So Long August

Ok, so it's been awhile.  This month has been crazy, and a bit of a roller coaster.  I know you have all been sitting on the edge of your seat, wondering where I've been and when I would post next, so here I am.  And now I'll get off the delusional train.

So every year around this time I have a mantra, and it goes like this:

I hate August!

I know, really mature.  But August is a crazy month for us.  It's a busy season for ministry, so Matt is gone a lot, it's back to school time and while many moms have the good sense to rejoice over their newfound freedom I tend to fall into a pit of despair at the thought of my kids being whisked away on that giant yellow monstrosity for 8 hour stretches.  And then there's all those shopping trips with crabby kids in tow trying to find shoes that don't pinch, clothes that aren't "furry" (an absolute deal breaker for Sofi), and those ever-increasing and overly-specific lists of school supplies.  And so there I am, standing in the aisle at Walmart looking for a non-existent box of 48 Crayola crayons, taking deep breaths and muttering my mantra.

I hate August!

All grown up and off to 1st and 2nd grade!

I should have written this post in July.  In July I was in a much better mood - I mean, a really great, joyful, God-praising mood.  Why, you ask?  Well let me tell you.  In July I sat on my bathroom floor holding a pregnancy test.  After 18 months of trying, or not not-trying, I finally held in my hands a positive pregnancy test.  I cried like a baby, and thanked God for answering my prayers.  I gave Matt the news the night before our 10th anniversary and we were over. the. moon.  4 days later we boarded a plane for Colorado to celebrate us - our life, our marriage, our family.  I couldn't have been happier.  We had to go through full-body scans at the airport and I told the security lady that I was pregnant and couldn't go through - I have never been so happy to have a full-body pat down.  I love looking out the window when I fly, watching the clouds around and below us, always amazed at the sight of the world below us.  I had this sense that everything was turning around.  God had answered our prayer, He would heal Isabel, everything was perfect. And then it wasn't.

Fast forward to 3 am and I found myself sitting in the ER in Denver, listening to a doctor tell me that I had lost the baby.  I had to go to the ER because my blood type is negative, so I have to get a shot every time I have a baby.  Or lose one apparently.  As if having a miscarriage wasn't bad enough, they had to go and stick needles into me.  At one point they were trying to get a blood sample, and I have these invisible veins apparently so the nurse hoisted the full weight of her body onto my arm trying to squeeze the blood out of me.  At which point it squirted all over the floor.  I thought Matt was going to pass out.  Happy anniversary, babe, let's spend the night in the ER; it'll be great.   

Let me quickly insert the reason I am sharing this with friends and acquaintances and complete strangers - it's not to get pity; truth is I hate it when people feel sorry for me.  And while there is a lot of stress and sorrow at this point in my faith journey, there is also hope and redemption interweaved throughout the story, my story, God's story.  So I share this part of my journey because the lessons I am learning are lessons that are propelling me forward, and I hope they will do the same for you.

On the airplane I had started the book 1000 Gifts.  Basically it's a book about gratitude, learning to be content in all circumstances, thankful even, for the tiny miracles that surround us.  Without giving too much away, the author writes in the beginning about this idea of open and closed fists.  When God blesses us, we throw our hands wide open, arms outstretched to receive His blessings.  But when we don't like what has sifted between His fingers, when what falls from His hands hurts or pressures or rubs us the wrong way, we close our hands and shake our fists at God.  And what right do we have to respond that way?  I'm not saying that God caused me to have a miscarriage (which, incidentally, is a lame word).  I don't for a moment believe that God causes bad things to happen or wants us to suffer. But sometimes, for reasons I may never know, He allows life in all of it's pain and brokenness to happen.  God didn't create evil and doesn't revel in our sufferings, but nothing happens that God doesn't allow to happen.  It was easy to read that book on the way to Colorado, but as I sat on a bathroom floor, crying yet again, it wasn't so easy to be grateful.  Which is why, as I sat on that bathroom floor, I began to make a mental list of the things I was grateful for.  And before long I learned something: gratitude is healing. So I kept listing, healing, listing more... 
       1. Health insurance 
       2. The sound of little girl voices on the phone
       3. Fresh air
       4. Flying over white pillow clouds
       5. Lightning over the mountains

When we got home, it was August.  Of course.  And the back to school madness began.  It was halfway through August when we went back to the pediatric ENT again for another check up.  Matt didn't come this time - we had been to so many doctor appointments this summer and at the last visit this doctor seemed really calm about everything, unconcerned even.  "Kids have really reactive lymph nodes," he told us.  And we breathed a sign of relief.  I checked her lump the night before and thought maybe it was bigger but then again, I'm her mom which makes me prone to paranoia.  So when the doctor took one look at the lymph node and said "it needs to come out" I just wasn't prepared.  Excisional biopsy is the official procedure - they will cut open her neck and remove the entire lymph node, then send it off for tests.  I had so many questions, but my little girl was sitting there, trying to hard to be brave and smiling like she wasn't scared out of her mind and I just couldn't say words like "cancer" with her in the room.  He went through the risks, talked about how close it was to her corotid artery and nerves that go to her voice box and one that can cause spasms in her shoulder.  But he reassured me that he does these surgeries all the time, on itty bitty babies even, and he has never had a problem.  He didn't suggest the surgery, didn't offer options, he said it needed to be done.  So I left that office with a lump in my throat that was big enough to swallow the one in my little girl's whole.

