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For months, I’ve been searching for the words to adequately, appropriately share what has been a significant chapter for our family: selling our condo and buying a house.  It has been an up-and-down, stressful, crazy, unbelievable journey that has pushed us to the edge of what we thought we were capable of handling again and again.  More than once, I’ve come to the computer and searched for the right words and a way (any way) to organize my thoughts.  Today, I rediscovered these paragraphs that I’d scribbled down about two months ago when the condo finally sold.  It sold and I felt released in my words and thoughts.  Within four weeks of that time, we’d close on our first house, and within 24 hours of closing, I’d get the call about Chase’s MRI, proving yet again that there is no time when we reach a place of independence…

The post I’ve been wanting to write just hasn’t been formulating properly for some time.  Mental distractions abound: children crying and always needing, the friend having surgery, the cancer child friend of Chase’s that’s been rushed to the hospital after a 45 minute seizure, the therapy appointments and radiation follow ups and the text from my spouse saying he almost ran out of gas on the way to work.

The thought of Susanna Wesley putting her apron over her head for a moment of prayer begins to sound better and better.  If only I could find my apron…

And the crazy irony of a week like this is that I’ve walked the halls of hospitals and begged God to spare my son’s life.

I’ve come to realize in the last several months that I expected to “graduate” the trial of brain cancer treatment at a “brain cancer level” of trust in the sovereignty of God, and yet, here I am, yet again, throwing my hands in the air over so many things that I can’t control – and feeling hard-hearted and bitter that God won’t let me control them in the ways I see fit and then move past them forever and check them neatly off my life list as accomplished.

There is no graduation.  There is no time when we reach independence.  Just because we went through a hard thing and survived does not mean that it won’t be equally hard the next time we’re faced with it.   In fact, it may very well be more hard the next time.  We will never reach a moment when we aren’t in desperate need of salvation and grace.

When the house you thought you sold is going back on the market again, or the house you’ve wanted to put an offer on gets further away and more inaccessible, and the summer lags and there are no answers for Fall and school… somehow, at times, those are the days when it’s shamefully harder to cope than the cancer days.  How do the little things hurt worse than the big ones?  Salvation.  Grace.

For there is no time when we reach independence.

Thank you, Lord.

Moment by moment.

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?” Matthew 6:25-27

I’ve recently been on a slight writing hiatus.  To quote someone I spoke to recently: “That’s good because it means there’s nothing new to write about, right?”  …well, almost.  🙂

In truth, my most recent time for writing led to a synopsis of Chase’s story – which was published on a different blog.  I had the honor of being able to share Chase’s story and stats with the St. Baldrick’s Foundation and having it be published on their blog!

If you have never read the story, or if you’d like to read it again, please click: “Chase’s Best Shot“.

~MbM~

We received a call yesterday about the EEG results.  In almost eight hours of monitoring, they weren’t able to capture a single seizure.  This is a HUGE praise!

Despite this really great piece of news, Chase’s EEG is still “abnormal”.  The person I spoke with said that some of that is to be expected as parts of Chase’s brain were removed in surgery – because of this, his brain will always read “abnormal” these types of tests.  However, there may be an aspect of the results that cannot be attributed to previous brain trauma.  This is the part that was unclear.  We have been told that this will be something to discuss in further detail with the specialist at our meeting in about three weeks.

We are so thrilled that there were no seizures, but I spent a good part of yesterday afternoon just working through the word “abnormal“.  As I’ve recently written, this concept of “normal, but not“, has been a difficult paradigm to optimize.  Hearing the word “abnormal” yesterday afternoon just brought back all the questions and many of the frustrations.

We look forward with hope to this meeting in a few weeks and acknowledge that there is never a time that we’re not in desperate need of moment by moment grace.

And Chase is always and forever Chase – about once a day, he turns to us and says “Hey! Remember the stickers on my head? I did that the other day and I was so, so, so brave!”

~MbM~

The setting Fall sun cast a shadow across the dashboard of the car as I sat in silence with the phone to my ear.  “I don’t know if you’re familiar with them, but this is what they’d like to do…”  The words of the financial planner rang in my ear as I tried to absorb the information she went on to lay out before me.

A GIFT.

The professional athlete and his wife had heard of Chase and his treatment and they wanted to help.  They knew what God had asked them to do and they did it.

Stunned, I called Bob and imparted the information I’d heard.  We sat in staggered silence on the phone.  This gift would change the course of our lives and our legacy forever.  I have to go.  I was late.  He agreed.  We’d talk later.

I had been in the car on the way to a dinner at the pastor’s house and as I walked to the house, I encountered the pastor walking a child in from soccer practice.  Immediately, unable to contain it, I blurted the news of the gift.  What do we do?  What do we say?   Mere words don’t do this gift justice.  And then he proceeded to smile and tell me to stop for a moment and see it for what it was – a tangible picture of God’s grace.  A gift so big, so undeserved, so beyond the ability to describe that it changes the course of our lives and legacy forever.

That day was a Fall ago now.  Time has passed, Chase is still with us, and we’ve met the givers and found great encouragement in our common faith, and the pastor was absolutely right.  As we move through life, changed because of the gift, freed because of it, given great ability because of it, the gift stands as an always reminder of grace in our hearts and minds.  And it has changed our lives forever.

These words have taken me a full 16 months to write because words still elude me.  Every attempt still falls short in light of the incredible blessing.  All I can say is this:

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!  “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?”  “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?”  For from him and through him and to him are all things.  To him be glory forever.  Amen. Romans 11:33ff

Moment by moment.

~Dedicated to the givers of the gift~