God’s faithfulness – Page 6

Rejoicing In Your Scars

Recently, as I put the littlest boys into bed, Chase stripped his shirt as he often does, referring to his white chest as his “rockin’ body’. As he passed across the room towards his bed, Karsten came to stand in front of him, stopping him, and asking with quiet interest, “Hey, Chase, what are those lines?” His small, chubby hand raised energetically to point at the slashes of central line scars that cover Chase’s upper chest on both sides.

For one small second, I held my breath. I wanted to jump in and explain. I wanted to “make it better” and take it away as I watched Chase begin to recoil. He hates questions about his physical appearance. And some days, I hate that all the kids know these strange and awful cancer-y things. But then, Chase stood up a little straighter, pressing out of his curve and removed the hand he’d used to quickly cover the scars, bringing his chest into the light.

“Karsten, do you know what these are?

Karsten shook his head and waited patiently as Chase puffed himself up with the self-importance of a sibling about to teach a great lesson.

“These are from my needles and surgeries.”

“Surgeries?”

“Yes. They’re from my cancer and my chemo. Do you know what chemo is?”

“Yes! He’s in the closet!” Karsten ran to the closet and scooped up Chemo Duck, bringing him back and placing him in Chase’s outstretched arms. “Here, Chase. Here’s Chemo. He’s probably a duck.” To Karsten, who was only 8 months old on the fateful day in 2012, “chemo” is just the name of a stuffed animal, not a torturous experience. I waited. Knowing what to say next was best left to Chase. Sometimes the simple dialogue between brothers is a thousand times more useful than maternal wisdom could ever be.

He nodded gravely. “Thanks, Karsten, but there was more chemo. From the doctors. And now look…” he flexed his arm in the air, looking up at it proudly. “Look at my muscles. Chemo gave me good muscles.”

At which point, I felt the need to interject and redirect. Some days memory doesn’t come easily for him. “Chase, the chemo killed your cancer cells.”

He nodded as if he’d known all along. “Yep. And my hair too. But now it’s coming back. See, Karsten?”

He flexed again as Karsten watched the whole show in somewhat awed silence. And then Chase stopped and looked at me.

“Hey, Mom? The doctors didn’t make me. I forget…who made me?”

I ruffled his whispy-soft head. “God did, my sweet boy.”

He nodded yet again. “Oh, that’s right. Good. I’m glad.”

Karsten jumped up and down at my side. “Me too! Me too!”

And then the moment of deep attention was lost and the boys went back to getting ready for bed and intermittently wrestling, for that is what most small boys love to do.

But I saw this amazing moment unfold before my eyes. Our history and our scars can hurt, can be shameful, stressful, and sad, but in the rehearsing of them, the telling of them to others, the owning of them, they point us to God in such unique ways.

Rejoice in your scars . . . moment by moment.

What If I Go To Sleep And Don’t Wake Up?

Chase settled a little further into his pillow as I tucked the sheets up under his chin, just the way he liked it. He had been laughing a second earlier and it suddenly changed to a whimper. “I’m scared . . .”

I tousled the fuzzy hair on his smooth head, “It’s going to be okay, sweet boy.”

He twisted slightly in the sheets as if trying to physically escape a thought. “But Mom, what if I go to sleep and I don’t wake up?”

I hugged him close and promised him that wouldn’t happen – not because I knew it to be true, but because I desperately prayed it so. How the old soul questions from a young body twist at my heart and mind.

It takes four people to hold and distract Chase while the needle is placed in his arm.

Twelve too short hours later, after fourteen hours of fasting and four attempts to place an IV in his under-hydrated veins, he fought the medication as it sought to take hold, pulling his head off the hospital bed to draw breath against the impending sleep even to the point that he nearly choked. His eyes closed and he fought them open once again. His voice was a hushed whisper as if even opening his lips to form words took too much energy. “Mom, I’m going to miss you. Will you come back to me?” The fear in his eyes was still visible in the blank glaze of the pre-anesthesia prescriptions. And then his chest heaved in a gigantic sigh, and he surrendered. And I stood in the bay next to Bob, watching nurses and doctors prepare to load his small body into the colossal machine until the automated entrance door closed, separating all of us once again.

We don't like needles . . . — We don’t like needles . . .

Yet another MRI . . .

Today marked Chase’s first MRI in four months and the first one since his diagnosis that I haven’t posted about before it occurred. It was traumatic as it always is and for a moment after the holidays and the busyness and burnout, I lost the ability and desire to put it into words. At some point, it feels like we run out of new ways to say “this is hard” and “please pray”. Every time he passes out and we’re left standing in a room, every last time we say goodbye, it tears at my heart and the weeping soul cry of it all is that we weren’t meant for these kind of things.

It’s hard now, and it’ll probably be equally difficult when we do it all again in three or four months or possibly sooner with an impending eye surgery. And wow, is my weakness and lack of faith on the surface in these moments when I stand separated from Chase and consider doing it all again. We never, ever outgrow the need for moment by moment grace, no matter the circumstance.

Sleeping off the medicines post-scan. He's awake, but was too tired to respond to anything - even a picture. — Sleeping off the medicines post-scan. He’s awake, but was too tired to respond to anything – even a picture.

Oh, but I’m so thankful to be able to bring you the hard and the good all in one, for within a few hours of the nearly two hour scan and recovery, we met with Chase’s neurosurgeon and learned that preliminary results showed negligible growth in the tumor site. Of course, we wait on the final consensus of the other teams and tumor board, but we are so blessed to share that at this point, Chase is stable.

