Of Cancers and Suicide and Where to Find Joy that Sustains

In noisy bustling houses, we've poured more coffee and settled in close.

Photo Credit: Ell Brown, Creative Commons cc license

In a sunken living room last night at a friend's house, I pushed my grey footstool closer and we talked of kids, of this last year, and of the future. Pulling photographs from her purse, she showed me her son's senior pictures. We pored through eight or nine of them. His tousled blond hair caught the sunlight, and we debated which shot best captured him. Our talk moved on and, in between hope for the future, we voiced the hard things too. She laughed and ran hands through her hair, fatigue written between her eyes. I nodded and stretched out toes, arching ankles in a physical therapy habit from a decade ago after a sprained ankle. Hours later, after jokes, games and countless trips to the snack table, a church party crowd of us cheered in the New Year. Glittery plastic and streamer-lined kuzuus shrilled as children danced and bounced around us in a cacophony of noise.

Earlier on Christmas Eve, we brewed more coffee, laughed at the short intervals between meals, and slid up chairs around the dining room table. My tall twenty-four year old son and my gentle dark-haired daughter-in-law joined us. Newly-twenty-one year old daughter Morgan flopped onto the black couch beside Kate, and the young women grinned and worked on their art alongside each other: Morgan with digital pen and Kate with a crochet hook and soft yarn. My blue-eyed Irish Mom, my husband and I, and our two sons sorted playing cards into suits and calculated. My youngest, eleven year old Daniel, vacillated freely between clasping soft new toys, assembling plastic building pieces, and joining us at the table for games.

I watch them, my growing kids, and my heart swells with love so much it hurts and thrills me. These four that we get to call ours now -- they bring such joy. We delight to spend time with them, we love that they like to hang out here, and we are always honored when they ask to talk.

And I hear it, in my suddenly choked up throat in Sunday singing this week, how the joy and sorrow can be intertwined so deeply. Who ever said that life was simple or easy? Joys don't negate sorrows. Joyful hearts don't preclude the hard things in life. Standing, mouthing worship lyrics this past Sunday, I spoke them to Abba God, because the hards were crashing in.

Faces and names rose up in my mind, my heart sad with them. An acquaintance's suicide on Christmas day, her present from me still unwrapped and ready; her texts still lit in my phone. We waited her arrival in vain. Another friend watches handfuls of her blonde hair fall out from chemotherapy, her small children and husband looking on. Other family friends watch brain cancer steal away their dad's personality, saying small goodbyes each day now, even though he is still there.

In the row at church, I swallowed and talked honest to God. Choosing to worship You doesn't mean that life is easy. Choosing to thank you and to see the joy doesn't mean that life is blissful and pain-free.

And at home with journal and Bible, I stretch toes, twist ankles in habit therapy, and write out your words too. Seeking you out, speaking out the hard, naming the many good, stating again and again that you are good, that your character and promises are enough, that you are faithful to sustain, to be There, to walk with us through the hard, to carry my friends through their pain and yuck and sorrow... this is my therapy to untighten the hard, to loosen the tough, to move into the pain.

Joy is still there too. I watch blankets of snow drop silence and beauty, coating trees in white wonder. Slim black-capped chickadees and charcoal dark-eyed juncos dive-bomb red cranberries in the snow on my deck. I write out your words, seek You, and lean into the habits you've been teaching me, reminding my heart. You are trustworthy, you are good, you are here, you walk with us. Your heart can be trusted and you sustain and fortress your people.

And it slips joy in.


Hey, is reading the Bible more consistently one of your New Year's resolutions? Join me Monday nights, starting Jan. 6th, as we dive into the New Testament in my Cover to Cover Bible study group. Registration closes this week, so sign up now. It is open to all, and Village Schools of the Bible offers financial aid too. 

Join me? I can't wait to dig into the fast-paced true accounts of Jesus' life and death here and to watch the exciting urgent action of the early church growing, fleeing Roman emperors, and building lives centered on the truths and joys that surmount everything. 

If you are not receiving my posts by email yet,welcome. Simply enter your email address in the box under my bio at the top right of the page. Be part of any special invitations and don't miss a post!

On the Dark Nights When You are Counting Days and Remembering

It is three weeks ago today that I last talked with my Dad, last heard him speak back. That day blurs into that night, and then it was Friday 2:08 am and he was gone.

My sister, mom, and I had tracked the evening hours on a paper chart, slipping in soluble morphine and attavan pills between Dad's drying lips, moistening them with a little blue sponge.

"Dad, can I give you some more medicine?" I had asked respectfully, as the hours passed and his sleepiness mounted. His words lessened, and his moments of lucidity stretched further apart.

Pain rippled across his face, and I gripped his hand. "The morphine will help, Dad. It should kick in really soon."

Friends had driven on dark country roads after rush-hour traffic to stop in and greet him. Dad recognized them and opened his eyes briefly. They stood tall and uncertain beside his bed, searching for a special hymn's lyrics on their phone before starting in, their voices strong and speaking truth.

