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  

waiting

i am a terrible waiter. i don't like to wait in line...on the phone...or even for a friend. i never order anything through a catalog because that would involve at least a few days of some serious waiting. do you remember the days of lay away? that about killed me as a kid. i can remember finding the perfect pair of corduroys at gold circle only to have my mother whisk them off to the surly lady behind the lay away counter. we'd plunk a whopping five dollars down and out the door we'd go. corduroy-less. i like to go and shop and buy and bring home. it's as simple as that. i am an immediate gratification kind of girl. uughh. i realize how terribly unspiritual and desperately superficial that all sounds. i know the drill: patience is a virture. and in this regard, i am, admittedly, quite void of virtue. but here's the real deal, i especially don't like waiting for answers. i was the pesky child always tugging at the arm of an adult. i needed to know everything. i still do. i don't like waiting. and yet, that is exactly what we are doing this weekend. waiting. yesterday, at 5:22 on friday afternoon, my breast surgeon's office called me.


"mrs. mcnatt, we're sorry, but we haven't received the results back from your MRI."
i had the MRI on thursday and thought it might be possible to know its findings by late friday. but the answer was "no."
so i asked the next question, "okay, well do you have the results from my biopsy receptor test? have those come back yet?"again, i was given a firm, "no." followed with a weak, "sorry."


i hung up the phone and stood there for a minute staring out my kitchen window. i stood there wondering if this actually made my weekend better or worse. i honestly couldn't decide. in some ways i was frustrated. i had been hoping to hear something. well, the truth of the matter is, i was hoping to hear something good. i was hoping to hear something positive and encouraging and wonderful and then i was hoping to go out into our weekend and enjoy it to the brink. to the hilt. because these are big tests and there are big results coming. there are results right this very moment sitting in someone's dark office. there are films and papers stacked neatly in a metal bin on the corner of a serious desk. i can see it. i can imagine the quiet room and the scribbled notes and the sterile folder. i can imagine the setting, but i never imagined myself waiting for this kind of information. i've never waited on results like these. never. we are waiting to hear things about what else the MRI might show...we are waiting for more details about this cancer...and about its longterm characteristics. some of what i hear will dictate the type of surgery needed. some of it will dictate the type of post-surgery treatment. some of it will go even beyond. it will go further, to places i cannot go today.
i type and i shake. oh, satan be gone! stop your ugly attempts to meddle in my mind. you want only to offer me hefty servings of doubt and fear. and i push away the plate with both hands. i turn my face and i close my eyes...i will not look into your slippery darkness. i will not. i lean away and i hold on tight. my knuckles sheer white and frantic. the thump of my heart rings steadily in my ears. i feel fear rise up and shoulders hunker down. be gone, oh evil one. i will not fall prey to your desperate desires. because that is what you are...desperate. you know i belong to a King. i am a child of God and you have no right over me. you have no victory in me. you have no power around me. i am HIS. and instead of hunkering down and hunching up it is time for me to rise and claim what is already mine. victory. my God is a lifter of heads. "But you, LORD, are a shield around me, my glory, the One who lifts my head high." psalm 3:3. His hand already on my trembling chin. He holds my head steady. He holds my arms firmly. He whispers constantly into my listening ear, "be still daughter."
oh, seriously, can i never learn this lesson. we waited an entire year for bella. we had to relinquish control of her adoption time after time. we had to fill out forms and send off checks and then know there was not one more cotton picking thing we could do to hurry it all up. i really, truly thought i had learned this hard lesson of surrender- the theme of be still. but as i sit in the middle of this late saturday night, i see how much further i have yet to go. i still resist catalogs and lay away and lines. i want my answers and i want a plan. and of course i want it now. i know we will be walking head on into battle soon. and my human-ness is desperate for a detailed map. a strategy. i am done sleeping with the unknowns and the what-ifs...i am ready to move on. to move forward. i am staring a monster in the face and all my 42 years of feisty-ness wants to fight. hard.
my darling friend, beverly, shared this passage with me just after my diagnosis. just after we wept together. beverly is one month ahead down this ugly cancer road. she is well into the battle. "on your feet, Daughter of Zion! be threshed of chaff, be refined of dross. I'm remaking you into a people invincible..." (micah 10:13). she has texted me this verse or said it to me several times since my knowing. beverly knows the taste of battle fire. she is there. she is already in it. she knows it is not time to sit down and rest. it is time to rise up. to be all in. she knows it is time to be "on your feet, Daughter of Zion!"
but this weekend we wait. this weekend we rest. this weekend we do our very best to Be Still - truly a funny thought in our household of seven. monday will come. our results will return. the plan will be clear. but this weekend we wait. psalm 27:14 says to "wait for the Lord, be brave and courageous and wait for the Lord." we all know the actual battle will take courage and bravery. that's clear. that's more than obvious. but i love this psalm because david understood... he understood the challenge of the pre-battle. he understood how hard it would be before charging out. sometimes we need to be brave while we wait. honestly, i get that. put me up on a battle horse and let me run ...but please don't leave me alone in the silence of my thoughts and my quiet.

