It’s a curious thing, grief. It settles like a weight in your belly. It’s an ache that is always there. Sometimes you forget the heaviness for a moment. When life fills you with delight or distraction, you throw back your head and you laugh with the rest of the world. But when you are still again, or on your own, you feel it tugging again at your heart. You can feel very afraid, tired and overwhelmed. It’s tempting to give up on hope, to say that it just wasn’t fair, to curl up in a ball and decide not to go out to play anymore.

I watch, as the children I teach, thread wooden beads on old shoelaces. Some of the laces are already full from a previous day. They are knotted together and I watch as they try them on around their neck and then parade around the room. It’s so inspiring to work with children. They have such a capacity for delight. They live in the moment and do not worry what tomorrow will bring. Occasionally they ask, “Can I take these home?” And when the answer is no, they ask me to untie them; they return to the box and let the beads slide off the lace and into the box for the next child. It’s over and they move on.

I find it such a challenge to move on. Not so much because it’s over but because I so desperately wish it was. I find myself projecting my thoughts further and further into the future. I try to make plans about when this is really over but God keeps bringing me back to today. Today her head is fuzzy, her legs are cramping and her bones feel sore. Her words come out of her mouth but her sentences are incomprehensible so she shakes her head and starts to tell me again. Like a child, she tells me she is trying to be brave but she misses me and the days are long. Then she laughs and tells me it’s okay. “How was your day, mum?” and I remember when she was small how I taught her to ask me how my day was, when I used to pick her up from school.

There are so many knots inside me. Knots of regret, knots of pain, knots of not understanding. It’s almost too much to bear. I look at her and wonder where she went and why this had to happen. It leads me to my knees in prayer. All these heavy knots are getting in the way like the knots on the shoelaces that leave the beads suspended half way. Like the children, I am asking Him, “can you help me unravel this knot so the bead can slide down?” I don’t want to be stuck; I don’t want to go around this mountain again.

Deuteronomy 1:2 says, “It is only eleven days journey from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir to Kadesh-Barnea; yet Israel took forty years to get beyond it.” I don’t want us to be stuck here for longer than we need to be. So I cry out to God to help me understand why this journey of healing is so slow and so tedious. I ask Him to help me to remain sweet while I wait for completion to come.

It seems like all the polished beads of my life have been rolled back into the box. That my string is empty. I watch as he lifts the lace to his teeth and tugs on the link where a knot has formed in my heart. I’m familiar with the sweaty, unpleasant taste of the shoelace and I know this isn’t easy for Him either. It hurts as He pulls at my life trying to loosen the grip of the enemy but I give it all to Him. All my grief, all my pain, all my confusion, I yield to Him. I know that if these knots are not removed they will grow tighter and smaller. That the beads will be able to thread over them and cover them. That one day I could hide how much this whole process really did effect me but more than anything I want to get rid of those knots altogether. So for now I hang limp and empty in his hands. I know that the knot at the end will remain permanently in place. He placed that knot there and it is the anchor of my faith. It is the one that will eventually hold all the beads from slipping off the other end of the lace.

I surrender it all, my daughter, her healing and her wholeness.  I trust that when He is ready He’ll find new beads and He will wear us like a garland around His neck. This is why He sent His Son:

“To preach the Gospel of good tidings to the meek, the poor, and afflicted; to bind up and heal the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the [physically and spiritually] captives and the opening of the prison and of the eyes to those who are bound. To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord [the year of His favour] and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn – to give them an ornament (a garland or diadem of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise instead of a heavy, burdened and failing spirit – that they may be called oaks of righteousness [lofty, strong and magnificent, distinguished for uprightness and justice and right standing with God], the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.” (Isaiah 61:1-3)

I think it is a fairly magnificent exchange and I have all of eternity to discover it. So for now I make it my endeavour to be content in the moment, no matter how challenging that is.

Life was beautiful before cancer came knocking on our door. Sam was a pretty girl, active in church, loving uni, with a fabulous group of friends, a stable family life and a home near the beach. Out of nowhere we were knocked down flat and a sharp blade began to cut through the beautiful image that was our life. It made its way around our family until we were cut into a thousand little pieces and thrown into a flimsy cardboard box. The lovely image of how life used to look was detailed on the front and then it was sealed in plastic, put on the shelf and we were given little hope that the picture would ever reform. At best it would always be scared from the blade that sliced through us.

Our life became like a jigsaw puzzle. We laid out all the pieces and spent many days trying to connect them again. It was long and mostly boring, joining those parts. Occasionally a whole scene came together like at the end of the ‘Induction phase’ when the chemotherapy proved to be effective and she was in first remission.

No one prepared us for what came next. Instead we were handed another sheet, a new protocol, the next phase and told that the MRD would be what’s important now. Like a handful of cardboard pieces, we had another scene to build. We began again with all those little parts that never seemed to fit no matter how hard we tried to turn them around on the table. That was early in May when they told us that the results hadn’t been what they were looking for and they would commence their search for a donor. All the little pieces got scooped back in the box and we had another go at trying to survive until the donor was found.

At night I would look at the flawless photographs of my daughter. Her sassy smile, her long dark hair, the glint of starlight in her eyes that sparkled at her future. This was the image that kept me going and I pulled out all those little pieces determined that with God’s grace, the picture of her life would be fully restored.

The picture is almost in full view now but we have discovered that one little piece is still missing. Only the surface of the table peeks back at us from where it should be and we see that the picture is incomplete. We could shrug our shoulders; tell ourselves that in the scheme of things, it’s a pretty good result. You can almost see the completed scene. We can imagine what the finished picture will be like, we can compare it with the scene on the front of the box and be satisfied that life is forming for us again. I run my fingers over the image of what now is the picture of our life and under the tips of them I feel the indentations. I could tell a thousand different stories for each individual piece.

