A Spring of Joy

Glimpses of our world…

  • This Good Hurt

    “Actually, I do want to come with you,” she looked at me with hesitant eyes, hoping I wouldn’t say it was too late as I grabbed my keys and purse and started to follow Bear out the door.

    I paused, took one look at those eyes and swallowed my frustration with her last minute change of mind. “Go,” I smiled, “You have three minutes to throw on clothes.”

    She ran from the room, grabbed her yellow dress and flip flops tore back downstairs, hair band in hand. “Will you pull it into a high ponytail?” She turned her back to me showing her mass of tousled curls.

    After a quick hairstyling, we jumped in the van and dropped Bear off at his gymnastics camp he’s attending this week. Her hand slipped easily into mine as we walked out of the gym and back to the van. “I love going shopping with you, Mommy.”

    I squeezed that hand as tears squeezed from my eyes. My shopping days with my little buddy are lessening. She will start school next week, and those grocery trips will be lonely for me, very lonely.

    We grabbed a cart and she held my phone ready to check off each item on the list. She is so tall now, reaching things on shelves that were too high for her just months ago. She skipped and chattered as we moved through the store, then shivered as we entered the dairy section. “Mommy, make sure you don’t forget the almond milk for our smoothies. Mommy, is that organic milk? Mommy, look! They have strawberry yogurt!” I saw her rubbing her arms and handed her my fleece which she pulled over her head and grinned, looking down at her “fleece dress” whose arms almost touched the floor.

    Then she danced down the aisles with arms dangling, singing VBS songs and laughing. Every head turned as she went by and every face lit up.

    She does that to people. Just makes them smile. This gift of a girl.

    At the check out, she chatted with the elderly man behind us in line and told him his cat food smelled which made him laugh loudly and remark about the honesty of children.

    She grabbed bags to put in the cart and sang a counting song and the cashier next to us stopped what she was doing to watch and comment on her joy.

    Later that day, I heard her calling in through the bathroom door to Bear who was soaking some sore muscles from falling off the bar and doing bridges and headstands all day.

    “I really wish we were still young enough to play in the bathtub together.” she called to him, “I really just want to be with you, because I missed you.” She looked over at me while I folded clothes on my bed, “Mommy, I don’t like getting older and growing up. I just want to stay small and be with you and my brudders.”

    Yes.

    This growing up thing is hard. Some days I think I’m still growing up, too, and as beautiful as it is, it’s painful, too.

    I will miss her. I will miss my boys. The ache in my chest and the lump in my throat is a constant these days when I think about the school year and the lonely days while they are at school.

    But that ache in my chest and lump in my throat?

    They are beautiful things. And this watching them grow and this letting them go, they are a good kind of hurt, because they are a great kind of love.

    She is here with me now, next to me on the couch as I type, coloring pictures and singing, “I wanna celebrate and live my life, singing ay-oh…”

    I look at her, and it takes my breath away.

    This gift.

    Her life.

    This good ache.

    This great love.


    Thank you, Lord, for shopping days and coloring books, for folded clothes and gymnastics class, for dancing feet and VBS songs, for life and celebrations. I am blessed beyond measure. Every day.

  • The Day It All Began

    All the way my Savior leads me,
    Cheers each winding path I tread;
    Gives me grace for every trial,
    Feeds me with the living Bread.
    Though my weary steps may falter,
    And my soul athirst may be,
    Gushing from the Rock before me,
    Lo! A spring of joy I see;
    Gushing from the Rock before me,
    Lo! A spring of joy I see.

    It began with a phone call.

    “Can you come in at 12:45 to see the doctor? He would like to discuss your biopsy results.”

    I knew, but I didn’t want to know.

    The look in his eyes while he told us was chilling, me sitting on the edge of the large wingback chairs in his office, clinging to Brian’s hand with a ferocity I didn’t know I had.

    The tender smile. The encouragement. The card he handed us with his phone number telling us to call him anytime, day or night. The numbness that crept in. Breast cancer.

    Really? I’m too young for this. This has to be a mistake.

    “Well, perhaps you’ll find some small encouragement in this? If you have to have chemo, at least you’re a fox and will look great bald.”

    It did not encourage me. I didn’t tell him. I smiled and even laughed a bit through building tears, knowing that nothing would make me feel okay about being bald.

    I stood in the parking lot in Brian’s arms. I, who hate to have all eyes on me, sobbed and made a scene and didn’t care who saw.

    We called my mom who was watching our children, my dad at work, Bri’s parents, our closest friends.

