Days 67 & 66. I have chosen to live intentionally toward the goals, dreams and desires God has placed on my heart for the last 90 days of this year, pressing past fear, excuses and discomfort toward fullness of life as we countdown to 2020. Day 67 & 66: receiving sustenance.
I sat in silence, tears running down my cheeks. They came with steady pace. Pain. Questions. Loss. Fear. Exhaustion. They came where words failed. Numb. I think I had been numb for months.
Our summer was a doozy. A routine surgery led to a cancer diagnosis in late May. While the cancer was removed during the surgery, I began the six-month journey to the official all-clear from my doctor. The surgery was followed by 4 weeks of vocal rest and uncertainty regarding the strength with which my voice would return—a significant concern for someone whose work is speaking and coaching. As I recovered from my surgery, we received news another member of our family was entering into her second battle with cancer, and while my battle only required waiting, hers would entail months of rigorous chemo and surgery. As we took in the news, another member of our family entered crisis, as dementia, aphasia and past traumas reshaped present reality. Necessary medical advocacy required all hands-on deck, and for me, took the form of emails, texts, handwritten notes and strained words, prolonging my vocal recovery. As my husband and I navigated these waters, we entered into our fifth vocational transition in 5 months. I longed for a slower pace. I longed for signs of life, for solid ground, some place that didn’t feel like a battlefront. I grasped for beauty.
Flowers. I would plant flowers. My late summer trip to Home Depot brought smatterings of sold out signs and garnered one, clear option: mums, bright yellow and white mums. Late July seemed early for mums, but I needed to see beauty and life.
I lined them up outside my garage in two rows of five. I tilled earth, dug in dirt, broke up roots and placed mums in rich, black soil and watered them. For a week, I took in their happy presence, their reminder of hope. But then the rains stopped and temperatures rose. My happy little mums turned to rusty orange, brown and then crispy gray. Their verdant stems became fragile twigs. My poor little mums sat in hard, cracked earth, barely surviving.
As I watched my mums die, a second wave of challenges came. I lost the ability to correctly maintain body temperature, and my MS flared as a result. Bad lab reports came from doctors, “Your kidneys are not functioning properly, “ and “You have 10-15 new lesions on your brain. Your MS is progressing. You are no longer in remission.” Pain. Questions. Loss. Fear. Exhaustion. I didn’t want another battlefront, but fight is what we do when we must. So I stood on hard, cracked earth, exhausted, barely surviving, and went to war. A war which by mid-September revealed two members of my medical team had reported incorrect test results to me….three times. Three. Times. A war which revealed my kidneys were healthy, no new lesions were discovered on my brain, and my MS is in remission. As we march toward November, we press and await the final cancer-free, all-clear from my doctors and hold the pain and hope of our loved ones.
I sat in silence, tears running down my cheeks last night. These battles have filled the last six months. The tears come with steady pace. Pain. Questions. Loss. Fear. Exhaustion. Relief. Hope. They come where words fail. Numb. I have been numb for months, but I am beginning to feel again. I glance over at my mums to examine their gray, fragility, but I see life. Yes, to my surprise life! Deep burgundy life. How is that possible? My little mums, for whom all hope seemed gone, are healing. Some parts strong. Some parts fragile. Some parts dead. Some parts resurrected. We battled together, on hard, cracked earth, barely surviving, but our roots sustained us, nourishing rains sustained us…God sustains us. Hope. There is hope.
ACTION STEP:Read the following and receive God’s sustenance.
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? 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.
“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble” (Matt. 6:25-34)