The piece that is missing now is the one where we try to make sense of it all. Some would say ‘it’s irrelevant,’ some would say ‘she has already impacted lives,’ some would say ‘just be grateful that what has been lost has been found.’ I understand their words. We are grateful. All will be made whole. Her hands will be still again, her skin less sensitive, her hair will grow back, her swollen face will return to its petite little frame. It will be the way Jesus (in Luke 15) taught in the parables, of things that went missing, the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son. Everything that was lost was returned and all the people rejoiced.

Over coffee, Sam tells me that she can handle all the stuff that has gone missing except when her thoughts become fuzzy from drugs or the exhaustion that is intensified by heat. Yet there is another kind of desire that is evoked in her. It is the desire to understand the purpose of being a survivor at all. Not everyone recovers from Leukaemia and the ability to discover why Sam did, weighs heavy on her mind. “I don’t just want to return to being ordinary.”  I understand her words. I too, want my life to count. We did not spend a year in the valley of the shadow of death to return to an ordinary life.

So I get off my chair and on hands and knees, I grope around under the table, reaching out, trying to feel that one little piece wondering if it’s dropped to the floor. Things go missing don’t they and its human nature to seek.

Matthew 7:7-8 (Amplified Bible)

7Keep on asking and it will be given you; keep on seeking and you will find; keep on knocking [reverently] and [the door] will be opened to you.

8For everyone who keeps on asking receives; and he who keeps on seeking finds; and to him who keeps on knocking, [the door] will be opened.

Even Jesus went missing.

It’s kind of encouraging isn’t it, that Mary lost Jesus. She assumed He was with them. They traveled for three days before they thought to stop and look. Sometimes in this new season of recovery, I think Sam is with me too but she isn’t, she’s a long way behind me still. I can see that she’s spending time in God’s presence, she’s writing in her journal, she’s sitting at His feet. We can’t always run with the crowd. Sometimes God pulls us aside to tell us how to live.

It’s not surprising really that they found Jesus in the temple; after all the preceding verses (Luke 2:25 – 39) tell us that Simeon and Anna had known all their lives what the purpose was for Jesus birth. When we loose sight of our purpose we need people like that to help us make sense of the journey.  People who spend time in God’s presence and know how to hear His voice.

I love Jesus response to His parents when they found Him. He sounds like Jack: Gosh, didn’t you think I’d be here? Didn’t you trust me? Didn’t you know? I think that in spite of the fact he was (and is) God, he was still fully human. Like us, He was looking for answers. He wanted to be around people who could fill Him in on all the gaps that He didn’t understand about the purpose of His existence. It’s a very fine line between humanity and the voice of the spirit. God’s voice is more familiar than we think.

So there I was on Saturday morning, under the table looking for that piece and some of the picture came into view. A message came to me from a friend on my Facebook page. This is what she wrote: “I was praying for Sam this morning and I saw this picture of her. It was a blueprint of a plan but it was invisible. I knew it was there but you couldn’t see it. Then water was splashed on it and you could see the plan as the invisible ink was made visible by the water. It was like one if those “paint with water” books we had when we were children. The water was the Holy Spirit, as He began to renew Sam this year, the plan would begin to become clearer. I also saw God restoring the gaps in her heart that have been stolen, with a warm liquid substance and her heart was not broken, cold or empty anymore.” (Holy Spirit via Wendy Gilbert)

My friend words did not complete the picture the way I would like but she re-ignited my hope. She was like the voice of my Father acknowledging the gaps, reminding me that He hasn’t finished yet but He hasn’t forgotten us either.

I dedicate this post to you, Sam. A year today, since your diagnosis on January 28th, 2009.

I don’t understand the journey, I don’t know what lies ahead, I don’t really know how you or we, will ever recover all that’s been lost but this I know – God is writing over our lives and when He is finished, it will be magnificent. As we fix our eyes on Jesus, we see time and time again that He is the author and the perfecter of our faith.

I am so proud of your resilience through the mightiest of storms. You are an inspiration.

Thankyou for letting me walk beside you.  Mum.

John Ruskin wrote ” There is no music during a musical rest, but the rest is part of the making of the music. In the melody of our life, the music is separated here and there by rests. During those rests, we foolishly believe we have come to the end of the song. God sends us times of forced leisure by allowing sickness, disappointed plans and frustrated efforts. He brings a long sudden pause in the choral hymn of our lives and we lament that our voices must be silent. We grieve that our  part is missing in the music that continually rises to the ear of our Creator. Yet how does a musician read the rest? He counts the break with unwavering precision and plays his next note with confidence as if no pause were ever there.

God does not write the music of our lives without a plan. Our part is to learn the tune and not be discouraged during the rests. They are not to be slurred over or omitted, nor used to destroy the melody or change the key. If we will only look up, God will count the time for us. With our eyes on Him, our next note will be full and clear. If we sorrowfully say to ourselves, “There is no music in the rest,” let us not forget that the rest is part of the making of the music. The process is often slow and painful in this life, yet how patiently God waits to teach us! And how long He waits for us to learn the lesson!”

I woke at 5:15 this morning thinking how difficult it is to move forward. So many days this year it has felt like ‘Groundhog Day.’ I mentioned this to a good friend of mine. I told her it all feels so strangely familiar. The cleaning, the sorting, the getting ready for class and dropping off things I no longer want to ‘The Salvos Store.’ This is what I did last January just before Sam was diagnosed. ‘We are moving forward,’ she said in response to my comment with the same kind of authority she had all last year when I let her in on my concern. Its true, we are moving forward but no one really lives happily ever after. That’s just fairy tales and this is real life so we have to look for a way.

A few weeks ago I found the perfect table at the local antique store. It’s kauri pine, with turned legs and has the most beautiful soft, golden colour. It has been lovingly restored and was not expensive. I put a deposit on it straight away returning a week later with cash, a trailer and Reid. We had a table like this one when we first got married. My dad had rescued the original one from the firewood room at Gladesville hospital where he used to be a chaplain. I loved that table but somehow through the stages of trying to define my style I replaced it with a white laminate one with stainless steel legs from ‘Freedom’.