    It was the day we drove to the surgeon’s and heard diagnoses and future steps explained, but I didn’t really hear any of it. We made appointments that would change my life and mar my body in ways that would leave marks of brutality for me to see every day for the rest of my life and wonder if my heart would ever heal, if I would ever feel beautiful again.

    We walked out that door and saw Joe, our dear friend and pastor, sitting on our car. He came to us in our need, not caring about what mattered to him that day, because we were what mattered. Then the people next to us couldn’t get their car started, and Bri and Joe helped them, Bri worked on their car and Joe helped them determine what to do next. It was a gift from God pulling us out of ourselves to see others even in our pain.

    The questions.

    We came home and looked at our 1, 3 and 5 year old children and wondered why this for them? How would we do this? How would we care for such small ones? How would they survive? WOULD we survive?

    It was the day we tried to shield them from a topsy-turvy world knowing it would all eventually crash in on them. The day of nausea and horror and fear that washed over in waves indescribable.

    There was the quiet of the house, then the busyness of the house as friends made their way to be by our sides. The box of Kleenex I went through in one day.

    The sleepless night. The questions. The fear, yet the peace. I slept with my Bible that night, the first of many. It was the day of nightmares. The day of questions and confusion. The day this part of our journey began.

    A phone call began it.

    But worship ended it, as I sang truth with my husband that night before bed.

    It was the day I learned not to take anything for granted and to live every moment.

    August 10th is the day I will never forget.

    But as crazy as it seems…

    August 10th is a day for which I am truly grateful.

    Has it really been five years since that day?

    LORD, you have assigned me my portion and my cup;
    you have made my lot secure.
    (Psalm 16:5)
    fight-photo.jpg

  • Godlight in the Woods of Our Experience

    It was one of those days yesterday.

    It was a good day–time alone with Bella-Boo while the boys were at a morning camp, some Olympics watching, laundering and cleaning up, playdates for the kids in the afternoon, Wii and Football playing, a little porch sitting with one of “my dear youth group girls” who’s all grown up and a teacher now, sharing hearts, hanging with another friend and laughing over my goof-ups (oh, my friends, I mess up so much!), yummy supper celebrating 3 years in our home, early bedtimes and falling asleep on the couch with Bri.

    But in the midst of it all, there was such a sadness–re-reading an update from my friend, Kim, who is fighting for her life against this terrible cancer monster, aching over all that my friend, Monica, continues to walk through (it’s unbelievable), phone call from a friend who “may have found something” and is going to the doctor and knew I would know how to pray for her, and then..

    Then my mom called, a sadness to her voice, with the news that my second cousin had died. He was younger than me and it was unexpected. And while I didn’t know him well, we would hang out at the occasional family reunion, he’d been in my home for a few meals, he’d called to check on me during my cancer battles, he was family. My family.

    This juxtaposition of grief and joy continues. This is something I am still learning to accept. You’d think I’d “get it” after all we’ve been through, but I am still surprised by the intensity of the pain.

    But then…

    This morning we’ve been snuggling, my little girl and me. Just us. Being together. And tomorrow, if God wills, we’ll go get pedicures. We will have friends over again this afternoon, and one of my heart friends and I will spend time in the kitchen together preparing food for our families and catching up and sharing life while our children play together. Bri & the kids and I will read Prince Caspian together and harvest our garden and watch some more Olympics and just be a family tonight.

    And as I walk through the sadness that can weigh me down, I am surprised by the intensity of the healing God brings, too.

    Some days they are harder to see, but even in the midst of pain, life is still full of beautiful moments.

    One must learn to walk before one can run. So here. We–or at least I–shall not be able to adore God on the highest occasions if we have learned no habit of doing so on the lowest… Any patch of sunlight in a wood will show you something about the sun which you could never get from reading books on astronomy. These pure and spontaneous pleasures are “patches of Godlight” in the woods of our experience.
    (from Letters to Malcolm by C.S. Lewis)

  • You People are Lovely

    Ever since my last post, I have read the comments you left (either here on on Facebook) every single day. And I sit here and cry over the truth you speak to me when my heart is overcome with the struggle of this world.

    Everything went very well at my appt. I am very impressed with the genetics department at UVA, and we couldn’t have asked for a better team to be working with and for us. They took several vials of blood and sent some off to a separate lab to test me for the Li Fraumeni syndrome. It will be 4-6 weeks before we know results.

    Would you pray for my heart? Fear likes to snake its nasty tendrils into my heart and mind. I long to wait on God and not agonize over possible results.

    They also kept some of the blood to store at UVA, so if this test comes back negative (which we are hoping for) they can use what they have stored to test me for a couple other syndromes they are considering.

