Hard Times, Good Times

Last Tuesday night I went up to Mom and Dad's because they had just gotten back from another ER trip where the doctors said one of his tumors was hemorrhaging again.  The oncologist had called in and said there was nothing they could do, just make him comfortable.  What an awful feeling.  That night was hard.

  

The next day was also hard, but it felt good to be able to help around the house.  That night, I cooked dinner for them.  Dad said baked potato sounded good, so it was that, and pork tenderloin and broccoli.  Not too bad, if I do say so myself.

The next morning Dad was doing a little better.  I fixed us a berry breakfast...

...and we enjoyed it outside on the patio, thankful the weather is finally cooling off.

I love my Daddy.

I brought the rest of my family back with me on Friday.  We had a wonderful weekend.  Dad was feeling much better than earlier in the week, after the steroids kicked in.  We enjoyed two movie nights (Men in Black, and The Wizard of Oz)

On Saturday, Adel treated us to his awesome cooking.  Chicken lettuce wraps. 

And then Thai peanut chicken.

DD and Papa came for dessert and helped Dad tell me some stories of his childhood, which I recorded to share later with the grandkids.

When we left on Saturday night, the oppressive feeling of despair was gone, replaced by a relief, which we are thankful for, no matter how fleeting it may be.  We do pray it is a good, long one though!  Thank you, friends, for your prayers.  Keep them coming!

2 Teeth in 2 Days

Abby pulled out both her 2 front teeth in the last 2 days.

Showing off her new smile.

Her note to the tooth fairy: "I have 2 teeth. My brother likes it because he says that I have no more teeth."

I wish she could stay this way forever.

Trust Walk

One step forward.  Then another.

I can't even begin to describe how different last fall was from this one.  Last fall, I had just touched down on surviving the baby and preschool years with both my kids.  The youngest had just started full-time school and I had finally made it.  That first semester was so very peaceful.

I spent my days reading, writing, listening to music, walking and jogging, sometimes with friends, sometimes alone with my thoughts.  Every moment was beautiful, every word a prayer, music and nature a communion with God.  It was healing, after the baby and preschool years.  It was growth, as God used the reading, the writing, the solitude, the conversations, to speak to my heart about the ways I needed to be refined in order to better know and follow Him.  I felt like He was preparing me, like He always had been preparing me, for something much bigger than me.

Then, before I felt ready, He called me out of peace, and into chaos.  Through my new job, He gave me a ministry to learn and to lead, new people to learn and to love.  Through the adoption process, He gave me a calling to follow, a challenge to face.  Through my dad's cancer, He gave me a burden to bear.

One step forward.  Then another.

This is how I have been proceeding.  For a while, I thought the chaos would end.  If only I can make it to summer, my schedule won't be so demanding and I won't feel so overwhelmed.  Welcome to my first summer as a working-mom.  Chaos.  If only I can make it to the start of school and get my kids back in the routine, my schedule won't be so demanding and I won't feel so overwhelmed.  Chaos still.

Every moment is an overwhelming choice of what person or area in my life has the greatest need for attention.  The funny thing is, much of this is an answer to prayer.  I have spent the past eight years praying about adoption for our family and for God to grow me into ministry. I have spent the past eleven years praying that my husband would grow into the kind of Christ-loving man who would lead bible study against his own inhibitions, who would say yes to the chaos of adoption, who would support the challenges of having a wife in ministry.  I have even spent the past sixteen years since I came to faith, praying that I would grow into the kind of Christ-follower who would be strong enough to stand in faith in the midst of hard times.  I expected that God would answer my prayers, but I did not expect them to be answered all at the same time, like one big cosmic practical joke, a fire hose bursting with answered prayer, too much to handle at any one moment.

And with our adoption license about to be finalized, and my dad not doing well at all lately, there truly is no end in sight to the chaos.  I want to stop, and go back to the quiet days.  The days when it was just me and God and the quiet of my home.  I want to give up on these dreams of ministry and adoption and faith, and just crumple.  Ministry, and adoption, and faith in hard times, are God-ordained and God-inspired, but they are hard and I am tired.

I have been crying.  A lot.  I have been calling out to God for help, asking if this is really the path to which He has called me, even though I know it is.  I have been merely surviving all that has passed and dreading all that is coming.  I have been hanging on, one step forward, and then another, to the path He has placed at my feet.

Now, that is trust, but it is trust without much confidence, like when you're being blindfolded and led on a trust walk by a friend, and you trust enough to go slowly, but your arms are out and your feet are shuffling, just in case the friend leads you wrong.  That is how I have been walking...bracing for impact at every moment.

This morning, God rocked my trust walk strategy.  I have been looking for a book to read in my quiet times that fits where I'm struggling.  At the beginning of the month, and a few times since then, God has brought to mind My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers.  I just hadn't actually grabbed it until today.  It is a daily devotional book that was given to me by my mentor-friend Karen, when I first came to real faith at the age of nineteen.

As I finally grabbed the book this morning, I was thinking over all these thoughts I had written above.  I opened it to the blank inside cover and found the inscription Karen had written sixteen years ago:

September 18, 1997

I am so glad that we have gotten

to know each other this year!

