lesser things

we were crossing out to the ocean, my little one and me.  it was our first day to the beach, and the sea would be wild and wonderful and completely brand new for him. this young mother couldn’t wait to carry small son to a place filled with her favorites. she couldn’t wait to show him the width of water and the expanse of shore. she couldn’t wait for him to put toes in sand and squeal in air and joy in heart.
it was all just ahead of us, up the stairs and across the boardwalk. and we were almost there, when toddler boy in blue fish bathing suit stopped at a small puddle. stopped and stood and plopped. right there in puddle, pleased and asking, “water, mama? beach?” i laughed out loud at my funny son sitting on the edge of last night’s leftover rain. little boy ready to pull out his truck and his shovel, ready to play big in something so small. “no, silly boy, that is not the beach, only a puddle.” and i took hold of his chubby hand, wanting to press on to grand ocean. but my son resisted. he was not ready to leave this place behind in search of something better. he felt it might be enough. he imagined it could be the answer to our packed bags and our morning preparations. he was happy to make much of this nothing. this puddle. this lesser thing.

that little boy is well on his way to grown now. he hasn’t worn a blue fish bathing suit in quite some time, and, thankfully, he no longer sits in puddles. but, oh how i relate to this small son in his small puddle years ago. i am struck with how often i, too, accept puddles in place of oceans. how often i take the lesser things of life thinking they are enough - even everything. my memory is strewn with settling moments. times when i grasped at the earthly stuff of now, forgetting to look bigger, to look beyond the boardwalk. “set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” (colossians 3:2). i desire the above-things and yet, so often find myself pausing at puddles and plopping down in their smallness. i accept the tiny tidbits and leftovers of life instead of the grand treasure God has in store, already waiting. 

many days i feel just like an israelite. i understand their wringing hands and wandering feet as they waited for moses to come down off the mountain. i kind of get their panic and impatience. if i was walking in their dusty sandals, would i have remembered God’s goodness and grandeur in the pressing heat of present desert, of the right now? i am sure i could easily have been a woman willing to throw in her gold bangles and silver hoops to the creation of calf. golden, golden worthless calf. i’m afraid i’d probably be right there with them dancing and wishing and hoping in something low. something less. trying to make much from something small, something base. moses was up on the mountain meeting with the very glory of God. He was in the presence of pure holiness, and yet those short-sighted israelites, who couldn’t look up, threw their trinkets into a black pot and called it good, and hoped it great. but it wasn’t. it couldn’t be. they stirred and whirled and crossed their fingers in desperate wishing because they had forgotten how big their God truly was. instead, they traded Him for nothing more than a puddle of melted bracelets turned calf. “they had forgot what He had done, the wonders He had shown them.” (psalm 78:11). we settle for puddles and baby cows because we are forgetters. israelites or not. 

this past summer, i walked our fifth toddler down to the ocean’s edge. bella took her first steps on the beach. i was just as eager to show her, as i was her older brother years ago.  this wee girl, abandoned at birth because of a sick heart, is evidence of God’s miraculous ways, His big plan -- rescued. healed. restored. now home. she is just as tiny as that boy in the blue fish bathing suit and she, too, is prone to stop at puddles. but this mother is older, seasoned, even slightly scarred. she has seen God’s glory and grandeur.  she has seen His goodness in the blessing and in the hard. she has glimpsed God beyond the boardwalk. and she doesn’t want to forget it is everything.

and i take hold of small hand and whisper in small ear a message for us both, “let’s keep going, bella. there is a grand ocean waiting.”

the ocean and nothing

do you remember that word i used in my last post,  end of second paragraph in my "plan c" piece?  the word i said which seems to be thematic to this blog ...our journey... my life.  the lesson i supposedly keep failing to learn.  the thing which i can't ever seem to grasp.  yeah, that word.  waiting.  w-a-i-t-i-n-g.  waiting.  guess what i found out earlier today?   more waiting.


we are at the beach this week.  just for a few days.  rick has a conference and it happens to be at the ritz on amelia island.  how lovely, "well, of course honey, we'll come!"  so this morning with suits on and sunscreen applied we were heading out the door for some time on the beach.  just the youngest three and me. rick is in meetings and the older two are in guatemala on a mission trip. (yes, the irony hasn't escaped me:  some of us at the ritz and some of us on a mission trip).   i am fine managing the littlest three, but find myself wondering what we can "do without" at the beach today.  i can still carry pretty much nothing...like a sand shovel. maybe.  bella carries less and, in fact,  sometimes needs herself to be carried.  which leaves a slightly scrawny 11 year old girl and her 8 year old brother to do the heavy work.   so there we are with our great, heaping piles of beach stuff when my phone rings.  i recognize the number immediately. it is jennifer,  my surgeon's assistant.  when going through cancer you quickly learn the numbers of your different doctors.