    I am always blown away by the support y’all give and show (And I’m still trying to figure out my new blog format and how to respond to all your comments… but trust me, I am blessed by them all).

    This past week found me:
    –sitting with friends who prayed over and cried with me and sang with me one morning…
    –reading emails and words of encouragement…
    –helping with worship at VBS and encouraging children that our God is a God we can trust, words God knew I needed to say to my own heart as well…
    –hearing from those of you who take the time out of your lives to hear my story and speak words I need (and long) to hear…
    –driving over to UVA with my sweet friend, Caitlin, who helped me laugh and live and not be anxious…
    –telling friends “I’ll be okay, but thank you,” for offering to stay with me while Brian was out of town a few days…
    –entrusting my children once again to my mom who helps us tirelessly, and loves them no matter what.

    You people are lovely.

    And you bless me so.

    And in blessing me, you bless my family.

    We are constantly amazed.

    Thank you.

  • Bad Genes?

    As the day of my genetic testing draws closer, I find the emotional battle against fear exhausting.

    Tomorrow.

    Tomorrow they will take vials of blood and send them to a lab to determine whether or not my cancers are genetic… whether or not I will have to test my children… whether or not brain and stomach cancers and bone sarcomas are a likely part of my future.

    And the battle rages. Fear ravages and Satan seeks to tear down and destroy joy.

    It is overwhelming to think about what could be, so I desperately try to pack every moment full of life so we don’t lose time that I might not have, and it becomes a frantic pace that can steal joy, rather than a resting in the joy of the Lord.

    Ultimately, all this fear, it’s about loss of control, because I am under the illusion that I have some control to begin with. I want to feel in control of something in my life, because I am getting ready to go find out if I have mutant genes in my body. They will tell me what this means for my life, my children, my future.

    And so I wake in the night, when the darkness seems so oppressive, and the whispered prayers fly furiously.

    Frenetic.

    Drunken. Like Hannah’s prayer in the temple. Pouring out all bitterness of soul before the Lord.

    And I am begging God for mercy for us, for Brian, for our children. But not just for us. For others… stage four cancer in the life of a friend… hurting hearts from painful broken relationships… tragedies striking leaving friends reeling in agony… Every day I hear something new. This doesn’t even touch the ones i am already aching with and for and begging for healing and strength and protection.

    Oh, for all of us. I pray.

    Mostly I pray to see Him, because this fallen world seems more fallen these days.

    I sing to Bella-girl at bedtime as I’m tucking her in.

    She is just sad and scared these days. We all are.

    But I remind her God is watching us… the angel of the Lord encamps round those who fear His name, to save them and deliver them from harm. Though lions roar with hunger, we lack for no good thing… We picture it together. A whole host of angels watching over us. And I sing…At all times I will bless Him, His praise will be in my mouth. My soul makes it boast in the Lord…”

    Even if I learn in the weeks ahead that I have “bad genes” or that my children have inherited those “bad genes”… I remember, we all have bad genes from Adam. This is life in a fallen world.

    This is what we do. When it all feels hard and hopeless and out of control.

    We acknowledge that it is hard, that we are not in control, and that there is hope… there is always hope.

    The Gospel doesn’t stop being true when life is hard.

    So I seek to trust.

    I seek to dwell on what is rather than on what might be.

    And I remember His faithfulness.

    This is my dwelling place… my abiding place… my resting place…my refuge.

    (I will be at UVA tomorrow–Thursday–for the afternoon for testing. It will be several weeks before we know results. Would you praise God with me that we learned the test will be covered 100% by insurance?! Would you pray for our hearts while we wait for results… that our waiting would not be on results, but on God?)

  • Welcoming Summer

    Yesterday I dropped Bella off at dance camp and came home to work. My list was long… dirty floors to sweep, kitchen messes to clean, a couple projects I wanted to finish, and a couple a wanted to start. We picked some more black raspberries (they just. keep. coming.) in stifling heat and put away clean dishes from yesterday. I blinked, and it was time to go get Bella, so I picked her up and we came home to lunch and a short movie together.

    By then I had forgotten all about my to-do list. After all, it was hot, and there were sponge bombs to make. So we made them (with some help from Bri who was home after a weird bug that hit him the night before), and the two littles ran outside to cool off on this hot day.

    I found my Ash upstairs on his top bunk, devouring Walter Farley’s Son of the Black Stallion and cooling off under the breeze of his ceiling fan. “In a few minutes,” I told him in my best conspirator’s whisper, “I’m heading outside to grab a sponge bomb, and then… well… you know.”

    I love his half grin.

    He sat up, dropped his book, bolted from his bunk and yelled, “All out waaaaaar!”

