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New Year’s Bear
It was late when I checked on him, sitting on the edge of his bed and smoothing back freshly cut hair as he slept. I sat quietly next to him. Remembering.
It was seven years ago on New Year’s Day when the labor began late in the day. I wasn’t even sure if they were contractions because they were painless; in fact, they had to do a stress test to determine if it was really contractions or not. Two minutes apart but no pain. Other than a quick drop in blood pressure, his arrival was seamless, and within hours I was holding my Bear in my arms. Completely, beautifully, and utterly in love.
Life with him has been exactly as his arrival–a few of those blood pressure dropping moments, but seamless, easy. And oh, so beautiful.
Those dimples captured my heart seven years ago, and they still make me grab my breath today.
My Bear. Sweet, beautiful, loving Bear who wears his heart on his sleeve and fascinates us with his imagination and creativity. This boy who loves to draw and write and read, who loves to imagine and play and laugh, who loves to cook and clean, who loves to be silly and wild, who loves to live.
Tears came as I sat beside him marveling at the wonder of grace and how much has been poured out on us. Grace to bestow us with such a gift. Grace that all the hard moments of parenting and training melt away, completely forgotten as I gaze at my boy and am flooded with the memories of how wonderful he is. Grace that I can take each new day knowing there will be hard moments to come, but also knowing we will grow together, Bear and me. Learning, loving, and laughing (a lot!).
I smoothed his forehead again and pressed my finger against his nose. “Always and forever,” I whispered to him, our little ritual each night as I tuck him in bed.
As I walked from his room I heard it. A gentle sigh and soft whisper, “Always and forever,” as he turned to his side in sleep, and my heart melted again.
Happy Birthday, my sweet Bear.
I love starting each new year by celebrating you.
Always and forever.
I love you. -
Our Christmas Gift
It’s boys grown tall and snowball fights to begin.
It’s the first taste of snow and her sweet impish grin.
It’s snow angels to make and neighbors to greet.
It’s warmth by the fire and popcorn to eat.
It’s hot chocolatey goodness and old movies to view.
It’s stirring the batter and making some stew.
It’s gazillions of bows and gifts under the tree.
It’s cute decorations and wondering, “What’s in it for me?”
It’s Family Advent and stealing a look.
It’s the aroma of muffins and reading a book.
It’s boots by the door and the smile of a boy.
It is us. Together. Living life full of joy.
Thank you, Jesus, for You.
Thank you, Jesus, for us.
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Pretty much…
…melts my heart.
(Bear’s journal entries he does at night before bed.)
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I Know…
…what he’ll be asking for on his Christmas list.
(my sweet, toothless Bear) -
O Simplicitas
An angel came to me
and I was unprepared
to be what God was using.
Mother I was to be.
A moment I despaired,
thought briefly of refusing.
The angel knew I heard.
According to God’s Word
I bowed to this strange choosing.A palace should have been
the birthplace of a King
(I had no way of knowing).
We went to Bethlehem;
it was so strange a thing.
The wind was cold and blowing,
my cloak was old, and thin.
The turned us from the inn;
the town was overflowing.God’s Word, a child so small
who still must learn to speak
lay in humiliation.
Joseph stood, strong and tall.
The beasts were warm and meek
and moved with hesitation.
The Child born in a stall?
I understood it: all.
Kings came in adoration.Perhaps it was absurd;
a stable set apart,
the sleepy cattle lowing;
and the incarnate Word
resting against my heart.
My joy was overflowing.
The shepherds came, adored
the folly of the Lord,
wiser than all men’s knowing.(~Madeleine L’Engle)
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My Good and His Glory
Therefore, we can look at our waits as a gift not an obstacle… Consider that every wait is a pregnancy and God is birthing something in your soul for your good and for His glory. (~L. Shadrach)
No matter what answer God gave us today with regard to my test results, He is worthy of praise.
No matter what answer God gave us today with regard to my test results, He is good.
No matter what answer God gave us today with regard to my test results, He would be glorified.
Having the answer be a resounding “Yes!” brings Him glory just as much as if I had heard the words cancer again.
But I did not.
Instead we heard that all is well.
And I exhaled fully for the first time in weeks.
Will you praise Him with me that everything came back clear? And will you pray that I will only grow stronger each day? And will you boldly ask for no more cancer. ever. again? Will you praise Him with me for giving us the sweetness of health?
Life tastes good.
Thank you for your prayers, my bloggy friends.
This waiting has been hard, but it has been good.
And I have seen His glory through you.
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The Howl of Advent
“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, Bittersweet)
Waiting.
I don’t like waiting.
Our culture has taught us that waiting is a bad thing, and we do everything we can to avoid it.
I keep being thrust into situations where I must wait, and these last two weeks have been agonizing at times. I’ve felt the howl of Advent. This waiting for answers to come just as those people in history waited (since the fall of mankind in the Garden of Eden) for Jesus, the answer to sin’s problem to come.
I long to wait well. I long and ache and pray that I would welcome waiting as an opportunity to worship. But so often I turn waiting into fear and an opportunity to take life into my own hands rather than opening them up and offering my life as a sacrifice.
I have no idea how long this wait will be. I have no inclination when the hospital will call my specialist and when she will call me with results. I just know I must wait and that answers sit on someone’s desk somewhere.
I. must. wait. And I am not the only one. I have two friends this week who also face tests, scans, possible biopsies.
My sweet friend, Kristin, recently pointed me to a sermon preached last week at her church in Nashville on waiting, and I sobbed through the whole 45 minutes.
My favorite quote?
