A Spring of Joy

My wedding was full of lilies: stargazers and calla lilies. I carried them in my bouquet. They surrounded Brian and me at the altar. Resplendent glory wrapped around us as we bowed our bodies and knelt before God and a couple hundred witnesses. Brian prayed quietly for us and our marriage while Bri’s sister sang over us for God to take our lives as keeper of our souls, and we offered ourselves to God.

Lilies are one of the most beautiful flowers.

It’s no wonder Jesus said how Solomon in all of his kingly finery was not arrayed like a lily.

I have read these verses in Matthew more times than I can count.

“…Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

I’ve always considered how this verse speaks to God’s love for grass and flowers which are like a vapor. He has given the flowers a lavish beauty. Will He not care for me and my needs as His child? Lavish and eternal beauty await me. How glorious!

But today when I read that verse, I really considered it.

How lilies grow.

They spend more time buried underneath the ground in dark coolness than they do sprouting up and shining forth.

They spend most of their life waiting.

Waiting.

Waiting.

The Lord sends what they need when they need it, and they wait for Him to send it. Then they sprout and they grow and they are breathtaking when they bloom. And then it is time for them to die, but they never really die, they just lose their plumage. Their shoots and flowers die, but their bulb lives underground.

Whenever I thought about that verse, I’ve always pictured the splendor of the flower, the beauty of the lily.

But in order for the lily to be beautiful, it must share dark earth with worms. The bulb is where the nutrients are and they are either producing flowers or storing up nutrients from the earth around them so they can produce flowers the next season. In order to bloom, they must store up food… and in order to grow they need the light.

How like my heart!

I want the beautiful array of lilies to shine all the time. But the reality is, I need the periods of waiting or hiding. I need the darkness so I will hunger for the light.

And I am learning over and over and over again that this darkness, this waiting is a gift.

So like the lilies, I wait.

I wait and store up nutrients from the Word, seeking His Kingdom first.

I wait and I know that when He is ready, He will work in ways I never would have imagined.

And the results will be breathtaking.

Because the results will be all about Him.

And for me, unlike the lilies, it will be eternal.

Yes.

Consider the lilies… how they grow.

I like that.

Bella-girl knocks secret codes to me through her wall.

Our beds touch the same wall, and last night as she climbed in bed, she knocked her “I love you” to me, and I knocked back. We knocked until she fell asleep, and every now and then I heard a stifled giggle echo down the hallway to my door.

Today is my fifth day of sequestering. They extended it two days after my scan because there was enough residual radioactive material in my body that they wanted me to stay away from the kiddos through the weekend. It broke my heart. It broke their’s more. But the beautiful weather allowed for us all to be together outside yesterday and we worked and raked and talked, all the while they kept their “safe” distance from mommy.

Does anyone else find that weird? That I am “dangerous” to my children? (*insert heavy sigh here*)

I guess it just shows how fallen this world is. This is not how God created it to be.

And as I ponder the brokenness of our world, of my life, there are so many glimpses of His glory through it all. Moments where I smile quietly and breath a whispered, “Yes, God. This is you. Thank you.”

May I share a few with you?

The injections were practically painless. If you know anything about my fear of needles, then you know that is a miracle in and of itself.

The side effects from the injections were rough for a couple days, but by Thursday, I felt “normal” from those again.

While I had to deal with minor frustrations and almost went into an anxiety attack in the blood lab over my blood work, God worked out every detail there and all went well. (That’s huge for me, because I have horrible experiences with this particular hospital’s blood lab every time I go there.)

My children, while obviously having a hard time with this, seem to be handling our separation well. I love how they come sit at my door and chat with me, and Asher and I especially have had some long conversations about life and books and what he wants to do and be in life. I’m still refusing to blink, because he is becoming such a man.

Because we chose this injection route for the test, I am feeling much better than I do when I go the depletion route. That is a blessing and a curse, because I want to be out and about around my home doing things, not holing myself up in this room. My mom would come sit with me and talk which is always nice, and I’ve had many moments of just sitting and talking with Daddy and sharing our hearts. At night when the kids are in bed, I come downstairs and sit with Bri and my parents. This loneliness of not being able to be with the children is hard. Very, very hard.

On a brighter note, I cleaned my closet.

We are blessed again with meals. Dear Sarah set them up for me, and I am always amazed at how little time it takes for those slots fill up, and once again it was the boys’ school that filled it so quickly. We are so very, very blessed.

Glimpse after glimpse after glimpse of Him.

Sometimes it’s more than glimpses, it’s full-on “shout it out Hallelujahs”. Moments that make me want to dance and sing and cry and laugh all at the same time (which I usually end up doing).

May I share a few with you?