"God sent his son, they called him Jesus. He came to love, heal, and forgive. He lived and died to buy my pardon, an empty grave is there to prove my Savior lives."

My dad heard and moved his head, faintly singing along, these truths he has built his life and joy on. My mom, sister, and I joined in, my voice cracking in emotion

"Because he lives, I can face tomorrow, because he lives, all fear is gone." I swallowed, "...because I know he holds the future, and life is worth the living just because he lives."

Dad's two friends sang on, swiping tiny lyrics higher on a touch-screen phone, both men squinting to see in the dim lamp-lit room.

I stopped singing as I saw Dad wince and reach towards his neck and shoulder, then fumble in his side pocket where the meds usually were. Checking the clock, I saw we were close. "Here, Dad. It's time for your next dose."

His friends finished the song, and we stepped out to give them privacy as they said good-bye. Nurses had said my Dad was in his last days, and the minutes drizzled away.

In dignity and strength, my Dad lived. In dignity and strength, my Dad died.

We have seen God's sweet kindnesses taking care of us each day. We have felt the tangible love of friends and family near and far, who have dropped off meals, mailed cards, helped in countless ways, and walked beside us.

We stood tall at Dad's funerals, so proud to be associated with him, nodding and smiling in joyful pride at the stories friends and colleagues told of him. I gripped podiums tight and spoke in tremulous pride, shuffling papers and describing African night skies. Three special songs rippled out harmonies that explained my Mom and Dad.

I'm finding that grief looks like efficient hours of phone calls and business letters as we confirm the death of a dad.

Grief looks like driving in silence and twice pulling into the driveway with the gas light blinking orange. It looks like staring numbly, moving slowly, and blankly wondering what project I was in the middle of.

Grief feels heavy, makes me exhausted at three pm, and leaves me ready for bed at nine-thirty. Grief for me looks like tears and sobs the first week and a half, and an inexplicable feeling of being "too sad to cry" this week. Time stretches long, and has it only been three weeks? Yet it feels so long since I've talked to my Dad.

"This is the first class I've taught that I didn't talk about with my Dad," I told Mark Monday night as I drove away to teach my college-level Village Schools of the Bible Cover to Cover Bible Survey class. Grief slid down my shoulders to my back. I pictured talks on the back porch with my Dad, and our love for God's word.

My mom and I had a girls' sleepover last night at my parents' house, both of us pulling our Bibles closer. She spoke out verses from Romans chapter five about God gently, beautifully, wielding sorrow to craft beauty and character in us. I scrawled G2 pens fast across notebook paper and talked about the tender love of God who longs to walk beside his people, helping them know him intimately.

I spoke it aloud three weeks ago today, (Thursday morning, October 26th), sitting cross-legged on my Dad's bed, hugging him in a period of his pain, and breathing out any words that were truth and that would offer hope for both of us.

"The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. 
The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple. 
The precepts of the Lord are perfect, giving joy to the heart. 
The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes. 
The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever. 
The ordinances of the Lord are sure, and altogether righteous. 
They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold. 
They are sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb..." 

We had studied them together earlier that autumn, and now they were the only truth I could grab while he was in pain. I alternated between singing songs to him, praying for him, speaking God's words, and hugging him, or rubbing his back.

In between two dear friends leaving, two pastors arriving, a phone call to hospice triage, and several of us there, I wrapped my arms around my Dad gently, his body so frail and easily broken at the end. I kissed his whiskery face, told him I loved him, and grabbed the only truths I knew.

And I grab them now, and know that God's heart can be trusted.

If you are not receiving my post by email yet, welcome. Simply enter your email address in the box under my bio in the top right of the page. Don't miss a post and be part of any special invitations too! 

What Cowlicks and Warriors Would Tell You about Living Well

The fir tree has a cowlick. Spouting out from conical symmetry is a two-foot-long branch, and I want to snip it each time I see it, but it's twenty feet up and in my neighbor's yard. The branch points north to my neighbor's front yard where at night Orion the Warrior is tangled in a tree.

Photo Credit: Flickr user Erica Franck, Creative Commons cc license

One month into my Dad's stage IV terminal cancer diagnosis, and I find myself scrolling websites, scrawling notes at doctors' appointments, and counting calendar months. Chest tight some mornings, I pull my Bible closer while Daniel sits beside me untangling addition problems, and I wonder about subtractions.

Yesterday we took a break from math and phonics to refill bird feeders. Charcoal-colored sunflower seeds spilled dusty from the bag, whooshing against my fingers on cold metal frame. I sliced old juicy oranges into halves for the orioles. Crushed citrus a fragrance on my skin. Daniel and I placed vivid orange slices between lines of drizzled seeds on the deck railing, then slipped back inside to watch the birds come. Black-capped chickadees soared tremulously close, skittish but hopeful.