I pray that this book may be a source

of delight and strength for you.

"It is the Lord who goes before you.

He will be with you; he will not

fail you or forsake you.  Do not

fear or be dismayed."

Deuteronomy 31:8

Joyfully in Christ,

Karen

As soon as I read those words, my heart was rocked by God's amazing ways, that He would use a friend's note from sixteen years ago to speak to me exactly what I needed to hear to follow Him today.  Delight and strength are so very much what I am lacking right now, and I feel like her prayer from sixteen years ago speaks healing to my soul when I need it most.  

And then the scripture she chose!  It seems such a random choice, but wow did it speak to me now, as I talk about the path He has placed before me, and how I dread and shuffle to go there. "It is the Lord who goes before you."  Don't you love how God encourages His people, not with pithy quips about their own strength or valor ("I won't give you more than you can handle!" or "You are strong enough to face this giant!").  No!  He encourages His people with rock-solid truth of His own strength and valor: "It is the Lord who goes before you.  He will be with you.  He will not fail you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed."

I am not strong enough for this.  But I don't have to be.  God is giving me more than I can handle.  But I do not have to handle it alone.  He is going before me.  He has already gone before me in this same walk.  He has experienced the heart-breaking loss of One He loves.  He has faced the challenges of adopting into His family those who reject Him and cause Him grief.  He has ministered to countless millions of needy people.  He sees my heart, my grief, my fear, my wavering faith, and He knows, because He has gone before me.  He is with me.  He will not fail me or forsake me.

I can't even begin to explain how this crushes my heart and heals it, all at the same time.  The God I serve is a mighty God.  He is big enough for me to trust with blind abandon.  And so I shall proceed. One step forward.  Then another.

Dad Update

Hey friends, I am writing to let you know how dad is doing.  He is finished with his first round of radiation and won't go in again for it until his next scan on October 11.  And he was slowed and not in pain during his treatment.

But his back, which was causing him trouble earlier this summer, has nearly crippled him this past week.  From cooking us breakfast and attending ballgames with us a few weeks prior, he is now hardly able to walk, not able to lay down to sleep, and in near constant pain, even with heavy pain meds.

They did an MRI on his back when he was in the hospital when they first found his brain tumors.  With the brain and the spine both being part of the central nervous system, it is highly likely that he has tumors in his spine as well as his brian, and they wanted to rule that out.  They found nothing.  And he was still able to get around, although slowed and stiffly, so we assumed it was a bulging disk and it would heal on its own.

But it has gotten terribly worse this past week.  With his cancer being so aggressive, this either has to be related, or it is simply a cruel joke, that a man dying of cancer should have to spend his last days in agony over a bulging disk.  Either way, I hate it.  Aside from hardly being able to walk, his poor feet are so swollen that he can't wear shoes.  This may be a side effect from the tapering off of the steroid drug he was on, or from the fact that he has to sleep sitting up because of his back pain.  Either way, I hate it.

He went in for an MRI at the end of last week, but was in too much pain to lay still for the duration of the scan.  After increasing his pain meds, he was able to sit through the third attempt at a scan and we are awaiting results and a new treatment plan.

The hardest part of this for us has been that we don't know if it's a temporary pain, or the final pain.  You know, the pain of labor and childbirth is endurable only because of the joy that follows.  The pain of injury or illness is tolerable when you know it is temporary.  We do not know that in this case, so it is hard not to despair over it.  Will he recover and we will have more weeks or months enjoying his company or will this be the pain that takes him down?  That is the agonizing question we cannot answer.  At least not yet.  Hopefully answers are coming.

Now that I have dragged you through my darkest thoughts (if you know me well, you know when it comes to emotions, I do not hide my thoughts, and when it comes to suffering, I do not suffer silently), I want to also encourage you that there is still so much good.

Even my dad, when he is not in pain, is still his same old, joking self, and still trying to help where he can.  And there are sweet, joyful moments even during this.  This weekend, my mom's side of the family, at least those who live in Texas, got together for dinner.  My cousin and his wife brought their brand-new three-week-old baby for us all to hold and love on.  So precious.  And there is love and laughter and joy and shared stories.

Between the MRI scan and the arrival of family for dinner, the kids and I had a chance (and a need) for a nap.  It was one of those moments that you just savor and want to remember forever.  I even felt inspired to write a little poem as I lay there, not sleeping, thinking of how God blesses us, even in the midst of hard times:

Happiness is the sound of my kids' sweet breathing while they sleep

And the ceiling fan gently knocking back and forth as it cools

And the sunlight sneaking in through the slats in the blinds while we snuggle at nap time

(And yes, Abby's eyes are darkened because Mimi gave her black eyeshadow and mascara to play with.  Sheesh!)

Thank you for your prayers and the fact that you love me and support me even though I am completely wrapped up in myself and my family these days.  Keep the prayers coming!  We sure need them!