“Rather than an inconvenience, waiting is to faith what breathing is to life.”
How I long for the faith that views God’s promises as a place to stand firm knowing that He is in control, that my waiting is part of the larger story and that larger story is one of redemption and salvation and hope and glory.My God… the God Who waited thousands of years for the fullness of time to send His Son as part of His plan of redemption… He is the God Who holds every breath of my life in His hand. He is the God who fulfills every promise. He is the God Who has never failed me. He will not fail me now. He is the God Who sits on His throne as Almighty King, yet bends to me as Abba Father. He makes waiting worth it.
Henri Nouwen said, “It impresses me; therefore, that all the figures which appear on the first pages of Luke’s Gospel are waiting.”
How I long to wait like Zechariah and Elizabeth, like Simeon and Anna, like Joseph and Mary.
In my Advent crying, I feel the longing.
As I struggle with the longing, I wait.
And in my waiting, I will worship.
“Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come to his people and redeemed them.” (Luke 1:68)
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November Gratitude: The Fog of War
Last week I drove to pick up my children from school on a rainy, chilly, misty day. Their school sits at the base of a mountain, and as I drove I marveled at how different the mountain looked. Hidden by mist and fog, clouds covering its peak, the mountain was hidden from my view.
How like the past two weeks of my life!
I am struggling with a keen sense of heaviness. It is as if I am surrounded in a fog of war as I battle against the whispers of Satan who loves to tell me lies.
Confusion.
Clouds.
Disorientation.
Inability to see.
Believing things are there that aren’t.
Believing things aren’t there that are.
“This can’t be good for you.”
“You should be done and be happy moving on.”
“This isn’t fair.”
“Everyone is so over you and your cancer. They’re going to give up on you.”
“Brian’s internalizing means he doesn’t care about you.”
“God doesn’t love you.”
After piling my boys into our van, I began the drive home and the mists began to clear over the mountain. The fall colors on the trees were stunning. I still couldn’t see the whole mountain, but what I could see had me craning my neck for more.
I sighed and thought about this mountain in my life.
This new fear we are facing as I go in for the ultrasound tomorrow.
The truth is my whole life is walking a mountain range, and it is daunting. Full of valleys and mists and fog. But it doesn’t change my God. Just like the mountain. It may have been hidden, but it was still there. The mountain didn’t change because of the fog. It was the same. Just like my God.
It is daunting.
This battle.
This struggle.
This fog of war in my life.
But it doesn’t change truth. And His Spirit whispers.
“All things are for your good.”
“You are His child and He loves you.”
“Brian’s faithfulness to you only shows his love, even when he struggles himself.”
“There will always be pain, but there is hope.”
“You have ME. This means joy even when things aren’t happy.”What I saw that day was this: the grayness of the sky, the obscurity of the mists… they only brought to life the vibrancy of the colors I could see… the beauty of the mountain.
Just like my Jesus.
The fog of war only shows His glory.
I’ll fix my eyes upon the Savior.
It’s a beautiful view.
(My test is 10:30 on Tuesday morning. I’m not sure when I will know results. Thank you for your continued prayers.)
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November Gratitude: Full House, Full Heart
“May your walls know joy,
May every room hold laughter,
And every window open to great possibility”
–Mary Anne Radmacher
(Four generations of Bri’s family under our roof.)
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November Gratitude: Pastoring
There is house in my hometown that sits up a little incline. I love that little house, and every time we pass by I point to it and tell my Bri, “There’s their old house.” He smiles patiently and never says, “I know, hon, you’ve told me that a thousand times.” You see, he understands. He knows how much of my heart is wrapped up in that home, or rather in the people who lived there.
There was Julie, who was like my second mom. I still remember sitting next to her in the movie theater watching Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “Cinderella”. I remember watching her interact with people she met, awed by her beauty.
And there was Randy. He was our pastor, and he was like a second father to me. Often they would babysit for us when my parents went out, and my brother and I would play with their two boys, one of whom became a close friend through high school. I remember Holly Hoppy, their rabbit, sitting in the hutch out back.
When I was seven years old, they moved to Roanoke, and I cried my heart out, losing a family I loved. They remained close to my parents through the years, and after high school, through college, and into my adult years, I would occasionally see them, and it was always as if no time had passed. Randy was never afraid to ask about my heart and pastored my family and me (as well as many others) through one of the most painful periods of our lives over ten years after he had moved away. He challenged me through my college years to remain faithful to my Lord and not lose myself in the dating scene.
My cancer diagnosis brought Julie to the forefront of my life, always encouraging me, lifting me up from afar with a quote or a verse on her Facebook page or in an email that spoke to my heart. Then there was the day two Decembers ago when Randy came to my house after my thyroid surgery. He had been speaking at a nearby church and came to see us, to pray with us, to meet Brian, to encourage us.
After all these years, he was still pastoring us.
My mom pointed me to an article recently written about Randy for the Ordinary Pastors Project.
He is not a local celebrity, and most of the pastors of large churches in our area might not even recognize him. But the homeless community in our city recognize him. Often I’ve seen him greeted by name by folks who clearly spent the previous night outdoors. He’s invested himself freely in people who he knows will never be “tithing units” because he really believes in the value of the human soul. He really believes the gospel, and his authenticity is apparent. I’ve seen some of the most bitter and jaded folks who are skeptical of all things religious greet him warmly and call him “pastor.”
It’s a beautiful post about a man who exemplifies a pastor’s heart and lives the Gospel. A man I (and many others) are very grateful they call “friend”.
(You can read the whole article here.)
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A Spring of Joy 