And now we wait.  Wait for the surgery (it's coming up on Monday - September 10th), wait for the results (they take about a week), and let me tell you, I hate waiting.  We are praying for healing, desperately praying for a miracle, but we are also preparing ourselves for the worst.  Because the reality is, they have tested her for so many things and ruled all of them out and the diagnosis that we find ourselves preparing for even as we pray against it is lymphoma.  Lymphoma.  Just saying the word, or writing it, for that matter, it terrifies me.  And I can feel my fingers curling, curving into a fist ready to shake at the God who knit this very child together inside of me.  Arms outstretched, I pulled her close and thanked Him for giving her to me 7 and a half years ago.   Now those same arms hold her tightly when she sleeps as I beg Him not to take her away.  Not to let her suffer.  Not to let this sift through His hands.  

My mom had matching bracelets made for Isabel and I and she had a word engraved on them: Trust.  I know that's what God is asking of me right now, and so I started a Bible reading plan on that very topic.  The first day I read and memorized Exodus 14:14 "I will fight for you.  You need only to be still."  Still.  That is so not me, not in crisis, not when I am afraid, not when there is a battle looming on the horizon.  Not when my little girl could be sick.  Trust.  Be still.  These words keep coming back to me, and I have come to realize that it is one thing to trust God FOR something - it feels good to trust that God will heal, protect, save.  But often the Bible asks us to simply trust God IN something.  In suffering, in trial, in pain, in loss, in the midst of distress and heartache and even disease.  I don't like that so much.  But I am trying, every day trying.  I have to ask God a thousand times a day to help me trust, unclench my fists, be still.  And I keep practicing gratitude, making a mental list of things I am grateful for.  

Of course deciding to practice gratitude meant that I would get heaps of practice ASAP.

not even a sprained wrist will
wipe off that smile

So last week on Tuesday I left work to meet my family at urgent care after Sofi had hurt her wrist... and Matt and the girls had been sitting there for over 2 hours by the time I get there, but Sofi grins when I walk in like she's having the time of her life.
     6. the way Sofi smiles even when she's had a rough   
        day
     7. a family that is always happy to see you

Thursday I took Isabel for her pre-op check up and our 3 year old came along for the ride... then ended up getting (count 'em) 4 shots because I had the misfortune of receiving and then handing over her shot record.
     8. vaccines that prevent disease
     9. the power of a cute band-aid

That night Isabel refused dinner and went to bed early, then woke up the next morning with a high fever.  Back at urgent care and you'll never guess... strep throat it is.
     10. getting the pink medicine instead of the nasty white stuff 
     11. finding out it's a normal kid illness, not a symptom of something scarier

I sat with Isabel on Friday as she whimpered that her throat hurt, and I stroked her head hot with fever and somehow we started talking about Heaven and how when we get there we won't ever feel pain or sadness again.  And she looked at me with this hopeless expression and said "yeah, but that's a long time away!"  Then she sighed, and paused a moment, then said "or maybe it won't be.  It might not be that long, you never know."  Then she sort of perked up, happy with her little revelation. 

And I had to pretend to be happy too.   

Because the truth is, I believe the world is a better place with my little girl in it, and I know that my world is a better place with her in it.  So my heart races at the thought that she could leave this world, my world, before I am ready.  I am so very fearful that I could lose her, and that the hole she would leave behind would swallow me alive.  You see, it's not her I fear for, it's me.  My worst fear is to lose one of my children, but the truth I live by is that in death we are made whole.  Our hope is Christ, and in Him there is no death.  The end of this life is only the beginning of Eternity with Him.  The Creator of the universe, the One who called forth light and the ocean and creatures great and small, has a place prepared for my daughter where she will never have to visit another doctor or fight another illness or struggle with anxiety or strep throat or the kid that picks on her.  But the truth is, I don't want that place for her right now.  So I will pray for her healing, and sit nervously through her surgery, and wait impatiently for her test results.  But I will also practice gratitude, and try to be still, and even as I fold my hands in prayer I pray that God will give me the strength to open those hands to receive whatever He allows.  Because whether I open my hands or shake my fists, life will happen.  But I can't imagine this life without the hand of my Savior, my Creator, my Father and Friend carrying me through.  Isaiah 41:10 says "So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God.  I will strengthen you and help you.  I will uphold you with my righteous hand."  
     12. A God who's hands are so much stronger than my own

I don't have all the answers because I haven't arrived.  I'm on a journey, and I don't know what's ahead.  But God does, so I will trust.  I will be still.  And I will give thanks.
     13. God's peace in the middle of life's storms
     14. September (so long, August)