I am good at getting rid of things, giving things away and letting things go. I am not a hoarder but some of the things I have given away I have come to regret. I am eternally grateful to my mum and my sister for rescuing things off my throw out pile and storing them to return to me later.

It can be tricky to find the balance between what to keep and what to get rid of. Sometimes you can be lucky and discover that someone still has the thing you loved and is happy to give it back to you. Or like my table, you find the perfect specimen at the local store in better condition than the one you originally had, at a price you can afford.

We lifted the table into the trailer and drove it home without realizing that the trailer contained little stones. In the brief time it took to get home the table got damaged and dented from the debris. All it had needed was a soft blanket to cushion the ride, to lie flat on, to protect it from the bumps and friction of the road but we hadn’t been thinking at all. Even the smallest bit of gravel can cause scars.

Last week when Sam went for surgery I didn’t think either. We went through the extensive least of drugs that we now know she is allergic to. She even added ‘bee stings,’ to be extra careful – “You never know,” we laughed but we didn’t stop to think about all the dressings and cleaning agents that she is allergic to now as well. She came out of surgery with a drain extended from her beautiful, once flawless, chest and to keep it in place was a primapore dressing.

Her skin is so sensitive, the slightest change in the weather causes her to react. When she walks on warm sand her feet blister, when she sits in the shade on a warm day she gets a sunburn mark around her sunglasses and Reid says she looked like a reverse raccoon. Her skin bruises and tears in the strangest ways and under the primapore I could see her skin ruptured, red and sore. We gently removed the dressing to discover it was too late and now her chest is covered in scars that I am sure will eventually heal.

The Haemotology doctors say the skin problem could be any number of things. Perhaps its new skin from the transplant, perhaps its from the extensive doses of cyclophosphamide chemotherapy or perhaps it is graft versus host disease. It makes me a little bit fearful. I want it to be over. I want her to bounce back unencumbered

Rumi wrote, “Give up to grace. The ocean takes care of each wave ’til it gets to shore. You need more help than you know.”

I still feel a little helpless and uncertain. I don’t know what to do with this residue of fear. It sticks to my sides like baked on grease, it wakes me at dawn. I find my place on the right hand side of the couch crying out to God for His wisdom. He always comes. I need just as much help on the shore as I did in the ocean. I pray for grace as I sip my early cup of tea.

“Three times I called upon the Lord and besought Him about this and begged that it might depart from me; But He said to me, My grace (My favor and loving-kindness and mercy) is enough for you [sufficient against any danger and enables you to bear the trouble]; for My strength and power are made perfect (fulfilled and completed) in your weakness.” 2 Corinthians 12:8-9

As I prayed I placed my daughter again in His capable hands. Later today I took a photo of my table to post in my blog. In the background of the photo is Jack playing his guitar. My son is a great musician. He came out of the womb singing it seems. I thought about this as the photo enlarged on my computer screen and again I was reminded of God’s faithfulness. “Do you remember when Jack was small and you were worried that he wouldn’t be able to sing after his voice broke?” I sensed the Holy Spirit asking me. With tears in my eyes I remembered and God showed me that He is able to do above and beyond what we ask or think. He takes what is broken, even a young boy’s voice and creates an even better sound. A sound that is deep and mature and full of passion.

I know He is taking the broken pieces of our lives and creating something beautiful. Just like the Salvation Army Band used to sing: Something beautiful, something good, all my confusion, he understood. All I had to offer him was brokenness and strife but He made something beautiful out of my life.

As I let go of all my stuff, He is finding ways to bring it back redeemed and restored with a golden wax patina. He knows I will damage it again and again but He keeps on giving anyway. We are moving forward. It’s just like my friend said.

The lady in the bed next to Sam woke after surgery and asked, “Is there someone behind the curtain?” I pulled it across to introduce myself, asked her if she was okay and was there something I could do to help her. She wanted me to call her daughter.

“Of course I can.” I said taking down her daughter’s number and proceeding to call. Her daughter was grateful and arrived moments later. She had become anxious through waiting and I watched as they tenderly exchanged the gentlest of hugs. Annie just had her breast removed.

There is so much pain in the world, so much sickness, so much trouble. Often we don’t see it coming. A week before Christmas Annie got the news she had breast cancer. A week before Christmas! It doesn’t seem right. “It’s okay,” Annie said. “What choice do you have, you just get on with it.”

“You do whatever it takes to live.” I said

“They asked me if I’d ever had surgery and I really had to think for a long time.” She told me. Then she remembered that she never had but when her son was young he had a problem with his heart and they spent so many months in hospital that she felt as though she had actually had surgery before. I totally understood what she meant.

Sometimes the unexpected happens. Out of nowhere, trouble comes. Jesus said it would happen. He came to prepare us but when it happens its unexpected. Trouble happens to others doesn’t it, not us!

John 16:33 (New International Version)
“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

So there we were, Annie with her daughter and me with mine when out of nowhere my own mum arrived. It was unexpected but lovely. My mum arrived in the ice blue cardigan that reflects the blue of her eyes. At 71 she is still a picture of loveliness and she stood back a little from the bed not wanting to interrupt the exchange between Samantha and I.

“Let’s go for a coffee and food for Sam,” I suggested since Sam was asking for burgers and chips. This amused us since the nurses were concerned she may have difficulty swallowing her tablets because her entire thyroid had just been removed.

As we waited for the food to arrive we exchanged gratitude. We didn’t need many words.
“Clare, her hair is growing back beautifully.
Clare, the sound of her voice. It’s amazing.
Clare, her hands, they are still. It’s incredible.
What a lovely view from her window.
What a fabulous, young doctor.
And oh this coffee is good.”

Gratitude filled our eyes with pools of water. I marvel now, at how much water the bottom rims of our eyes can hold before they spill over into tears. My mother’s eyes are blue like steel. They reflect her strength of character but yesterday they were an ocean and in that ocean the heartstrings of three generations began to float. Samantha was beginning to surface.