And I remember it, recounting the ways that God has tenderly laid bread crumb trails of hope and wonder for me this spring, long before I even knew I would need them. I line them up in my mind, and shake my head in gentle wonder. He is so good. In January, I stepped out and chose my very first Word of the Year --Brave --thinking I meant it to be moving more boldly into my writing and speaking ministries. God knew of Dad's impending cancer, though, and kindly tucked the word inside me. Earlier, in November Mark and I co-taught a sermon at our church, stating that joyful thanks-giving is always possible, even in the darkest nights. We mentioned our daughter's young cancer scare when she was five years old, and other crises over the years. Meanwhile my Dad's cancer grew in silence. The breadcrumbs continue in my mind, and I see it clearly, God's loving trail for me.

Pulling my Bible nearer, I pause to answer Daniel's math question before sinking deeper into God's words. "I have put my words in your mouth and covered you with the shadow of my hand," his book tells me, and I lean into that.

"Mom, I listened to Grandpa's song a lot yesterday," my tall twenty-one year old said quietly to me. Jeremy Camp's song "Reckless" has become my dad's mantra these months. He air drums away to it, nodding his head.

"Can we play it again?" my Dad says softly. "I'm not afraid to die. I know where I'm going," he smiles. Jeremy Camp sings about wanting to love and live recklessly, boldly, because of Jesus's love for us.

"I want to die well," my Dad says, thinking of a Henri Nouwen quote. He and Mom have been sharing their stories of God's rescues and passionate love all the more boldly now to the people they meet.

Outside my window, I can see it, the fir tree with a cowlick. Beyond the Warrior Orion hangs the Big Dipper constellation.

"If you're ever lost and need to find north," my Dad had taught me, "follow the mouth of the Big Dipper. It will pour out into the North Star."

And now it changes how I see the cowlick. It's directing me to a poured out life that always points me home.

If you are not receiving my posts by email yet, welcome. Simply enter your email address in the box under my bio at the top right of the page. Don't miss a post and be part of any special invitations too. 

Life and Death Intertwined

A cloud of caramel-colored cattail fluff flew towards me. Waving his cattail sword gleefully against the red slide and grey drawbridge, Daniel laughed as each swat emitted another fairy-tale cloud of fluff. It clung to his navy and red-striped pants, and tickled his neck near the blue hoodie. Wrinkling my nose unconsciously at the tiny fibers brushing past my nose, I didn’t even try to avoid the stream of air-borne particles glinting in the sunlight. 

The air smelled damp and earthy after yesterday’s rain which had melted the snow back to small resistant patches. We’ve had several days of sixty degree weather and forecasters have predicted a week of low seventies actually. All of Minnesota is giddy. Accustomed to slush in March and possible snow in April, this weather has bewitched us. Trees tentatively bud, daffodils stand tall against all dire warnings, and Minnesotans of all ages put on shorts, grab running shoes or strollers, and head outside. 

Lying on a damp park bench and taking deep breaths of the spring air, I lazily watched my preschooler explore the woods beside me.  Chickadees, cardinals, blue jays, and red-winged blackbirds called. Robins chattered and warned of passers-by. With blue skies and sunshine, it is so much easier to count God’s gifts. They roll off the tongue with each new bird I identify and breath of spring. 

But the hard gifts? Those are harder to name and count, especially when they happen to those close to me. Three of my friends wrestle with cancer. One friend marks a year since her tiny three year old has battled cancer, lost strawberry-blonde hair, and bravely taken toxins via a port. Two other friends have just made Cancer’s acquaintance, and already he demanded heavy fees. Surgery sliced the chest. Femininity isn’t dependent on that. Chemotherapy stole another’s red locks.  I read, and prayed and wept. 

On the park bench dampness was seeping into my jeans now. The sun had moved slightly, and preschooler explored further in the woods. Life and death lay entwined beneath him, old grasses, bare trees, and twisted brambles that scratched his tiny hands as he climbed doggedly over fallen trunks. 

This week a dear friend gave birth to a beautiful baby with a head of hair! This lovely baby stares steadily out at us all from her photos, amazingly alert, and already planning adventures. We rejoice and delight in each photo. 

In my Bible this morning I read the NIV study note’s introduction to Lamentations. One scholar said: In the middle of the book, the theology of Lamentations reaches its apex as it focuses on the goodness of God. He is the Lord of hope, of love, of faithfulness, of salvation. In spite of all evidence to the contrary, “his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” (Lam.3:22,23)

What is amazing to me today about this well-known verse and song lyric is noticing where this verse is said, and when. 

The ancient city of Jerusalem had been besieged, destroyed, and burned. Most of its peoples had been carried off to a foreign land that was over 543 miles away. Only the weak or the very old were still left in the city. Famine had been horrendous and people had eaten the unimaginable. 

In between weeping and grieving for their families, cities, and home, the survivors and remnant said: “Because of the Lord’s great love, we are not consumed…for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” 

Over 543 miles from home, surrounded by a new language, grieving the life they thought they would be living, they say, “his mercies are new every morning; great is his faithfulness.”  I have so much to learn.

Life and death interwoven. Toxins, toddlers, and floating caramel-colored cattail tufts, glinting in the sun. Climbing doggedly over fallen trunks and scratched by brambles, Daniel emerged from the tangled undergrowth. Holding hands, we ambled home, counting gifts, and breathing deeply.