i tell the kids to hold tight and i take the call.  all beating heart and pounding pulse.  my stomach is flipping and my knees are weak.   it feels somewhat similar to that call i took on april 19th.  that one which started this whole ugly ball rolling.  i know she is calling with my oncotype results, but have absolutely no guess at what she will say.  wildly good news or wildly bad.  but i just want to know.  dr. barber's nurse, jennifer, begins with morning pleasantries and it is all i can do to not scream, "just tell me, already!" i am prepared for the good and i am even kind of prepared for the bad, but i am not prepared for what she tells me.  "jody, we got your oncotype back, and i am so sorry, but the results are inconclusive."  it seems the tumor sample they sent to the genomic lab in california does not contain enough genetic information to provide an accurate number.  i am stunned.  i didn't know this was a possible outcome.  i hadn't prepared for it.  i wasn't expecting it.  i am not sure what to think.  immediately i have a million questions in my head but find myself stuttering over the words necessary for the asking.  she tells me that only one other time has this happened in these past few years of running this test.  this just never happens.  she is surprised and she is sorry.  she is sorry and i am unsure.   unsure what to do with this inconclusive news. the no-answer.  she talks about sending another sample of the tissue.  i tell her to send the whole insane tumor for goodness sake.  whatever.  just let's move on.  i feel patience bleeding out of me.  it takes with it my breath, my energy and my calm.  i am still holding that sand shovel.  and i finally let go.  i am hiding in the master bath of our suite and only the marble is cool.  everything around me and in me seems suddenly hot.  boiling.  i am not sure how to walk out of this room and answer the questioning eyes of my children.  they know i am on an important phone call.  i wouldn't normally answer the phone with beach things heavy in our hands and feet already in flip flops.  i am a mother of five and i know better than to halt a beach bound train of children already in motion.


it isn't the worst news.  i realize that.  it isn't even bad news.  it is no news.  that's what it is.  no news.   no answer.  and i just can't quite seem to process this nothingness.   but somehow i make it out of the bathroom and we make it down to the beach.  we put our feet in the ocean and our bottoms in the sand and though the day is sweltering the boil inside me ceases.  a little.  the ocean helps.  i watch my three small ones dance in the whirl of sand and surf.  splashes of bright swimsuit and childhood light against the muted,  gray-blue atlantic.  they are tiny.  it is large.  so very large.  the largeness of it all helps in some strange way. spreads it thinner.  shrinks the size.  it is good to feel small in the midst of something so big.   i have been consumed with this cancer.  it has taken big bites out of my days and nights and self.  and i am tired of its taking.  i am tired and i want desperately to toss it into the water and watch it float far away.  but i can't toss this nothingness.  it is too empty.   light, like sand flung in the sky, and surely it will come right back at me.  i will end up with eyes full of sting and grit.  and so i fling nothing.  i toss nothing.  i hold nothing.  i, perhaps, even feel nothing.


and now it is later-afternoon and i sit here typing.  further quiet.  finally cool.  rick's meetings have ended and he has scooped up our three and taken them for a pre-dinner swim.   i pull out my no news and i have the chance to look it all over more closely now.  all scrutiny and examination, i am.   and it is now i remember my words in the previous post.  my words about waiting.  and i almost laugh.  almost.  "oh Lord, what are you up to?  what are you teaching me?  you aren't cruel.  you're always good.  so good.  only good.  where are we going with this?  and why?" always, like a petulant child with her never-ending-whys, i am.   i can't understand. and i can't pretend. and i am tired of trying.  from my balcony i can see the same muted ocean.  i am close enough to hear its water-rhythm:  the sound of the surf and the calm of the waves crashing.   loud and quiet all wrapped up in vast measure.  even larger now from my end-of-the-day place.  and there steady above is the horizon.  a two-toned line running as far as forever.   as far as my eyes can see.  and i want to see.  i am even more certain i won't fling or toss away what i am given.  even this nothingness.  nothing in me wants to be left with sand-scratched eyes.  i want to see.  i want to see where God is leading.  and even when i cannot see with my own eyes i want to see with the eyes of trust.  and isn't this faith? "now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." (hebrews 11:1).    i do not see.  i cannot.  but i want to see with the eyes of faith.  i want to trust in His seeing.  His knowing. His holding. 