A year ago the enemy put her in a sack with the rest of our family. He loaded it with stones and dropped it to the bottom of the ocean from the highest bridge. We sank to its depths like a litter of unwanted kittens gasping for breathe. We didn’t see it coming, there was no prior warning, no signs of ill health, it just happened, trouble came. Jesus said it would.

We were packing away the tree, making new years resolutions, returning from holidays, spring cleaning the house, preparing for university, getting ready for work, expecting life to go on and suddenly we were drowning wondering how it had happened to us.

John 16: 1 & 3 “All this I have told you so that you will not go astray. I have told you this, so that when the time comes you will remember that I warned you.”

Jesus warned us, he prepared us, he told us to abide in Him. Through it all he promises to make our joy complete. There is nothing that this life can throw at you that can separate you from knowing God, not sickness, not pain, not death, not brokenness. It is Him who paved the way before us, going through death so that we could be resurrected into eternal life.

The pools of tears in my mother’s eyes magnified the truth. God is faithful. He is always faithful.

I imagine her unraveling the string that’s been wrapped around her heart and her navel (you’ll have to read my last post) and placing it in my hands. Looping the knotted strand over my right thumb and baby finger and then another loop the same way across my left hand. In silence we play ‘cat’s in the cradle’ with our string passing it back between us. I loop my middle fingers one at a time to form to crosses and tramlines. She reaches in and scoops and folds the string until it’s on her hands again. We are united in our gratefulness, revering our God.

Deuteronomy 4:9-10 (New International Version)
“Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them. Remember the day you stood before the LORD your God at Horeb, when he said to me, “Assemble the people before me to hear my words so that they may learn to revere me as long as they live in the land and may teach them to their children.”

The string we pass between us is the strand of hope. It’s the power of the Cross of Jesus; it’s the thread that fell away when the curtain in the temple was torn in two. What the enemy intended for evil is being turned for good.

Luke 23:44 – 46 “It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour, for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last.

Before His death only the High Priest could enter into the Holy of Holies to offer blood sacrifices for our sins but on the day of His death He became the sacrifice on our behalf. He took away the cloth that made it hard for us to know who He was. He took our sin, our pain, our sickness and disease.

Hebrews 10:10
When Christ came into the world, he said, “Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them” (although the law required them to be made). Then he said, “Here I am, I have come to do your will.” He sets aside the first to establish the second. And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Hebrews 10:15-23
“The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says: “This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.” Then he adds: “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.” And where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin. Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.”

People ask me how I can follow Jesus after all that has happened to Sam. Why did I not abandon my faith? How do you cope with such a diagnosis? In the words of Paul the Apostle I write, “he who promised is faithful.” This is not the path I would have chosen but this I know. He still exists behind the curtain, He makes all the calls that I need. He gives me access to my Father. He holds me close, He kisses me tenderly, He shows me how to live.

The enemy tried to drown us in the sea of despair but we rise again. The power of the cross of Jesus untied the destructive knot that held us bound. Just us Jesus rose from the grave after three days, we rise again. We experience this resurrection power that He has made available to all. He came to our rescue, he delivered us, He is bringing us back. The circle of HIs love is complete.

Reid and I were out walking along the edge of the sea, on the uneven ground of the headland where walkers over the years have worn a natural path. It was hot but the walk was not particularly strenuous so when I noticed the stitch in my chest I decided I was simply unfit, more reason to press on.

It was there again, the stitch like pain, when I woke in the morning and again when Sam went for blood tests later that day. The sharp edge of the needle entered my chest close to where my heart is. I saw the needle make a loop to form a neat little stitch like my mum showed me once, when first I had shown interest in embroidery.

The stitch pulled tight and I felt a gentle ripple flutter inside me as the long loose strand cascaded down, causing butterflies in my tummy as well. ‘It is a stitch!’ I thought to myself but this has nothing to do with fitness. This tight thread is the pull that every mother feels when something is up with her children. It isn’t left to hang there, the thread. It has purpose. Another tug and it is wound tightly around our navel.

Is this is the female journey, the strain of motherhood, the agony that none of us can escape? This thin invisible cord, entwining our hearts that are overloaded with emotions, throbbing with dreams and magnificent plans for their futures; it weaves around our navel, our belly, our core. We feel the sting of the tug, the weight of the agony of hope. It fills the space where they were once physically connected; the space they grew in and though many years have past since their birth; its still here that we carry them.

I hear the voice of the girl at the gym. She is young, beautiful, and patient. “Navel to spine,” she instructs, “make it work for you. Navel to spine.”

Its not just the physical cut of three caesareans that makes the sit-ups difficult. It’s not just the scar tissue the doctors found and cut away each time they performed another delivery, warning me that a fourth child wasn’t an option. Its not the numbness of the surrounding area or the outer layers of fat nor the way they roll together on full exertion that prevents me from gaining a flat stomach. The truth is I sense my core. I don’t need to find it by tilting my spin with a gentle rock. My core is tight but not in the Pilates sense of the word. My core is tight because the cord of motherhood is looped around it. Heart to navel not navel to spine.

It’s a gift to be a mother, to care as much as we do. But its hard to not let the weight of their stuff overwhelm us, whether its sickness, or relationships, or their grades at school.

The surgeon who’s removing the thyroid explained that one of the risks in the procedure to remove it, is the chance that they’ll damage her calcium levels. He explained that calcium is stored in our bodies in little grains like rice; four grains in fact and they attach themselves to the thyroid much like shells attach themselves to a rock, or barnacles do to the bottom of a boat. He said that they would find them and try to gently push them out of the way but sometimes in the process they are completely destroyed and the patient needs calcium for the rest of their life.

It reminds me of the path of mothering. All the times we try to coax our children towards independence, to stand alone, to rely less on us and fend for themselves. It’s a gradual process and throughout the years sometimes there is a moment of returning. They are attached to us like that calcium attaches to the thyroid. They cling to our nurture enjoying the ride. They swing from that invisible cord that links our heart and our navel. They glide down like children with rubber tubes on a water slide weighing us down in the pit of our bellies every time they land. They enjoy the stability we provide, the taut thread is immovable. They don’t think about us. They don’t see if it hurts us, the pulling of the thread how it stretches us inside.