but it is saturday night and i sit here in the Be Still. and even in this planless, answerless weekend, somehow i know God is working. He is using it. the weekend will end. tomorrow will come. don't be mistaken, the battle is brewing. there will be a time of charging out ...all guns blazing (gloriously, i do hope)...and without doubt i will hear the strong voice of my Lord signaling, "on your feet, Daughter of Zion! on your feet."

waiting

and so we wait.  i have to confess, this is something i am not particularly good at. i mean i am really not good at it - at all.  i could tattoo the verse,"WAIT upon the Lord" across my forehead and am certain it would make little difference.  not to mention, my children would be ridiculously embarrassed if their mom showed up with a tattoo across her forehead, or in any other place, for that matter. 


september 9th we turned in our home study paperwork. was that only two weeks ago? we are waiting to have it reviewed so that we can begin the next step of applying to CIS for immigration. we are still very much at the beginning of this journey. perhaps that is the thing making me feel so restless this wednesday morning.  i know how much further we have to go. and no amount of my typical running or rushing will make much a difference. 


friends, i also know, that this is only one of the many lessons this adoption will be teaching us (okay...me). is it possible that God is using even this time of waiting to refine, polish and prepare our family for this next step? we have friends from college who are in china right now bringing home their 4th child. they have just wrapped their arms around their gracie. i woke this morning to find a facebook post and blog about their journey. i was so thankful for the reminder that at the end of all this paperwork and at the end of all this waiting is a little girl in china also waiting.  waiting for her family.

time

everything about xue zhu's situation screams, "hurry!" everything. her heart condition. her institutionalization. her age. her distance. her loneliness. our impatience. everything. 


so last week i did what seemed obvious: i began to push the agency on the timing. i asked questions like, "is there no way to move this along?" and "can't her medical needs be reason enough to expedite the adoption?"  they were reasonable questions and we asked them with great hope.   maybe no one had actually thought about going faster.  the answer we received, however, was not one of agreement and hope. we, instead, actually landed with our feet pointing in the opposite direction. it became clear that the timeline we were working from was not the same as the agency. this wasn't about faster, this was about slower.   all along we thought the process would take about 6 months from the time we started pursuing xue zhu in july. in our minds, that was clearly december...maybe january.  this is important considering we were told she needed another surgery before her 2nd birthday (february).  what became clear through all my pushing and questioning, however, was that we had 4-6 months once our dossier was "logged in" in china.  friends, our dossier won't be in china until (maybe) november . four to six months from november? are you kidding me? is this possible? how was this miscommunicated? why? why? why? where is God's perfect timing in that? 


how could we ask these expectant questions only to end up traveling further away from this child. nothing about this makes sense to our desire to rush in and rescue...to make right...to solve...to soothe...to comfort... to control. we found out this information 8 days ago. i haven't been able to write one word about it until now.  somehow even typing it into this silly blog makes it real.  as i type this morning, i can feel the discouragement in my very fingertips. the pounding of each key seems to mock my plan, my way, my wishes. and yet as i write even these words, i can see before me, in black and white, the wrong way my heart is bent. "my plan? my way? my wishes?" all week long it has been a struggle surrendering to the fact that this is not my story. this is HIS story and HE is writing the next chapter.


i can attempt in my emotional and human and very shortsighted ways to believe i know what needs to happen when...i can formulate an outline and i can type up a timeline...but i cannot write the next chapter. this is for Your Glory O Lord. even this little, lonely, abandoned china baby is about Your Glory, Lord. i know that in my head. but my heart asks fearfully, 

"how far must i go to be stripped of myself in this process?  can we not just agree and accept our control issues and sign on a dotted line? can we not just work this out quickly and then head into china with all engines firing? O Jesus, we know time is in Your hands. You, are the Alpha and the Omega.You hold all things and all time in Your hands. You have even promised to 'make all things beautiful' in Your time. why is that so hard to trust?

"but i trust you, O Lord; i say, 'You are my God.' 

my times are in your hands."  ~ psalm 31:14-15

my times are in His hands. xue zhu's time is in His hands. the timing of our adoption is in His hands.  will we, tightlyscheduled-timedriven-clockoriented-impatientpersons-clockwatchers-calendarcontrolledhumans, will we ever really get it? can we get that he holds all time? that our God is not only the Keeper of Time, but the Creator and Author of Time?

"when i was woven together in the depths of the earth,

your eyes saw my unformed body.

all the days ordained for me were

written in your book before one of them came to be."

~ psalm 139:16

yes, His story... told in His time...written in His book.