My friend, Kim, made it through surgery and while recovery is hard and painful, she is doing well. But I also know she faces a battle in every sense of the word.

Sweet Danica is walking! Her brain surgery is nothing short of miraculous, and her fusion is healing nicely. But there is so far to go, and my friends also face a battle in every sense of the word.

Another friend received all ALL CLEAR on her scan because they saw a spot on her chest and were concerned about recurrence for her breast cancer. But it was scar tissue. Not cancer. Those are huge words.

I received news this week that my exam last week showed no breast cancer recurrence. NONE. The further I get from my breast cancer, the more I wonder if the news will impact me any less, but y’all, having tasted the bitter gall of cancer’s drink, I can assure you, it is no less miraculous to me today to hear ALL CLEAR than it was 3 years ago.

What I’ve realized though, along the way, is that whether it’s one of those glimpses or whether it’s full-on “shout it out Hallelujahs”, they both beautifully reveal God for Who He is and neither is better than the other.

These small glimpses and great Hallelujahs.

Aren’t they one and the same? These small glimpses are worthy of a great Hallelujah, because they show HIM. Sometimes it’s a whisper and sometimes it’s a scream, but they all say the same, “How great is our God!”

And isn’t that what I want in my life? To show Him? To see Him? In everything.

When I read back over this, it seems a bit jumpy and disjointed, kind of stream of consciousness flowing through my fingertips. But I’m okay with that, because it’s where I am. Seeing Him, but feeling very disjointed and tired and weak in it all.

I am praying you can see Him, too, whoever you are reading this… that He will use me in my weakness to show glimpses of Himself and great Hallelujahs for Who He is.

(We will hear early this coming week on the outcome of my thyroid scan. Please keep praying for an ALL CLEAR. Thank you. I truly am humbled by your love for my family and me.

“Remember, it requires eleven tons of pressure on a piano’s strings for it to be tuned. And God will tune you to perfect harmony with heaven’s theme if you will withstand the strain.
‘Things that hurt and things that mar
Shape the man for perfect praise…’”
(~from Streams in the Desert by L. B. Cowman

It seems as if everywhere I turn I see the pressure. Tons of it pressing down on the lives of my friends and family, on myself.

I ache.

It hurts.

And I know they hurt, too.

Tomorrow I go for my first injection. The beginning of a week of pain, nausea, fatigue and unknown. Of being sequestered from my children. Of waiting to know if cancer has returned.

Tomorrow my friend, Kim, goes in for surgery for her breast cancer. Cancer that has metastasized to her liver. I well remember those first few frantic messages back and forth 10 months ago when she learned of it.

Tomorrow friends will take small steps of learning what life looks like without their son, their brother, gone this past week.

Tomorrow my friends, Monica & Dan, return to Cincinnatti with Danica for scans and answers with the hope that their little one will be healed enough to move from a brace to a collar.

Tomorrow my friends will be one day closer to the one-year birthday of their beautiful baby girl. A birthday she will never reach.

Tomorrow my grandfather will lie alone in the bed of a nursing home. He has fallen twice in the past couple months, and they have recently had to admit him to a nursing home and away from Nanny. (I have tried to get up to see him, but every scheduled visit someone in our home is sick, and it is killing me to not be able to see him, to comfort him.)

Tomorrow my Bella will be on day six of the flu and the beginning of month 4 of someone in our home being sick.

Tomorrow holds pain and suffering for so many. So many more than I have listed here.

Yesterday I sat between my sweet Beth and another dear friend, Maretta, at the memorial service of the son and brother of friends killed in a car accident. We ached together. We cried together. We laughed together. We worshiped together. There were moments where one or the other of us would reach over and pat a back, rub a leg, hold a hand, pass a tissue, smile at each other, shake and bow our heads together.

And then we stood.

After all the words and the prayers and the confessions and the hymns, we stood, the three of us with hundreds of others, for one final song of worship.

And it was so automatic. I linked my arms through each of theirs and we sang, “Rock of ages, cleft for me…”

We stood there together, worshiping under the pressure of it all. In three-part harmony. And it was glorious.

A taste.

Just a tiny taste of the perfect praise awaiting us in Heaven.

The praise so many of our friends are already singing.

Their harmonies are perfect.

As ours one day will be.

Tomorrow holds much, but mostly it holds hope. Hope in that one day.

Until that day, I will choose to worship Him even when the pressure seems unbearable.

And my harmony will falter and my voice will crack and break, my pitch will be sharp or flat, but one day.

One day.

I will link arms with so many dear ones and we will sing together.

Tuned to perfect harmony.

Perfect harmony in Him.

(Will you pray, my bloggy friends? Will you pray?)