What they do know is that we are the constant. The place of safe returning. I pray my children will continue to come back; that they will always find comfort and feel safe in my arms. I cannot promise to be perfect. Like the rock where the shells lodge I am rough from the tides and the swells of the sea. I want them to move on, to settle somewhere else but in the process I hope I don’t damage them.

For my daughters I want them to know, first hand, that invisible tug that reaches from their hearts to their navels, that they will have children of their own. There is so much that I want for my daughters and son. Sometimes the weight rises from the pit of me where hope is stored. The dreams for them to live fully and cultivate the land.

Deuteronomy 6:1-3
“These are the commands, decrees and laws the LORD your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the LORD your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life. Hear, O Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, promised you.”

So much has been stolen but God promises to return what the locust devoured.
Joel 2:23-27
“Be glad, O people of Zion, rejoice in the LORD your God, for he has given you the autumn rains in righteousness. He sends you abundant showers, both autumn and spring rains, as before. The threshing floors will be filled with grain; the vats will overflow with new wine and oil. “I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten—the great locust and the young locust, the other locusts and the locust swarm —
my great army that I sent among you. You will have plenty to eat, until you are full, and you will praise the name of the LORD your God, who has worked wonders for you; never again will my people be shamed. Then you will know that I am in Israel, that I am the LORD your God, and that there is no other; never again will my people be shamed.

The heart though powerful and strong can become unreliable with emotion. Like Mary we can ponder what we observe about our children, what others say, what gifts they have.

Luke 2: 16-19 “So they went with haste and [by searching] found Mary and Joseph, and the Baby lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known what had been told them concerning this Child, And all who heard it were astounded and marveled at what the shepherds told them. But Mary was keeping within herself all these things (sayings), weighing and pondering them in her heart.”

Like Proverbs 22:6 suggests we can lead them in the path they should go. Yet when the strain on the thread is more than we can bear, its our thoughts we must take captive bringing them into obedience with Christ. Reminding ourselves that we are only mothers on borrowed time. It is for His good pleasure they were created and it is in His hands they ultimately belong.

Ephesians 2:10 
For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

The cord should never be so tight that we are crippled in pain. It is then that He wants to hold us. To let them go and trust Him completely. The path of pilgrimage is often unsafe and not always predictable. Like the path on the headland the way has been worn by those who have gone before us but over the years the grasses and trees have grown back in places. Its up to us to forge a new path. To take risks, to be brave.

For Sam there are risks with the surgery. Risks for the calcium levels, risks for the larynx, risks of infection. These risks pull on my heart now, they pull on my core but our lives are in His hands. He gives us grace for the journey.

Did we think that by following Christ we had chosen a safe path? A path of abundance and prosperity. Yes, sometimes it is so but we must remember that the greatest thing is to be in the will of God. To know his voice, to feel his hands gently supporting us, loosing the strain of the load. ‘The safest place to be is in the will of God,’ but this isn’t safety as we know it, hardships come and He gives us grace to endure.

It’s amazing how He comes. Softly like the dew of the morning. So often I miss him, roll over into another half hour of sleep. He doesn’t disturb me. He just hovers hoping to catch me with one eye open and He whispers again.

“Forget the former things, I’m making things new.”

I sense Him, recognize his gentle voice and immediately roll out of bed. This is the direction I’ve longed for these last tormented weeks. I need to hear his promise pounding again in my subconscious thought. Something to hold onto when I squeeze her hand again in the theatre gown and wait til they ask me to leave.

The Holy Spirit is always hovering. Waiting for our anxious thoughts to step aside and make room for Him. He does not sit next to Fear. His light expels him. Yet somehow like osmosis it takes a while to seep through that invisible layer of mind and spirit.

I know He is teaching me to be attuned to His voice but my humanity takes over when things are going okay, when things are no longer life threatening. I never thought it would change after last year. His voice, His word was so tangible. That’s His way. “A very present help in time of need.” (Psalm 46)

The word is familiar but I can’t find it marked in my Bible so I search confident that this is not me, this is Him. Finally I find it, Isaiah 65:17 “the former things will not be remembered or come into mind.”

I’ve had such trouble sleeping. All those files of my grief are so hard to close. I need His help. The drawer seems to rebound open automatically during the night. The finger of the enemy flicks through the tabs, bringing them to my remembrance, the images too painful to face but too real to ignore. Layer upon layer splayed out before me like the pictures on my new apple Mac. The deep voice of the doctor, the clucking of his tongue, the dust on the windows, the NSW Health embossed sheets, the drips on the IMED stand, the smell of poison seeping into her veins, the thin trolleys of death and my breathless dash for another bed pan.

Everyone tells me that if you need to remove a body part the thyroid is the one you would choose. Its going to be okay. I know these things. I get it. But it is one thing to know something in your brain and quite another to hear His voice in your spirit. It’s His voice I want to hear; not mine, not anyone else’s.

I’m not drowning in the ocean anymore. I’ve climbed onto the pier, the worst is over but the waves of my memory lick at my heels. An evil force wants the waters of irrational thought to swallow me up, the fear to overtake me, the dread of what could still be. The staff at St Vincent’s continue to reassure me that the Bone Marrow Transplant has been a tremendous success but the words of our previous doctor telling me statistics of death and of relapse stick to me like gooey slim.

I see the enemy in the distance and when I pray God shows me that he is just a boy playing childish pranks.

Then I hear the voice of a middle aged woman. She is educated, well dressed and eloquent the way I aspire to be. “It happens” she says. “Best to be prepared.”

Images, voices, sleepless nights. The enemy seeks to destroy. He comes in all kinds of disguises.

