Tuesday, February 19, 2013

February Nineteenth

It is February nineteenth today.  This makes sense, as yesterday it was the eighteenth and presumably the twentieth will follow.  It seems so inconsequential.

But it's always funny that dates mean something, isn't it?  Society decided that January 1st begins a new year, so millions of people dress up and kiss each other the second it comes and begin diets the next.  There is power in observing dates.  Creating rituals.

Eight months ago my mother died.  This time eight months ago people were slowly trickling out of our house and I finally got somewhat dressed and sat in heavy sunshine for a while.

A year ago, however, my mother was cheerfully clacking away at the computer, updating her CaringBridge site.  She had exactly four months left on this earth--how inconceivable!  But, as she mentions in her post, she knew she was 'mainstream in His Ways.'  

Going Deeper Written Feb 19, 2012 12:51pm by LeMei Littlefield

Hi there, dear friends -  Rejoicing in Him with you this day! 
This past week has been a very good one of rest and recovery. There  were two painful bouts of reaction to meds and injections but they have since resolved and I now have increased energy and appetite-:-) !  Looking forward to this next week of strengthening before round 3 of hospitalization begins February 28.  

As we move deeper through this progression of weeks, the Lord continues to pour out His amazing presence and comfort, His Life and Love without limit. We are completely undone by the joy of knowing Him!   And there is the sense of being in the mainstream of His Ways, so much higher, wiser, more loving than our own. How infinitely worthy of our worship and trust is our Creator and Redeemer, LORD of all history, all peoples, places and times! 

The gift of your fellowship and prayers is one we can never adequately express our thanks for. It's like a current of life flowing through our days.  We bless you in His Name!  

P.S. And, Very thankful for answers to prayer -- we have arranged for an excellent place for my Mom to move to once she is out of rehab, within the next couple of weeks!  A HUGE thank you to JoLene who helped us scout out the possibilities!  
  
I was going to share some more of my story of 2012, but it is more macabre.  I don't want to dishonor Mom by distorting her five and a half months of victory into a petty story of oh look how hard my life is, woe is me!  Or even a, feel sorry for my mother's suffering, it's hell!  

Mom was given the strength to suffer and still rejoice.   

Our suffering is slower than the 600 hours of maximum strength chemotherapy.  It hasn't, so far, made my eyelashes fall out.  Hair's as thick as ever.  But we live on this earth and miss her like our hearts were cut out, and so we suffer.  

We too have a chance to rejoice in our sufferings.  

God help me, that still seems like blasphemy written by the insane (well, it was Paul).  But after witnessing Mom with that same insanity, I believe that we're the crazy ones.  There really IS grace for this.  


And it ends in hope.



"...we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."  ~Romans 5:3b-5