A good day

As a young mother, I belonged to a service organization which provided volunteers for local needs.  I chose to assist at a nearby nursing home, where I met Mrs. Cotton.  She was bedridden and had been for a number of years, crippled by a rare arthritis.  I never visited her that she was not smiling and ready to chat, always sporting a bright red lipstick.  (Probably Revlon’s “Love that red” that my mother wore for years!) Being from southern Alabama, she spoke with a soft cadence and delighted in sharing stories of her lifetime, which were both entertaining and an obvious contrast to the quiet life where she then existed. The gift of that picture struck me at that early age.... her situation did not dictate her embrace of life…..she greeted each day with its promised renewal and potential with a smile….even anticipation, and of course, her lipstick!

What produces a “good day?” Is it measured by the “goodness” of it, and what does that mean?  All the reasons that make it so ……are they inward or outward?    Right now,  I find it challenging not to categorize the days of the weeks as good or bad, as  they bring with them very differing characteristics.   Post injection days continue to yield the side effects of varying degrees …fever, aches, headache and fatigue, with lingering results on other days. Yet, it is not how I want to color this time frame.......For the goodness of each day remains guaranteed, and the “cloudiness” that Interferon has introduced cannot diminish nor erase the blessings of each day, which are abundant.   Although clouds might be covering the sunshine, the sun continues to shine brilliantly above them.  In the same way, my own sight might miss this truth, yet God, through Whom all things are possible, adjusts my vision.

“This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.”    The God that has created each day and furnishes it to us as a gift, equips us with the ability to rejoice and find the goodness in it…..supplying the faith to grasp it and live it.   “Therefore, we do not lose heart.  Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. “ (2 Cor 4:3-5)  Each day is fresh with God’s promises and compassions……He has said He will not abandon His own, that nothing can separate us from His love, and He has provided a priceless inheritance that will never perish……The goodness of that  saturates each 24 hours and labels it as GOOD, regardless of how I might be feeling.   I might not always have my lipstick on, but I pray that each day I can rejoice in knowing that it is a “love that red” color of eternal promises, renewal……and GOODness.

I am so grateful for the prayers and kindnesses that are such a loving part of each day’s renewal!

A sign

Tears are an indispensable feature of our human waterworks.  Although their arrival might make us uneasy at times, they represent a pipeline to our hearts, and can unexpectedly communicate our deepest emotions. We can immediately summon the memory of tears from the wide range of causes…..joy, sorrow, pain, elation, if not the tears themselves.  

When Chip and I delivered David to Tech for his freshman year, he was healthy, he was happy, and he was ready for college.  Final words faded as the torrent of tears was being held in check; we thought we were ready as well. Yet, our van was a tropical rain forest on the return trip to Memphis. We could not stop crying. Eighteen years of memories flooded our thoughts and the pain of this new separation was acute and raw….but it was much more about the bigger picture and transitions of life itself.

Cancer treatments are notorious tear-causers and all the reading material you are given testify to expecting them.  One resource recommends the therapeutic value, another states that the chemical onslaught of the therapy brings about an imbalance that causes them. Depression, which many interferon patients encounter, has thankfully not been one of my own side effects.  I am vastly thankful to God for this fact.

The God of the universe cried for all of mankind when He became like us.  “Jesus wept,” known as the shortest verse in Scripture, is one of the broadest in its implication.  His tears reveal the depth of His love for each of us….not just the sisters of Lazarus, not just those who were there mourning, not just in the view of the suffering.  Jesus hated the death, pain, the sin alienation of mankind.  Although He knows that He is going to raise Lazarus from the dead, the depth of His own anguish (soon to be mirrored on the Cross,) is apparent.  The rage He felt against the tyranny of death over our human lives, “deeply moved” Him to tears.  He would, in the weeks that followed, destroy forever the power of that very death by His own.   THAT is love!

The great love displayed in those tears is the literal love that has been “poured out” upon Chip and I over these past (almost) 7 weeks.  We have seen it, felt it, been uplifted and sustained by it. Each act of compassion……meals that have nourished, cards that have encouraged, colorful bouquets that have cheered, lovely kindnesses that that have enabled us both to soar above these circumstances mirror that love.

Last Sunday evening, when we returned from the week away, (uplifting times with granddaughters and family!), we were greeted by a sign in our backyard.  The smile it brought was accompanied by tears…and the Interferon had no basis for taking credit.  Rather, it is the vast message of love that has been the essence of these past many weeks.

It is the picture of this poignant verse, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort,  who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.  For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.” 2 Cor 1: 3-5