from an article originally posted October 6, 2014…
This weekend was a gift. God was gracious to give me the strength to speak in three different sessions. I’m so unbelievably thankful. For me, I felt so blessed to hear three beautiful testimonies from dear sisters. I asked my amazing Blythe if she would speak on our call as followers of Jesus to build community. I asked her to speak from the heart of an introvert.
My friend posted this picture of our goodnight kisses and snuggles. I simply love this picture. Love it. Here is the essence of the very best of life still met at the bottom of me. In this photo, I’m desperately sick, but love is still present. This moment matters. The echoes of this moment will be sounded into the entire life of my children. My children know they are wanted, longed for, prayed for, loved. In these enormous little moments, the best of our life is lived. Not when the vacation finally rolls around, not when the job improves, the diagnosis gets better.... No—this small moment captured is linked with a thousand other small moments. These small moments will grow my children tall in knowing love, experiencing love, and knowing how treasured they are. These moments will not protect them from the hard in their own stories, but it will grow in them a depth of love that will help them walk through and not around the hard in their stories.
It’s 4:30 in the morning and I cannot sleep. I woke with my daughter snuggled close, and all at once my mind was awake. I realized I have hours before my big treatment and I have days of work to get done. There is something each treatment that makes showing up more and more difficult. It’s simple—I know what is going to be happening. I know how low I will be brought when the healing poison is administered. I know how low I already feel. I know the fight for my normal will begin the minute the slow drip of poison begins. So in that place anxiety grows. But this morning my mind started to wonder over the power of love. And even in my low state, I am still able to live in love, extend love, and rest in love.
from an article originally posted September 7, 2014…
I had my first big chemo, we took pictures, then ran away for a week. It was a hard pill to swallow seeing me meet that bottom again. But we know how to manage it. But who really wants to be managing awful? We want to be living! On the day my big chemo started, they started my 2-week cycle of oral chemo. I had learned to live through the haze of their yuck, but on top of the giant chemo, well, I met my bottom. Jason and I know this dance. I fight for good moments on bad days. Often, I don’t remember the good moments and need reminding of them. And my people are gracious to remind me.
from an article originally posted September 3, 2014…
When I was in college, my dearest friend Amy babysat a dear professor’s family that had an evening ritual called “tiger time.” Amy came home to our room and told me of the delights of this family. Each evening the children pretended to be baby tigers as they jumped in bed with their mother, the mama tiger, and they would snuggle and read each night. As a babysitter, my dear friend was asked to step in for the mama tiger and perform the honorary task of tiger time—it delighted my dear Amy.