    We played, y’all. Oh, how we played.

    We were G.I. Joes. Ash was Snake Eyes, Bear was Duke, and Bella was Scarlett. I didn’t know who anyone was, so they dubbed me Lady Jaye, the covert operations specialist, and we grabbed water guns and sponge bombs and spent the afternoon in the yard doing our “training exercises”. We drenched each other and chased each other and wrestled each other and exhausted ourselves together.

    There were a few minor injuries.

    But mostly, there were sneak attacks…


    And a few full-on confrontations.

    While we played, the music blared from our outside speakers. “Oh, this is gotta be the good life, this has gotta be the good life…” How apropos.

    Then we rested on the front porch swing with Freezie Pops and watched a storm in the distance make its way toward us and eventually shower us with it’s life-giving refreshment. Isn’t it so good of God to send us rain to water our garden each day?


    We played some Wii and read some books and Bella ran errands with her daddy while I worked on supper.

    Supper.

    Oh, yes.

    We welcomed the first full day of summer with Grilled Ribeye in a Blue Cheese & Onion Sauce. Yes. It was scrumptious. (You may all wipe the drool from your mouths now.)

    And we made fresh ice cream from our black raspberries picked that morning.


    Then we played some more… Power Yahtzee on the floor of the den. Together. Just laughing and playing until it was dark outside and the crickets were chirping, and the children (well, 2 of them) fell asleep as soon as their heads hit the pillow.

    Not much of my to-do list got done yesterday. But I don’t mind. My children won’t remember when I hung new curtains or shopped for a new picture frame or if I vacuumed on a Friday instead of a Thursday.

    But they will remember this day.

    They will remember that the hard work of picking berries in humidity that makes it almost impossible to breathe pays off with delectable bites of homemade organic ice cream.

    They will remember that work is good and necessary, but so is play.

    They will remember that when you put aside the bickering and nit-picking to just enjoy each other, your relationships bind closer and the love grows deeper.

    They will learn that life is short and the to-do lists are long.

    But they will also learn that some things are too valuable to not do.

    ,

  • No Pit So Deep

    I sing inside nearly all day long and we do have so much to be thankful for–an airy cell through which the sea wind blows, no more poverty since Attie’s parcel arrived with its good food, three Red Cross sandwiches, half a pan of porridge extra, and then that continuous communion with the Savior… I am continuously looking at Him and trying not to be impatient. I won’t be here one minute longer than God deems necessary. Pray for me that I can wait for His timing… Life’s dimensions here are very strange. Time is something to be waded through. I am surprised that I can adjust so well. To some things I shall never get accustomed, but on the whole I am really happy. Please never worry about me. Sometimes it may be dark, but the Saviour provides His light and how wonderful that is…” (~Corrie ten Boom, Prison Letters)

    She wrote these lines from a prison cell in Germany. Her father and sister would go on to die in concentration camps. She would survive, but marred by the horrors of Scheveningen and Vught and others.

    I have much to learn from the lives of other saints. So very much. I, who wrestle with God over days that don’t go my way, need the example of others to remind me of what true joy is.

    Gratefulness in the every day isn’t being grateful for gratitude’s sake. Gratefulness in the every day isn’t being grateful so I will feel better. Gratefulness in the every day isn’t being grateful in order to fill up pages in a journal.

    Gratefulness in the every day is an overflow, a pouring out of delight in Christ, the beauty of the Gospel and communion with Him, because all of this…this every day life? It’s full meaning is only understood when I view it through the lens of the Gospel, when I understand who I am and Whose I am. When I am grateful for Him is when I can be grateful for all things.

    This fallen world is not my home, and too often I find my contentment hinges on the here, the now. I long for my contentment to be because of communion with our Savior and continuously looking to Him, for when I see Him, then the prison cells of my life can be a airy place with a beautiful sea breeze blowing through.

    Corrie ten Boom wasn’t just “making the best of her situation”. She was leaning on the everlasting arms. Those arms stretched out to bear her sins on the Cross, they covered her with His righteousness, and they held her in that prison cell just as they did all of her life.

    In the introduction to her letters, Corrie describes her arrest and imprisonment, and writes, “We did not know what was ahead of us, but I was certain of one thing–that Jesus would never leave us nor forsake us and that, for a child of God, no pit could be so deep, that Jesus is not deeper still.”

    As I struggle with uncertainty in my life and in the life of so many wounded friends, this is what I cling to. He has numbered my days, and He knows them all. Tests results don’t shake Him. Disease doesn’t scare Him. Disaster doesn’t change Him. And as I look to Him and stand on that solid Rock, then I am unshaken, too.