God’s voice rings louder now. His word open on my lap. “I will rejoice and be glad in my people and the sound of weeping will no more be heard, nor the cry of their distress. They shall build houses and inhabit them, they shall plant vineyards and eat of the fruit of them… They shall not labour in vain to bring forth children for sudden terror or calamity; for they shall be the descendants of the blessed of the Lord and their offspring with them. And it shall be that before they call I will answer; and while they are yet speaking I will hear.” Isaiah 65:19,21,23,24

Yes, he wakes me with the kiss of the morning. He closes the drawer of the files.

It was supposed to mark the end of something, ‘100 days’ and the congratulations came from everywhere. Well wishing words like we had won a prize or accomplished a great feat and we boarded the plane for the holiday with such expectation. We were flying to the north of Queensland where the young girls are tanned, athletic and strong (the way Sam was last year) and the sun is hot, the sea water warm, the shops of Hastings St buzzing with activity in preparation for the festive season.

We travelled armed with the news that the thyroid results were the best in 3 months, the blood tests confirmed it but the fevers, the shaking, the vomiting and the tension in her voice confused me. To be honest, I was suddenly afraid. Maybe the fever was a warning to stay in Sydney, or the fact that the flight was grounded for over an hour due to technical difficulties. Maybe this was my chance to change my plans, drive back home, stay in my place of refuge but I didn’t read the signs.

I needed to rest, Sam needed to recover and we needed to be together as a family again without the interruptions of hospital. So I continued according to our plan, I changed planes helping her steady herself as we walked across the tarmac joining the throng of people clattering their way up the metal staircase and back into the transit lounge to wait again for a new plane and the luggage to be reloaded. Emma and I exchanged hopeful glances that silently said ‘it will be okay’ though neither of us knew if it would be.

It was as though the wind from the north and the wind from the south hit my house with me at the centre. It picked me up and hurled me into the cyclone before I even knew what was happening. Before I followed Aunt Em down the trap door, before I recovered Toto from under the bed. It came from out of nowhere this wind that displaced me and left me unhinged, unanchored and dislocated.

When we finally arrived at the ‘resort’, unloaded the car, entered our apartment, my heart took a downward spiral. It was Reid who spoke first and assured me we wouldn’t be staying there. I heard his voice echo off the walls of the hollow that was swallowing me up. Yet somehow it was too late and even though we moved and upgraded, the momentum of the fall had taken over. I was spinning like Alice down the rabbit hole, further and faster and heavier. Then with centrifugal force I landed, pinned to the ground in great despair. Something shifted. My faith, my hope, my courage was gone.

We all venture off the path occasionally, finding ourselves in unfamiliar, yet seemingly familiar spaces. This was not the Noosa I remembered. Last year it was Sam’s athletic body I watched on the sand at Sunshine Beach catching the ball with her dad and Grant and Jack. I remember sitting propped up in my fold up chair, under my fold up umbrella swelling with pride over Emma’s incredible UAI and the promise of the place of her dreams at Sydney’s UTS; a double degree in Communication and Media with International Studies. How could so much happen in 12 months? How could I be here now reeling in pain and uncertainty?

What do you do when the storms come? When you trip and fall down a hole? When your dreams are scrunched up and torn at the bottom of the wastebasket, all the hopes you had seemingly ruined? When the holiday you anticipated all year seems to drain the very life from you?

I wrote a little. I drank coffee. I read. I walked. I sobbed. I let the tears fall.

I felt like Alice in the pool of tears. I felt like Dorothy staring at my upside down house. Then after a while I did the only thing I knew to do and that is to look for the path again. I dug out my walking shoes and started by placing one foot in front of the other.

God only requires fairy steps. I’ve discovered that this year and with that thought I gulp down gratitude. I am thankful that he is holding my hand. I picture the kindergarten children that I have taught. I see their chubby faces, their soft baby skin. Some are toothless, some wear ridiculous ponytails on top of their heads. There are boys with bowl cuts and too high shorts. None of them care what they look like. They are just children delighting in life and when I tell them we are going to walk to the library with fairy steps (because I have time on my hands for finishing a lesson early) they think it is marvelous and we wobble along the lines of the basketball court as if it is the most natural thing in the world to do.

It’s not easy to walk in fairy steps, heel touching toe. It’s slow; it’s hard to keep your balance. Sometimes it helps to reach out for someone’s hand. Someone who is bigger. I lift my hand again to the one who carries my life. He isn’t in a hurry though I desperately wish He were. He isn’t fussed when we get to our destination He just wants us to delight in the journey. He doesn’t mind if we didn’t grasp everything He set in the last lesson. He knows it’s a journey. That there will be time. He wants us to keep walking and breathing. He surrounds us in others. They step on our toes sometimes, they make us mad, they overtake us in the line, they cheat by taking bigger steps than they are meant to, leaving gaps on the pavement. “It isn’t fair, she pushed in. I was in front.” We call from our place in the line. Some of the others encourage us “those are very good fairy steps,” they say and “you are very brave and doing so well to not wobble too much.” Its these friends who remind you that you can make it all the way to the Library. They help you to giggle. They remind you to not take life too seriously even though its tricky. They show you how to be silly when you have forgotten how to laugh and before you know it you are showing off and mucking up with all the others in the line. This year, God has surrounded me with friends like that. They have propped me up and stopped me from falling.

Its New Years Eve and I’m a wreck. I’ve been crying all day because they want to take out Sam’s thyroid. I am sad because I think she has been through enough. I don’t want her to endure anything else, to have another scar, to be hospitalized again. I want it to be easier than this. I look down at my walking shoes imagining them to be all worn out from the many miles we have done down the path (or the yellow brick road as it were) and God reminds me that I’m not wearing ordinary shoes.

Like Dorothy he has put me in ruby slippers. I am clothed in royalty. I am taking back what the devil has stolen (with the visual of the Wicked Witch of the West). My house has been thrown, my life has been through the whirlwind but it landed smack on the enemies territory. It has taken him out. I am defeating giants though there are many more on the journey. I am dusting myself off and I am wiping my tears. My shoes are red because Jesus shed His blood. He paid for my salvation so that I could keep walking. He allowed me to endure because there are others on the path. Some are looking for courage, some feel like they have lost their mind, some have lost their nerve and some are looking for a home. As for me I feel like I’ve lost it all in 2009.

