Decorating for Christmas is always one of my favorite things. And this year feels much the same, except I keep coming across notes tucked into my holiday storage boxes. Last year, after Christmas, as I spent extra time taking things down and putting them away I was facing another round of scans in early January. Scans do something unkind to a stage 4 cancer patient’s mind. Scans mess with us. I’ve always been a person wired to hope for, and even, expect the best, but these past couple of years have introduced me to a new, more skeptical side of myself. Unfortunately, at times, a more anxious side. I still hope for and pray for and ask for the best, but I have this self-protective thing in me which, I notice, on occasion, attempts to manage my expectations and keep in check my slightly Pollyanna-ish personality.
Super dramatic, right? I agree. And I really try to stay away from that kind of thinking, except I have a terminal cancer diagnosis and so sometimes that luxury affords me not.
Trust me, my attitude is very positive for a girl wearing these kind of statistical shoes and fighting this kind of undignified diagnosis. Most of the time I have ridiculously high hopes and every reason to believe I am going to keep fighting this disease for many, many years. But, as I mentioned above, there’s this new, slightly more skeptical, side with which I’m constantly confronted. I have statistics. I have too many stories of stage 4 patients. I know things. I see things. I fear things.
This is what living with stage four cancer sometimes looks like. The part you might not notice. So I'm telling you.
And the mother and wife and woman in me wants to be ready. She doesn’t want her family to throw down that garland in frustration because, “only mom knows how to really make it fit the space.” She doesn’t want the dining room tree ornaments to end up on the family room tree or the stockings to be hung in the wrong order or the wreaths to be on the wrong doors. (gasp!) She doesn’t want a holiday season to come and not be well celebrated because, “only mom knows how to…” I fully realize that all sounds pretty silly in the face of cancer... or really anything. I know none of that stuff is a truly big deal, but in some weird way, for me, it was. Is.
And I know when the day comes where I may be sick or weak or weary or (hopefully) old, I will want my family to carry on with all the courage and creativity that I’ve spent decades trying to pour into them—cancer or no cancer.
Because life is brief. There are no guarantees. And as mothers we never know what lessons have really been learned. What traditions will be carried on. What memories made. What things remembered. We can’t imagine not being the one to wrap the presents or choose the yearly ornaments or plan the menu. We can’t fathom a day where we won’t be in the kitchen baking cookies and barking orders and checking on the turkey.
But for all of us, sooner or later, that day will, indeed, come.
Last year as I removed the ornaments and folded the stockings and wound up the garland and lights, I allowed the King of Lies to take hold of my very human, very fragile, heart. I allowed The Liar to whisper what ifs into my uneasy ears. He scared me. Of course he did. He is really good at his job.
And, somehow, I thought if I wrote out directions and detailed a lot of drawings, I would be able to silence his insidious plans to sabotage my peace.
But he is a liar. And those were lies. And satan isn’t in charge anyway. Not one bit. He wants to keep me unsteady and unable. He wants desperately to make me incapable and ineffectual. He’d like nothing more to shut this girl down well before cancer does.
It’s a truly weird balance as we consider the brevity of our days—each one of us—and yet, place our full confidence in the perfect timing of Jesus. I know. I don't get all of it either. But it bears considering.
And that’s why I so desperately need the Truth of Jesus. Every day. Every hour. I think of the hymn I heard my grandparents sing so often growing up. They sang it a lot. I think because as older, wiser people, they knew. They got it. Like I know now. Like I (mostly) get it:
“I need Thee every hour
Most gracious Lord
No tender voice like Thine
Can peace afford
I need Thee, O I need Thee
Every hour I need Thee
O bless me now, my Savior
I come to Thee.”
Annie S. Hawks, 1872
I don’t really fault that Jody from early last January. She likes her ducks in a row. She always has. Rick and I laughed a little as we pulled out those storage boxes this year. He was actually pretty impressed with my uber organization. The man loves a good diagram and chart. Trust me, it’s not easy to impress a #1 on the enneagram when it comes to organization. But impressed, he was.
Speaking of Rick, he’s been amazing this year in helping me get the house ready. Though he does a ton around our house daily, the holiday decorating was always my thing and he mostly just cheered me on and enjoyed the end result. But this year, he didn’t hesitate to jump in. He has been like my own personal 6 foot 3 1/2 inch elf. It’s been fun and he’s been a fantastic help. But, please, for his sake, no Buddy the Elf jokes! =)
But this morning as I sit here in this first week of advent and think about my many feeble attempts to be Christmas ready and prepared, I have to kind of laugh at myself. A decorated and ready house is so incredibly insignificant in life. But a dedicated and ready heart is what this season is truly about. It’s eternal life.
It’s not about preparing my rooms, but preparing room for my Savior and the celebration of His birth.
In the words of Isaac Watts’ famous 1719 Christmas carol,
Joy to the world, the Lord is come
Let Earth receive her King
Let every heart prepare Him room
And Heaven and nature sing.
You probably know that carol well, but did you know Watts wrote this hymn based on Psalm 98?
Sing to the Lord a new song,
for he has done marvelous things;
his right hand and his holy arm
have worked salvation for him.
The Lord has made his salvation known
and revealed his righteousness to the nations.
He has remembered his love
and his faithfulness to Israel;
all the ends of the earth have seen
the salvation of our God.
Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth,
burst into jubilant song with music;
make music to the Lord with the harp, with the harp and the sound of singing,
with trumpets and the blast of the ram’s horn—
shout for joy before the Lord, the King.
Let the sea resound, and everything in it,
the world, and all who live in it.
Let the rivers clap their hands,
let the mountains sing together for joy;
let them sing before the Lord,
for he comes to judge the earth.
He will judge the world in righteousness
and the peoples with equity.
What a beautiful psalm full of resounding seas and clapping rivers and singing mountains. As a lover of nature, this resonates with me deeply. I get it. But, dear ones, we cannot ignore that final verse. “For He comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples with equity.” He surely will. As much as I'd prefer to focus on the pretty and bright things of Christmas, that day of reckoning is very much a reality.
As much as we want to prepare our hearts for the sweet Baby Jesus who found no room in the inn, we must also consider what we are doing to prepare our hearts for the Righteous One who will return and who promises to judge.
We must.
Even at Christmas.
Especially at Christmas.
Even when the images are pastoral and idyllic and so lovely, we must remember being ready has to do with so much more than our holiday preparations. Let all these wonderful details point us to the most important details of all -- our heart preparation.
Joy to the World, the Lord is come.
Joy to the World, the Lord will come again.
And the good news is we don’t need to do anything. Unlike with Santa, we don't have to be good enough for Jesus. That's why He came. For us. Out of love. For us. We don't need typed out instructions or detailed drawings, we need only bow before The One who truly does make heaven and nature sing and worship Him.