    Yes, some days are dark. Some are very dark.

    But He always, ALWAYS brings light.

  • This Beautiful Life

    In the quiet hours of the morning, as the sun has just peaked over the mountains visible from our yard, she comes creeping in shivering. She snuggles down into a little spot between us, often pushing Brian away because we sleep so close together. She burrows in and rubs my back and asks to draw pictures on my back while I guess her artwork. I guess one or two, and she giggles quietly when I think a lion is a flower.

    I kiss her forehead and tell her I’m going downstairs for my quiet time. “Okay,” she snuggles into Bri, “I’ll join you in a minute.”

    I heat up the Keurig and find my coffee in the cupboard. It’s decaf now. Ever since my osteoporosis diagnosis I avoid my morning caffeine. I don’t mind really. It was never about the caffeine for me. I love the taste and the warmth and the comfort of curling up with my coffee and Bible and journals.

    I need this. Even during those times when I think I don’t want it. I need to begin my day with something true.

    So often I have convinced myself that the very thing I need the most is the very thing I can do without. The first thing to back burner if I have something else come up.

    Satan’s barrage has been fierce lately. As I feel stronger and healthier physically (praise God!), the spiritual and emotional attacks intensify. The storm of fiery darts aimed at my heart become furious.

    I need to steep my morning in truth.

    As I wait for my genetic testing appointment. As I struggle with lingering pain that will never go away. As I learn our new normal. As I fight to live life not obsessing over every new pain… it is hard. I was doing well last year. Gaining strength. Enjoying summer. Then it hit. Colon cancer. Really?

    It is hard to not ask every day when it’s going to hit again.

    I enjoy my days. We are having a fabulous summer. But every day is a battle to fully enjoy… to not live life waiting for the other shoe to drop, and that, my friends, is no way to live.

    Then he says it. My Bri. Sitting by our fire pit on a chilly night this week, we have been talking for two hours. Just us. Watching the blaze dance and jump, he breathes in deep and sighs a peaceful sigh and says quietly, “I love our life.”

    He lists them. Blessing after blessing after blessing. He is a man of contentment.

    He unfurls all the beauty around us. Beside us. In us.

    And I am struck with how wonderful perspective is. My cancers. They changed us. Life is harder, yes, but life is much more beautiful.

    He has ended my day in truth. Truth I need to hear and know and believe.

    It is my turn to speak. Whispering as if we are sitting on hallowed ground. “Thank you.”

    And I recall that very morning, as I held my steaming mug and soaked in the Gospel of John, she came into the room holding her little blue Bible, highlighter in hand. “Mommy? Will you help me find verses to highlight in the Bible.”

    Yes.

    I love our life, too.

  • Summer’s Bounty

    “The blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice.” (~Old Proverb)

    I promise I didn’t cut my hand. Although I did ruin my manicure. I’ve washed my hands numerous times, and I still have a purple outline around my nails. Perhaps I could start a new trend?

    We picked 4 cups of black raspberries yesterday from our yard. Then we posed for cheesy photos with stained fingers and bare feet and red lips smeared with juice.


    This morning, she crushed some to a pulp.


    I don’t know if you can see, but that is Sally and Finn McMissile in the background. They kept us safe while we worked.

    Then we simmered the berries with a bit of sugar and water. Just a bit. (And that crockpot you see? That’s full of applesauce. Warm applesauce with a hint of pumpkin pie spice is so delish. I can’t wait until we’re using apples from our trees.)


    We strained them and made syrup. (Oh, look at all that delicious coffee in the background. I do love my coffee. Coffee will go well with the black raspberry muffins I’ll make this afternoon.)

    Tonight we will sit with dear friends. We will squeeze fresh lime slices into a glass filled with ice. Then we’ll add some fresh black raspberry syrup and sparkling water, and we will share in God’s goodness together.

    Oh,how i love the summer!

    “This special feeling toward fruit — its glory and abundance — is, I would say, universal. We respond to strawberry fields or cherry orchards with a delight that a cabbage patch or even an elegant vegetable garden cannot provoke.” ~ Jane Grigson

  • Our Game

    “You know we just don’t recognize the most significant moments of our lives while they’re happening.
    Back then I thought, well, there’ll be other days.
    I didn’t realize that that was the only day.”
    (~from Field of Dreams)







    “I see great things in baseball. It’s our game – the American game. It will take our people out-of-doors, fill them with oxygen, give them a larger physical stoicism.
    Tend to relieve us from being a nervous, dyspeptic set.
    Repair these losses, and be a blessing to us.”
    (~Walt Whitman)