Yet feelings are not truth. The truth is we are nearly there. God watches over His word to perform it. He is renewing my strength. Its not far now. Back from Noosa I certainly agree with Dorothy, “there’s no place like home.”

When Jack was only 2, he came out from his bedroom fully dressed in his favourite clothes. He had pulled on his elastic waisted red shorts and his powder blue stripy top all by himself. This was an achievement he was immensely proud of, announced to us by him running from his room into the lounge room, landing in a star jump and saying, “They’re all going to say, there goes Flacky!”

It was a hilarious moment. Totally unexpected, it caught us all by surprise. We laughed and cheered, encouraging him for being such a clever boy to get dressed all by himself. Reid, Sam, Emma and myself were there and it has gone down in our memorable family moments as one of our most treasured recollections. To this day I have no idea who ‘they’ were or why he thought “Flacky’ was what ‘they’ would call him but I know that day marked the day of a new season.

I think about this moment now, as we start back at what seems like the beginning with Sam. It feels at times as though we have regressed and I am mothering a young child. This is not her fault. Her body is fragile and weak, her pulse rate fast and the effort it takes to do simple things is incredibly draining. On the days that she makes it to the kitchen fully dressed for the day ahead I feel the same sense of pride that I felt for Jack all those years ago.

Yesterday the fire returned with the heat of summer. She woke with a temperature of 38.4 degrees. The day of testing has not passed though I desperately want it to be. The thyroid is trying to steal our hope of full recovery; trying to get us to curse our God. There are moments when I wonder if this will ever pass. I catch myself feeling overwhelmed. I want to hide in a cave. I want to feel sorry for myself. Sometimes I indulge a little, letting the pity creep over me, so many reasons for sadness.

Spending a year in hospital I’ve seen all kinds of clothes. Many people arrive for chemotherapy in tracksuits, many come without makeup, and others come dressed to the nines. So often what we wear reflects the way we feel. It’s hard for Sam now to feel good in anything, Most of her clothes are baggy and loose from the weight she has lost, its frustrating finding things to put on.

Being sick strips you of everything. It has taken her hair, it has scarred her chest and it has changed the tone of her skin. It takes a massive effort to be strong when you’ve encountered a battle but it is not impossible.

So I decide that in the day of battle I will press on to understand the goodness of God. Everyday we discover that He is faithful. All power is in Him, We find it again and again through His word, which is the book of life. Like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego it seems she’s been thrown in the fire. The heat is consuming her, the fevers and the temperature of the day but God is there in the midst of the fire. He watches over her life. He watches over His word to perform great and mighty deeds.

Zechariah 3:1
“Then the guiding angel showed me Joshua, the high priest standing before the Angel of the Lord and Satan standing at Joshua’s right hand to be his adversary and to accuse him.”

As followers of Christ we are in a battle. The enemy constantly seeks to bring us down. We must recognise his schemes. He brings sickness, financial ruin; he tempts our children to rebel. He wants to wear us out by the incessant nature of the battles of life. Sometimes it is not a lack of hope, or a fear of failure, or an attitude of defeat, it’s the sheer exhaustion of getting up time and time again. Our defences are down and we are weak but thankfully His power is perfected in weakness.

Zechariah 3:2
“And the Lord said to Satan – ‘The Lord rebuke you, O Satan! Even the Lord who [now and habitually] chooses Jerusalem, rebuke you! Is not this [returned and captured] Joshua, a brand plucked from the fire?”

Like Joshua, Sam has already been delivered. She conquered death on September 11 in the fire that came that day. Yes, she has been plucked out and I remind Satan of this when I pray.

When we walk with God we must choose carefully what we will wear. We are representing Him. When He delivers His people He brings them new clothes.

Zechariah 3:3
“Take away his filthy garments from him. And he said to Joshua, ‘Behold, I have caused your iniquity to pass from you and I will clothe you with rich apparel. And I said ‘Let them put a clean turban upon his head and clothed him with rich garments.”

God has all our clothes laid out ready on the edge of our bed, just as a mother does for her child. He knows what’s ahead. He’s preparing us. We are never alone – not in fire, not in hardship, not in sickness, nor in despair. He stands by, He watches. He waits until we are fully His.

When the prodigal returned in Luke 15 the father said “Bring quickly the best robe and put it on him and give him a ring for his hand and sandals for his feet.”

So much of our victory is in the clothes that we wear. God gave Sam garments of gold raiment and a crown long before she entered the day of battle. These may not be literal clothes but the visual is powerful. They are the promise of her future.

It’s a choice to live in victory. The torments of the enemy, the symptoms of sickness compete for our attention. The natural circumstances opposed to the spiritual realm. In obedience we get up another day deciding that we will be strong in the Lord, draw our strength from Him [that strength which His boundless might provides]

We “put on the full armor of God so that we can take our stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore we put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, we may be able to stand our ground, and after we have done everything, to stand. We stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around our waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with our feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, we take up the shield of faith, with which we can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, we stay alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.” Ephesians 6:10 – 18

Somehow that day when Jack arrived in the lounge room, Tom Cruise style, He wasn’t wearing the same red shorts and blue t-shirt he’d worn as a toddler. It wasn’t really about the clothes at all. It was about how they were being worn. He was Flacky now, confident and capable, ready for anything.

November farewells spring in a brilliant array of jacaranda. The blossoms are beginning to drop now. They are heavy from the heat and humidity. Moisture-saturated bonnets fall to the ground. A purple picnic blanket, carpets the lawn where the cicadas have set up their instruments for a day of song. They, like us have emerged from a year underground. Released from their captivity they sing.

“When the Lord brought back the captives to Zion, they were like men that dreamed.” Psalm 126:1

The hum of bees at work collecting nectar harmonise with the cicadas. Like a bare footed child I negotiate my way through bees and bindii on my way to my swing. Do I dare climb on it and swing carefree into the clouds again?