Moment by moment.

Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning. Psalm 30:5b

Post-procedure had Teddy Grahams - the best way to break a fast, of course :) — Post-procedure had Teddy Grahams – the best way to break a fast, of course 🙂

12.12.15

For years now, Chase has fought me on his age. On some level, the last year he remembers well is the one he turned two, right before the tumor. For years now, as I’ve told him the next numbers, he’s insisted that he was still only two. I finally got him to admit to five, but it’s usually a fight. But just last week, he came and plopped down next to me on the couch. “Mom, I’m ready.”

“Ready for what?”

“I’m ready to be six. I know it’s six now and I’m okay with it. I’m ready.”

I smiled and kissed his fuzzy head. “That’s great, Chasey-bear.”

“And Mom, after that, can I be seven and then eight and then nine?”

Yes, a thousand times, YES . . . please.

Today, my precious, stubborn, tenacious, beat-the-odds, stare-it-down, never-say-die, don’t-mess, you-and-what-army Chase turns six with great joy.

And I’d love to reflect at greater length, but the present is waiting right next to me and the present has his birthday crown on and he’s begging me to open gifts. He asked me to share that he’s “thankful for Bapa and chicken and that he likes his birthday and his presents.”

We are so thankful for another year of life . . . moment by moment.

Needs Repair

As I opened the old cardboard box covered in Christmas stickers, the kids crowded around trying to be the first to glimpse the ornaments lovingly stored inside. Even though decorating the tree can be stressful, and this year was proving especially interesting as I worked with Darcy, Aidan and two other children who refused to respond to names other than ‘Spider-Man’ and ‘Buzz Lightyear’; pulling out the ornaments and putting them up is one of my favorite things in the world. We, all six of us, end up standing in this area of a few feet and looking through all that has been while thinking about what is yet to come.

There are the Sunday school ornaments from when I was Darcy’s age and the kids laugh at the thought of me as a little girl, writing my name in glitter. There are the ‘Baby’s First Christmas’ globes with a date I won’t print on this page and someone asks if running water had been invented by the 1980s while Bob laughs. And then the kids go through their own ornaments, like rediscovered treasures. with a new one marked for each year, and they laugh at some of their earlier choices and greet others like long-lost friends.

Christmas 2013 was the year Darcy chose a Cinderella ornament and all three boys picked small green and yellow John Deere tractor ornaments. Those were hard days to keep the tiny metal tractors on the tree and tamp down the temptation to take them off and play with them every day, but mostly they succeeded.

However, in the course of only a few years and the packing, unpacking and rehanging, Chase’s tractor had succumbed to the wear. It was missing it’s front wheels and steering wheel and I’d totally forgotten about it until I reached into the sticker-covered cardboard box. Chase pressed close and as I pulled out the small box for the tractor, I saw the bright pink post-it with my mom’s neat handwriting from last year: “Needs repair” so I quickly tucked it back into the box. This wasn’t the moment to fix it and I knew if Chase saw it, he’d want it, so I gave him his ‘Baby’s First Christmas’ ornament instead and we hung it with care. But as I’d moved away from my place in front of the box, Aidan took it, pulling out the damaged tractor’s box once again, holding it high over his head, and yelling “Whose is this?”

The second Chase saw it, he jumped, screaming “Mine! It’s mine! Give it to me, Aidy!” And ripping the box open, he saw the truth of the words he could not read and immediately stilled. “Oh. Mom, this is broken. We need to fix it.”

I held out my hands for the box and the broken ornament. “I know, sweet boy, and we’ll fix it, but for now, why don’t you give it to me? This isn’t the right time. We’re decorating the tree. We’ll get it all set up and then you can hang it another time, okay?”

His head dropped low and I waited for the storm, but it never came. His voice stayed quiet. “But it’s my ornament. I remember it. Can I please hang it up even though it’s broken? I love it.”

Isn’t this the breathtaking wonder of Jesus coming to this world? The purpose in the story of this season? He came as one of us, grabbed for the broken and damaged, the things we’d rather hide away, fix before acknowledging, find another time to deal with, and He lovingly says: “I remembered you. You’re mine. I love you in your brokenness and I’m making all things new.”

Moment by moment.

Every Promise Is Enough

For three years now, we take a moment to reflect. This Wednesday in 2012, Chase was deep into radiation on top of his chemo therapy and was staying in the hospital. He was weak and his counts were very low, but he was stable and so, late in the afternoon of this Wednesday, I held his weak and white body by the window and stared out at the lake, shielding his face – eyelids covered in scabs from where daily anesthesia tape had ripped the tender skin – and prayed that they would let us go home for Thanksgiving. And then Dr. Goldman entered the room (as only he can enter a room) and told us to go. And we went. Three years later, we are thankful for so many things and our darling Chase is still with us to celebrate.

“My heart is filled with thankfulness

To Him who walks beside;

Who floods my weaknesses with strength

And causes fears to fly;

Whose ev’ry promise is enough

For ev’ry step I take,

Sustaining me with arms of love

And crowning me with grace.” [Getty, Townend]

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!

~The Ewoldt Family

Tag: God’s faithfulness

Rejoicing In Your Scars

What If I Go To Sleep And Don’t Wake Up?

12.12.15

Needs Repair

Every Promise Is Enough

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