Again

Our family has been struck again, less than a year after our Kristina died, and I am reminded of how much I hate cancer, of how much I hate death. 

To an outsider, it may not seem quite as much the tragedy as before. This is my Papa, after all, my eighty-six year old grandpa. He is not fighting for the chance to raise his children or wishing for a chance to grow old with his spouse after only a few years of marriage. He has lived a good and full life. 

And yet it is a tragedy. Death itself is a tragedy, and while I am tempted to rail at God against the ugliness of it all, deep inside my heart I know that it is our sin, our rebellion that let death into our world in the first place and it is God's mercy that gave us life again.

Cancer and death are tragedy, they are ugly. For our family, this cancer is as ugly as any other. Yes, there is difference between a twenty-six year old and an eighty-six year old. And yet, I am greedy. 

I am greedy for more time. I want to yell at God, "NO! It is not enough! Thirty-four years with my Papa is not enough. I want more time! I want him to meet this baby growing inside of me. I want all of my children to know and remember him. You did not give me enough time!" 

All this while stomping my foot like the child that I am.

Yet my heart has been changed through Kristina's struggle and death. I have learned a little more about Who God is and who I am in relation to Him. I have learned about obedience in the midst of the ugly. 

And I have learned that I have a choice in all of this. I can choose to blame God, letting my anger and grief drive me away from Him, or I can choose to be obedient and thank Him, clinging to Him and letting Him be all that I need.

So at least for today (I know I still have disobedience, some yelling and foot-stomping inside of me for another day), I will choose this:

Thank You, Abba, for the gift of my Papa and my Gram. 

Thank You for giving me so many years with them, years of such close relationship and of so many beautiful times with them.

Thank You for giving them so many talents and abilities and for giving them the desire to teach and share those skills with me.

Thank You for their wisdom, for all that I have learned from them, for all of the wisdom that I now have stored in my own heart.

Thank You most of all for making their hearts like Yours. Thank You for allowing me to see You in them, to see in their lives how You want me to live. Thank You for showing me through them how to live faithfully as a child of Yours, as a spouse and as a parent.

Thank You for the beauty that is their lives. 

Thank You, Abba, for Your grace.

The Risk of Glorifying God

“You are a carrier for hemophilia.”

At first, I am relieved. With so much bruising, I had feared something worse.

When I take time to think through all of the ramifications of those words, however, my imagination begins to whirl, hurling rapid-fire images of the worst: whoosh an infant having to have daily injections; whoosh a high school boy learning how to give those injections to himself; whoosh a little boy sitting in the window, wishing that he could join his buddies playing football but having to be careful to avoid internal bleeding if bumped too hard.

In the days that follow, my husband and I agonize, thinking through all possibilities. Do we end our dream of a large family and be content with our two girls? Do we take the risk of having more biological children?

Then I see it.

I have been reading through Philippians regularly, so have read it many times, but this time it pierces my heart like a sword.

“The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” ~ Philippians 4.5-7

Like lightening bolts, certain phrases light up my soul: Do not be anxious. With thanksgiving. The peace of God will guard your heart and mind.

Oh.

Peace. A peace that guards my heart and mind. IF I give thanks.

For anything? Even for the worst?

I ask God to help me truly think this through.

What is the goal for my family? An easy question. To honor and glorify God.

Would having a child with hemophilia glorify and honor God more than keeping our family as it is now? A tougher question.

Having a child with hemophilia: the way in which we, as a family, handle such an outcome could hugely honor and glorify God. If we can show the world our trust in God and our gratitude to Him in difficult circumstances, if we can show God's love to the world by the way that we love each other, we will certainly be glorifying God's name to everyone with whom we come into contact.

Is it possible? Could it be that God is asking us to continue with our dream of a large family even in the face of huge risk?

Yet my heart still rebels. What about the potential child himself? Is this really our choice to make? Is it right for us to make a choice for someone else that could potentially cause his suffering?

And yet...isn't that what God call us to do as parents? Doesn't He ask us to make God-honoring choices for our children until they are old enough to choose Him for themselves? Does this apply any less to unborn children than to the children who are already here? After all, God knows them even before they enter my womb.

And who knows? Perhaps this still unconceived child could one day be the one to find the cure for hemophilia. Perhaps this child could one day help hundreds of other suffering hemophiliacs to find rest in the arms of God.

Perhaps I should just rest my weary mind and heart and trust that whatever happens, even if it is what I think is worst, it is really best because God is always good and God is always love, and God is always working to transform the ugly things into beautiful things that bring honor and glory to Himself.

Kristina

Grateful for a life given as grace
Beauty in both heart and face
God's gift for twenty-six years
More than we deserved
Hard to see through tears

Scraps of colored paper were her gift
Our hearts now are torn, our emotions set adrift
Made divinity, read books, gave flicks, played games
This beautiful marriage was more of God's grace
Her husband's world, on the outside, is going up in flames

Yet

God is always good and God is always love
Beauty and joy in even this is given from above
I don't begin to understand but I declare what I don't yet see
God promises to transform weeping into dancing, pain into glory
She's home, she's well, her life and body as they were always meant to be

My Default

"Stop!" I yell. "Just stop it!"

My eldest runs sobbing down the hallway to her room, fleeing the unholy wrath of her mommy.