The dizzy brightness of the summer sun is harsh on my eyes after a year indoors. I struggle to adjust. The looming promise of 100 days brings the hope of completion of treatment and the silent fear of what remains.

Hospital is like a prison in so many ways, a sentence to be served, a place of no escape. You are allowed to leave at any time but you do so at your peril. Before you leave, you sign the form acknowledging that you do so at your own risk.

Each time before we leave I cut off the bands that labelled her wrists and ankles, returning the gowns that stripped Sam of her identity. I tuck her patient number into my wallet in case something goes wrong and I need to ring. Her patient number provides quicker access to the files. Your number is more important than your name in the hospital system. The enemy would like us to believe it’s this way with God as well.

We are relieved that for the first time all year, we have two weeks without appointments at hospital but when little blisters appear on her hands I’m already considering a return trip. It’s hard to break free. It’s hard to return from the safety of slavery. It’s hard to believe you can have freedom now.

The ‘what ifs’ are haunting me. How can I know for sure that we have escaped the sentence of cancer? I cling in desperation to God’s word. I return each week to church. I make myself vulnerable, taking my pastor’s arm and with tears in my eyes I compel him to pray. Somehow the effort of believing has worn me out. I want to relax. I don’t want to fight anymore.

Why is it hard to stand in faith after a year of miracles? Why does my heart feel stony and hard? Why do I think it will all fall apart leaving me vulnerable? Why can’t I enter His rest? Reid and I discuss all these matters as we walk the headland not far from our home. We know so many people who have become bitter, or distant or uncaring through pain. I understand why but its not how I want to be. I want redemption life to flow out of me. I want to breathe hope yet I am also afraid.

I take all this to my Father in prayer. He smiles and whispers, ‘Return to the stronghold [of security and prosperity], you prisoner of hope; even today I declare that I will restore double your former prosperity to you.’ Zechariah 9:12

I am a prisoner. I am totally reliant on Him. It’s only when I try to do the journey alone that I feel restless and afraid. It is only then that the enemy’s illustrations ring true. On those days I am like the Israelites who the Lord brought out of Egypt. I am not satisfied with healing but bitter that there has been cancer at all. I can get stuck complaining. I look at all that I do not have. I feel robbed of a year of my life. Yet God allowed the slavery of the Israelites, He allowed Leukaemia, He knows what we are facing.

Hebrews 3:7-11 ‘The Holy Spirit says ‘Today if you hear His voice will you harden your hearts, as it happened in the rebellion of Israel and their provocation and their embitterment of Me in the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers tried My patience and tested My forbearance and found I stood the test and they saw My works for forty years. I was provoked [displeased and sorely grieved] with that generation and said, they always err and are led astray in their hearts and they have not perceived or recognised My ways. Accordingly I swore in My wrath, they will not enter My rest.’

God is faithful. Though we are tested we can put our trust in Him. He will deliver us. All of our burdens are not ours to carry. He wants us to give them to Him. We must understand His character, rely on Him completely and not be led astray. In our surrender His rest will come.

He promises ‘all things will work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purposes.’ He says He’ll be ‘the lamp to our feet.’ Today is all we have. Today is everything.

T.S. Eliot wrote there would be “Time for you and me, and time yet for a hundred indecisions and for a hundred visions and revisions before the taking of toast and tea.”

But there is no time, there is only today. Today we must decide how to live. Today and eternity are all we are promised. Today we make right our walk with God. Today we decide where we will spend eternity. Today is the day for saying sorry and receiving forgiveness. Today is all we have.

Switchfoot sing:
“This is your life and today is all you’ve got now
Yeah, and today is all you’ll ever have
Don’t close your eyes
This is your life, are you who you want to be
This is your life, is it everything you dreamed that it would be
When the world was younger and you had everything to lose
Don’t close your eyes
This is your life are you who you want to be?”

My brother phoned on Thursday night to tell me that his baby Tahlia Rose was born. It’s a new day, a new season, and the greatest of joys. As I held Tahlia in my arms I was teary remembering Samantha’s birth more than 21 years ago. Tahlia is tiny and perfect, peaceful and trusting. In the care of her parents her future is bright. Her trust is completely in them.

In the 1950s both the Mater Hospital and RNSH gave every baby a jacaranda sapling. This is the reason the North Shore of Sydney has jacaranda trees everywhere. They mark the past; they promise the future; beautiful, strong and tall. Everyone I know has a jacaranda story. The tree that graced our backyard as children was where my brother and I loved to climb. From our vantage point we would taunt our big sister below us bathing in the banana bed in her bikini. We would watch our mum scoop leaves out of the circular Clark Rubber pool. We felt like we could see the whole world from there.

To follow the tradition of the 1950s I bought a jacaranda for Tahlia. I told her mum that it would no doubt be the backdrop for many photos, her birthday party a year from now, her school formal and eventually her wedding day. I wonder if she will climb it. I wonder if my brother will eventually find a branch strong enough for a swing. I am excited about my niece, delighted for the tradition of first born girls to be continued and eager to go shopping for treasures to bestow upon her. If I being human have this much love for my new niece, how great is God’s love for me. Surely He plans to redeem us.

From His vantage point He sees the picture that I can’t see. So I climb again onto my swing, finding the rhythm of His Spirit. I lean back pointing my toes to the sun. I gain my momentum and I join the cicada chorus.

‘When the Lord brought back the captives [who returned] to Zion, we were like those who dream [it seemed so unreal]. Then our mouths were filled with laughter and our tongues with singing. Then they said among the nations The Lord has done great things for them. The Lord has done great things for us and we are glad. Turn to freedom our captivity and restore our fortunes, O Lord. They who sow in tears shall reap in joy and singing. He who goes forth bearing seed and weeping, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing bringing his sheaves with him.’ Psalm 126

We may dream about tomorrow but we must live completely today.