A Spring of Joy

On Monday we went to the memorial and wake for the daughter of friends… a 2-month-old who died of heart failure last week. It has been heart-wrenching, and Bri and I have grieved deeply.

At her wake, Baby G’s father stood to toast. Arm wrapped around his wife who held their other daughter of 2 years, he said, “Go home and tell your children they are wonderful. Tell them every day.”

I looked across the table at my Brian and saw the tears which mirrored my own. We must never forget to hold them loosely. And we must never forget to tell them we love them. And we must never forget to give them back to God every day. And we must never forget to tell them how wonderful they are.

As I looked at my Bri, I realized again how he needs to hear it. And my parents need to hear it. And my family members need to hear it. And my friends need to hear it. They all need to hear how important and special and loved they are.

So all I want to ask today is this.

Have you told them today?

Have you told your loved ones how wonderful they are?

Please don’t wait until tomorrow.

My sweet friend, Monica, described it perfectly the other day during a phone call. She said something to the effect of, “There are some things in your life that are footnotes. Things that happen to you in the story of your life that have helped shape and define and mold you. But they are things that you hardly think of, or go days, months, years, without thinking about. Then there are the headlines. And I think cancer and other suffering must be one of those headlines. Sure, it might move further back in the paper, maybe to page 3, but it’s always a headline.”

My headline is moving away from the front page.

After a very helpful appointment with my oncologist on Monday, I am finally gaining some understanding and feeling more peace about all that the specialist I saw a few weeks ago is putting me through.

The best part about my visit with her? She understood. She looked at me, and as I was explaining all that’s coming before me, I saw her eyes fill with compassion. “You must feel like you’re back at the beginning and having to face all the what if’s again. It’s like you have to walk through the whole panic, grieving, anger, acceptance all over again.”

I wanted to hug her.

Instead I just nodded and said, “Yes!” a bit more forcefully than I needed to.

Then she gave me some options for Bri and me to consider. One of them is to NOT do the centi-mammography scan. You know, the one that has me having nightmares and panic attacks and sob-fests because of the IV in my foot. She basically said (without actually saying it) that if she thought I needed it, she would have ordered it for me. The specialist is being careful and proactive, but the scan is not necessary; however, the scan does show cancer on the cellular level which is a good thing.

Then she put her hand on my knee and said.

“You need to hear this. You’re not back at the beginning. You are done.” She smiled. “Hopefully, you are done forever with cancer. Don’t get bogged down by the high risk of recurrence. That’s what I’m here for. I’ll keep watching you to make sure we catch things early if they do come back. But you are done.”

My headline is moving to another page.

During my iron infusion the counselor from the cancer center sat down next to me. She had some free time before an appointment and wanted to see how I was doing. We talked for thirty minutes, and she gave me more to chew on. And she asked, “Will you have more peace of mind if you get the scan? Or are you okay with where you are?”

I really don’t have an answer for that. I get so bogged down with the panic of the process, I can’t see the end result.

Then she told me, “I’m not minimizing your panic here. God knows I’m not. But remember, you can do this. You’ve done it before. You’re no less brave if you don’t do it. But you can do it.”

But as she left, she patted my knee, too. And she smiled and said, “Just remember. You are making choices to fight this so that you can be around longer for those precious children you tell me about. But don’t forget. You are done with cancer.”

My headline is moving to another page.

So now Bri and I have to figure out whether to do the scan or not. I’m making mental lists of pros and cons and trying to see past the panic. I’m working hard at not beating myself up if I run from the scan out of fear.

My oncologist was right. I needed to hear that. I needed to hear from people who knew and understood the medical and the emotional aspect of all of this. I needed to hear that they believed in me and in all I’ve done to fight this.

I needed to hear that while all I have to go through is not over. I am still done.

My headline is moving to another page.

On our Easter weekend trip to visit my grandparents, I spent time sitting next to my Nanny on the couch and just catching up. I shared stories about the children and escapades around our home describing rooms and flowers and scenery in vivid detail. Then she shuddered deeply, sighed and wiped away tears, “I guess we’ll never get to see your new house.” I grasped her hand and looked at her. I wanted to grab her and drag her to my car and drive 3 hours just so she could see it in person, so she could know it and imagine it and feel us living there.