Faith in the Big Picture

This past year has been hard and overwhelming on so many levels.  Adjusting to a new job, starting the adoption process, and my parents' cancer always looming.  Emotionally, through all the daily challenges, I have circulated through excitement, fear, grief, guilt, insecurity, comfort, peace, thankfulness, loss, inadequacy, stress, humbleness, confidence, over-confidence, love, hope, joy...it just keeps going.  I have been so caught up on myself and the daily struggle to choose right, seek God first, and live well in spite of hard times, that I have quite simply forgotten the big picture.  My sweet aunt and sister each sent me a reminder last week that there is so much more going on than just my small world.

First, Lindsay sent me an email newsletter from her pastor, who had partnered with eight other pastors from the Houston area to visit The Jewish Agency in Jerusalem.  This is just a little piece of his excitement for how well their meeting went:

The CEO of The Jewish Agency told another Jewish friend:   "I have no words. I was totally changed.  I was blown away.  No matter what happens this mission was huge.  It is time to partner with these Christians."  Also, after our first meeting, the meeting with Natan Sharansky, they decided to change their whole attitude toward working with Christians. 

God is at work all around the world and my struggles and triumphs, though important to Him as my Creator-Father, are only a small part of His great plan for His world.  He is moving in the World and bringing His Big Picture plan into completion.  

Then my aunt sent me these pictures: 

This is a scale model of Earth and the smaller planets.  I'm just a tiny speck on the earth, and yet my life and my struggles feel so consuming.  Even with a global perspective, realizing that I'm not the only person in whom God is at work, that my problems are relatively small in comparison to what others struggle through, I still visualize Earth in this way...big and important.

The Earth in proper perspective with the rest of our solar system:

Our Sun is tiny compared to other stars in our galaxy (Earth isn't even visible in this scale).

In this scale, the sun is a tiny dot and Antares, the 15th brightest star, is more than 1000 light years away.  

And this is a Hubble telescope picture of countless ENTIRE GALAXIES billions of lightyears away.  

And all of it, ALL OF IT, was made by a Creator God who loves me and cares for my tiny problems.  He is big enough for me and big enough for this world.  He has a plan, not only for my life in all its joy and struggle, but for the whole Earth, in all its joy and struggle.  He is at work in me.  He is at work in all the Earth, in His Big Picture, so big that I can't even imagine it.   

My life, joys, and struggles are only a tiny part of it.  Rather than making me feel small and insignificant, this gives me courage to press on.  I want to be a tiny part of His Big Picture, my story part of His story, my struggles part of His redemption, my joys part of His victory.  He is Big and He wins it all.  

Ups and Downs

Since the discovery of tumors in Dad's brain, we have had lots of ups and downs.

I'll start with the downs, so I can end on a good note.  He is halfway through his radiation and showing little improvement in his communication.  This has had an effect on my mom.  We are all still hoping for a complete come-back, but each passing day without improvement dampens hope.  We may have to adjust to a new normal and the adjustment will be hardest on my mom.  She is having to re-learn how to keep up with their finances and she is not comfortable leaving him alone, so the worry is constant.

The moments when I focus on the chance that my dad may never be fully himself again are hard.  The moments I dwell on the inevitable loss are devastating.  I. hate. this.

That's where the thoughts go sometimes.  To grief and loss.  When they do, I feel like I've been punched in the soul.

But, there have been ups, too.   And that's where I want to end this.  My dad is amazing, always has been.  Even with his fatigue and condition, he loves us and shows it by the way he serves us.  Last weekend, we spent the day together and dad cooked us all breakfast.  One week after returning home from the hospital with multiple brain tumors.  Amazing.  Mom was worried that he couldn't follow the recipe, but thankfully he got it just right.

His goofy personality is still there. 

He still teases my mom any chance he can get.

And even though he's not himself, he still enjoys our company and is still helping around the house, walking the dog, and checking the mail.  He's a fighter.

Later that day, DD and Papa (Dad's mom and dad, who are fantastically fit and thriving in their 80s!), came to join us for some family time.

Mom cooked crab curry...

...and we enjoyed a spread of appetizers.

 On Tuesday, Lindsay and I went with Dad to the Astros.  We made it to the 7th inning stretch before Dad called it a night.  

I am appreciating every single moment I get with him.  There is so very much unknown in this, and so every day with him is a huge blessing.  He is slowed, but not in pain.  He is content and even happy.  There is so much good.  And this is where I try to keep my thoughts.  I am thankful for the good. 

First Day of School

We made it through summer!  My first summer as a working mom.  Wow, it was hard.  But we made it!

Isaac is thrilled to be back in Mr. Blackburn's class (his 1st grade teacher moved up to 3rd grade).  Mommy is thrilled that Mr. Blackburn is a reading specialist who helped Isaac grow so much as a reader in 1st grade.  We both have big hopes for this school year.

Abby ran into our buddy Sullivan in the hallway on the way to 1st grade.  She really likes her teacher, Mrs. Panepinto.  

Abby is always really shy when she is in a new situation.  But she is a great student and will do well in 1st grade.  

And our new turtle pets are enjoying their new life in the heat lamp.  I love their cute little turtle yoga poses and I change their environment at least once a week because I am obsessed with finding the perfect turtle home.