God who formed land and formed waters and formed me,  He knows.  He formed all of this from nothing.   He spoke it all into being.   this ocean before me and the shore kneeling low and solid at its side, He spoke.   He spoke the firmament into place and then called it good.
 "and God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” and it was so. God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.  ~ genesis 1:9
and even though it began as nothing my God called it good.  He thought it and He named it and He saw it and He called it.  because my God is that big. and He is that good.  and i can know that  even this nothing-kind-of-news today is safe in His  grasp.  He is bigger than it.   bigger than my cancer.  bigger than this vast ocean.  and if He holds this wind and water, He holds me and my nothingness.  and i sit and stare a few minutes more.  closer to seeing.  i hear the children coming.  running down the hall.  heavy footsteps for such light bodies.  and i type one  last sentence and i take one more look and i though i seem to know nothing, i am certain of this:  God holds it all.  the ocean beyond my balcony proclaims it is so and the clear eyes of my heart know it so.  He holds.

  "Who has gone up to heaven and come down?
 Who has gathered up the wind in the hollow of his hands?

 Who has wrapped up the waters in his cloak?
 Who has established all the ends of the earth? 

What is his name, and the name of his son? Tell me if you know!" ~ proverbs 30:4  

to stand beside an ocean

we spent this past labor day weekend at the beach. there is  nothing quite like standing next to the ocean. it has always given me immediate and unequivocal perspective on my size. i remember so well the awe i felt as a child when first discovering it. i quickly became nothing more than a speck. one of the trillions of sand grains underneath my feet.  


as an adult, everything in my world seems to have shrunk dramatically. but not the ocean. it still seems as majestic to me today as it did when i was six. i find great beauty in that constancy. i find it to even provide great comfort. there is reassurance in the knowledge that something is so big, so grand, so awesome it could in no way be diminished by my pseudo-sense of maturity and age.  the line, "i hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean," from the song I Hope You Dance, is well written. how can i not? no one can escape their smallness when confronted with its grandness.  and this is not only important, but it is great blessing.


perspective was exactly what i was in need of this weekend. as we battle through the tremendous check list of our adoption, we have, again, come face to face with our speck-hood. but even this frustrating fact has, in a strange way, brought a sense of comfort. again, we have encountered something so much larger than ourselves. 


i have learned in life that most things seem to have some kind of hidden crack - a minute opening waiting to be unearthed. if i keep prying, keep pushing, keep asking i can, willfully (sometimes), make advancements. i can chisel my way in. i can claw my way through. oh, not so in the daunting world of adoption. as the entire process has unfolded more and more clearly, it only makes the tiny-ness of my will and my size that much more obvious. there is no amount of prodding that will move this great beast along.  it is a great wall. it is a mountain. it is even an ocean. my parents, and especially my husband, would tell you that i have never responded particularly well to the word, "no." there is nothing like it to make me want something that much more desperately. i am certain this is not one of my better character traits....but, nonetheless, i must confess it sort of comes with my territory. i don't really remember the great battles of will my parents had with me as a child, but i have heard stories. they are not pretty stories. i cannot say that this gift of battle, is necessarily from God, but because He uses all things and wastes nothing, i do know He has used even this ugly nature for His good. it is part of what makes me want to push through this challenging mess.  


 rick and i have often felt hopeless, helpless and powerless in this pursuit of our little china girl. our size, even together, is stuck definitively in the realm of microscopic. again, it is just another way in which we are reminded that we can do nothing apart from Him. "...for apart from me you can do nothing." ~ john 15:5. this lesson doesn't come easily to my stubborn nature. i am forty years old and still want to stamp my foot and demand my way. i want to beat my fists on the table and plead my case. i want to assert my rights and present my wishes.  but then i walk down to the water's edge and i stand beside the ocean. as a believer in Christ i cannot even begin to look at His righteousness ....at His glory. even a glimpse of it exposes me in my diminished state. even the mere hint of God's awesomeness reveals my utter wretchedness. i can tell you i don't like it - not one little bit. but i trust God is using even this formidable (at times) adoption to reveal my rebelliousness as i attempt things without Him. 


i can go ahead and jump in the ocean and swim with all my might. i can store up all my energy. i can plan and prepare all i want. i can even use floaties and goggles, but i will be completely and utterly lost at sea if i think that i can in any way attempt this on my own. sure, i find that sometimes discouraging. but, i am learning to find it encouraging. i am learning to see myself as small and my God as big.  sometimes we just need to stand beside an ocean.