Instead i sat next to her and mingled my tears with hers, and I marveled again at how much of me I see in her. She wears her heart on her sleeve and will cry at the drop of a hat. Every meal when we pray, every time I kiss her hello or goodbye, every time we talk about life, there are tears. She drinks deeply of her emotions and isn’t afraid to show them. She drinks deeply because she loves deeply.

But it’s her strength that blows me away. After my pappy’s first heart attack when I was less than a year old, Nanny took over, doing what she had to do to care for him and her family. Pap worked in his barber shop (side note: I think that’s awesome!) until his health stopped him, and she was the postmistress of her little town. She worked until she retired and yet managed to cook and can and garden with Pap. So much of life revolved around their kitchen. They lived a lot of life together there.

And her love? Oh, her love. Her love drives her to care for him daily. She deals with her own health issues, but she is always there for him. Always. And she rarely gets a break. But it’s okay, because she’s just doing what she has to do.

While it was Pap who was busy playing with us as kids, she was the quiet comfort, cooking the food and helping Mom around the house. She was the prankster with my dad, joking constantly with her son-in-law who she took into her family as if he was one of her own. And then she became the prankster with my Bri, teasing him playfully and welcoming him as she welcomed my father years ago.

On beach vacations, she would bring gifts for us every day. Nan’s Glad Bag she called it, full of dollar store toys for us as special treats. And she would sit and cry during every family worship time, so thankful to be with her family and loving the Lord together.

She is so beautiful to me. My Nanny. With her porcelain skin and snow white hair, I often tell her I want her complexion when I’m old. (Actually, I want her complexion now!)

But there is so much more to her beauty than that.

I want her spirit and her faith, her strength and her servant heart, her legacy and her love.

Happy Mother’s Day, Nanny.

I love you.

Overwhelmed is an understatement of my life lately, and struggling with my faith has been paralyzing. As I sit with friends (whether on the phone or on my couch) who want to hear my struggles, I find the sobs strangling. These ones who have ministered to me on the spiritual and emotional level, these are the ones who don’t offer answers. They are the ones who listen and understand. And it is because of them that I feel even more overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by people who love me no matter where I am.

And where have I been?

The best description is that I have been so discouraged, so emotionally spent, so physically battered, and so spiritually depleted that I have nothing left.

I have flatlined.

The problem is that in flatlining, I’m not the only one that suffers. My husband suffers. My children suffer. My parents suffer. My friendships suffer. Because, although I have had little to give over the past few years, I have nothing to give now.

So I place even more pressure on myself and constantly ask, “How do I do this?”

How do I live and love? And how do I laugh?

And then the asking turns to God and I say, “Where are You in this? What are You doing?”

The last few days I’ve spent a lot of time in bed. Between a cold/flu that hit on Saturday with a high fever and aches. Then I had an iron infusion on Monday. It left me with a minor migraine that has finally settled to a mild headache today. I’ve slept a lot, taken a lot of pain medicine, numbed my pain with movies and rested. But I’ve also read good books and listened to sermons online, because I know that even if I feel like I’ve flatlined, I can’t stop looking for life.

I look at Thomas, the doubting disciple. He gets a bad rap being remembered as The Doubter, if you ask me. Because, yes, while he doubted, his doubts led him to ask questions, questions that led him back to God. Questions that led him to make the strongest affirmation of faith in the New Testament. He SAW Jesus for Who He is, and He cried, “My Lord and My God!” Thomas the Doubter is Thomas the Believer.

And it was this weekend that God pulled out the paddles and jump started my heart, because I was struck with how I’m not really seeing or hearing. I’m not taking steps. I’m looking and asking, but I am blind to His works and my ears are deaf to His whispers. I’m asking, but I’m not reaching out and putting my hands into the scars and touching and seeing and hearing His voice.

And I realized:

If I’m so busy asking what God is doing, I tend to forget all God has done.

Today there was the warmth of my sweet girl curled on my lap in her pink satin jammies, yawning away her sleepies and patting my back. There were the kisses of my boys as they bounded out the door for school and the fingers signing “I love you” from car windows. There were the arms of my husband circling me before he grabbed his computer and readied for work. There were words I read, blurred by my tears, Words about Who God is mingled with my cries for me to see Him today.

I stopped asking what He was doing and only asked for Him.

And today I saw, heard and felt the touch of divinity in my life.