I watch her go. My head slumps and my heart breaks. I did it again.

Hurled anger at one of those I love most rather than gently bearing love.

Why do I do this? Why do I consistently make wrong choices? Why is it so hard to choose the right way?

How can I read God's words of love to me, His child, and then turn around and choose to offer anger to my own children?


And it is a choice. Ann Voskamp, in One Thousand Gifts, says:

Do I really smother my own joy because I believe that anger achieves more than love? That Satan's way is more powerful, more practical, more fulfilling in my daily life than Jesus' way? Why else get angry? Isn't it because I think complaining, exasperation, resentment will pound me up into the full life I really want?

I'm a curious learner and I want to know why.

Why does my nature seem stuck in a default of sin? Why am I so easily led into believing that Satan's way is more fulfilling than Jesus' way?

Why is it easier to believe Satan than God?

I ask our pastor and he points me to Romans 5:

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned...

So because of Adam, I really do start life with a disadvantage, with a default of disobedience? How is this fair?

Again, Pastor, in his letter, offers a way to understand:

God chose Adam as our representative, just as we choose our representatives in government. Just as we are bound by what our congressmen sign in our names, so we are bound by what Adam did for all of humanity.

I stop reading. I am still not liking this. Did God choose poorly? I didn't get to vote on who represented me in this matter of sin and death!

Reluctantly, I keep reading and Pastor points me to the rest of Romans 5:

...if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! ... how much more will those who receive...the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ ... so also through the obedience of the one man, the many will be made righteous.

how much more


through Jesus Christ

Yes, God chose Adam as our representative. For all I would like to blame him, I know that no other human would have done any better.
And God chose Jesus as our representative! We are not simply restored to our own faulty, pitiful righteousness, we are raised up to Christ's righteousness!

What a gift. What grace.

When we say "yes" to Jesus, our old nature is gone and we are a new creation (2 Cor 5).


Why do I still find it difficult to obey? Why do I still choose anger rather than love?

Because I forget. I do not steep myself in Jesus. I do not surround myself with His words. I do not ask Him to change my heart.


I will continue to ask. I will find more ways to hide His words in my heart and let Him change me.

When I forget, I will ask again for grace.

I walk to her room and hold her close. I wipe away her tears and ask her to forgive me.

She nestles in close to my heart and I breathe thanks for this grace, this gift of a child who is able to offer God's grace to a weak Mommy.


A mommy who chooses, at this moment, to offer words of love.

Source/credit for paintings: Creation of Adam by Michelangelo; Christ of Santa Maria sopra Minerva by Michelangelo

Made Sacred

Her Daddy and I are her sun and moon. Her world revolves around us and she depends on us to keep her life whole.

When one of us is away, she begs to know where we are and what we are doing. She loves routine, this two-year old of mine, needs to know that her Daddy and I are constant and will keep her world whole, will keep it from falling into pieces.

I, on the other hand, seem to delight in fragmenting my world. I want to divide my life into pieces.

A place for household chores and yard work and a place for reading my books.

A place for my husband and a place for my children.

A place for friends and a place for family.

Neat and separated.

For surface organization, perhaps, this brings contentment. Yet daily I willfully ignore my own Sun and Moon Who could knit my life back together into a beautiful whole. I continually forget about inviting Him into certain places of my day.

There is no joy in places of my day that do not include Christ, only weary tasking and resentment over un-acknowledged work.

How can this change? It has become such habit to separate out my day between sacred and secular.

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them upon your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up." (Deut. 6.5-7)

How can I allow God to knit the secular places of my life back into the sacred?

How can the whole of my daily life be made sacred?


I am inspired by Brother Lawrence, the dishwasher:

"The time of business does not differ with me from the time of prayer; and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great a tranquility as if I were upon my knees at the blessed sacrament."

Yet unlike my Eldest Child, I don't allow God be constant, keeping my world whole. I speak as though this were my desire. I sing "in my life be lifted high" yet don't act in physical ways to keep Him present during my chores, while reading my books, in my daily interactions with my family.

I have places. Some are sacred and some are secular.

I long for my world to be whole. For all to be made sacred.

I pray for wisdom. I seek answers and ideas. I have found a few.


The rest of the passage from Deuteronomy:

"Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates." (Deut 6.8-9)

God desires for our lives to be made wholly sacred.

He knows how forgetful we are. He knows that He created us as physical beings. He knows that we need physical and constant reminders.

Ann Voskamp shares her family's practice of reading the Word at every meal. They eat the Bread of Life while they break bread together. Perhaps this is another layer of meaning to "do this in remembrance of Me" (Luke 22.19)

After all, Jesus was sharing a meal at the time.

We are just beginning to join in this sharing of Bread at mealtimes.

We try. We fail. We begin again.

We forget. We are ashamed. We begin again.

Liturgy is a foreign and almost forbidden word to us. The idea, however, intrigues me. Set times in your day for going to God. A discipline of regular prayer that keeps us rooted in the sacred at all times, in all of our places. I discovered this version of a book of Common Prayer. We have not tried this yet. Perhaps the little ones are a bit too little still.

Small changes. Little steps. Will you help? Share how God is teaching you to weave your days into a sacred whole?

We yearn and pray for all that we are and all that we do to be made sacred.