Monday, August 11, 2014

When Chemo Comes Home



Chemo has entered my children's vocabulary and prayers of late. How do you tell little hearts what it is? How do you tell their mama?

Chemo has been rolling around in my heart and mind as well as it is now rolling through my Daddy's body. It strikes me again and again how I don't know if I'd be willing to go through with it and if you have ever had this knock at the door of your port and come in - Do you know how brave I think you are? How selfless? How strong?

Early morning wakens me the day after thinking about my Mom relating a busy and full chemo room. Many loved ones gathered around and beeping machines interrupting their "normal life." You know the day is on the calendar but how do you make it through that day? And the next and the next?

Do you feel like you are just waiting for a bomb to drop and wondering how it will make you feel? A new presence has come into your life and home and it has a big ugly name. It is scary.



And so while fixing lunch for my littles the day the medicine is dripping, even the very moments it is, I pray that this will not be poison but peace somehow. That it will calm a storm of disease. I think of all the families represented in that chemo room. I think of hair that will be mourned or not if you happen to prefer a high-and-tight or a higher-and-tighter.

My hand reaches to God' Word like a life-line. I search for poison looking for hope instead. And, here is what I find:

"I remember my affliction and my wandering,
the bitterness and the gall.
I well remember them,
and my soul is downcast within me.
Yet this I call to mind
and therefore I have hope:

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.
I say to myself, 'The Lord is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him.'
 The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him,
to the one who seeks him;
it is good to wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord.

~

For men are not cast off
by the Lord forever. 
Though he bring grief, he will show compassion,
so great is his unfailing love."

Lamentations 3:19-26, 31-32
That is how you make it today and tomorrow and the next day - by calling this to mind and therefore having hope. We are not consumed, His compassion never fails, He renews morning by morning. Great is Your faithfulness.

Chemo is big but God is bigger. Chemo comes home but God is home. God is peace and beauty when chemo is anything but. Morning by morning .... thank You, Jesus.