand signing, “I love you,” out the window until I can see him no more, but… (I love the word, but; because, so often when I write it, I know the next sentence will hold joy.)

    But he is happy.

    He is learning valuable lessons.

    He is growing into who he will become.

    He is a little boy doing what he loves to do in a way that I believe makes God smile.

    And while it is my job to instill in him love and truth, while I train him in life and work to create a sense of safety for him here, while we work hard to not allow extra-curricular activities rule his life or our home, while we work to woo his heart to Jesus, to put family first and teach balance in all things, we also let go and let him learn and grow and be who he is, who God created him to be.

    Whether he pursues gymnastics beyond this week, or whether he plays football, or whether he becomes an artist (another gift he has), or whether he turns out to be a Lego Set Designer and a Pastor (his former choices for future jobs), or whether he has his own cooking show on the Food Network with all foods he’s cultivated in his yard (his current job choice for the future)… whatever he does, he will be decidedly BEAR.

    And that fills this mama’s heart with joy, peace and contentment–gifts from our Father Who is the source of all those things.

    Thank you, Lord, for sock feet jumping on mats, for strong muscles and dimpled grins. Thank you for yummy foods and future dreams. Thank you for days of growth and learning. Thank You that no matter who he becomes, he isn’t afraid to be who he is. Thank you for this gift. Thank you for my Bear.

    (I don’t have any gymnastics pics yet, so his “Food Network” shot of supper he made will have to suffice. Yes, he made deviled eggs. Yes, he is shirtless under his dad’s apron. Oh, how I love that boy!)