the weary world rejoices

In the dribs and drabs of noticing how my heart is tracking along, I am mostly all sadness for my Huz and littles today and can't think straight, can't keep functioning externally while I self combust internally all morning, all afternoon and evening too.

The gnawing of 'all is not right', the constant nag of the cancers pain in my right pelvis, my lower back, it screams out for my attention.

Just like Christmas.

Just like all the cooking, preparation and present wrapping.

And it's too close to my thoughts, too near to each moment festively hanging lights, re-jigging my Christmas tree decorations and stealing a secret slice of Christmas cake. Death is too near to this Jesus birth, this new life, new baby, weary world rejoicing, for me to get comfortable.

Have I lived the moments wide eyed enough? Have I slowed down enough, (but not too much) so as to capture the hearts of my tribe as we go through advent? 

For the first time we have been tracking through advent with Ann Voskamp's 'Unwrapping the Greatest Gift'. Life changing. A chance to stop every morning and get our hearts ready to be glad in the deepest place that Jesus came, and that nothing will ever be 'very wrong' again. I drink the words, the life-giving (or in my case life-saving) truths spelt out in beats that I can keep up with, droplets of truth that are threatening to change me from the inside out. 

Droplets that won't let me stay thinking that maybe God has forgotten me.

Droplets that taste of God's goodness, of His unthinkable sacrifice, His deepest love for little me.

Yet in my morbid way I found myself crying over my orange juice tonight at photos of my boys, these three wonders, that will in time no longer have me all warm and in the flesh to love them new each day. The photos taken, video recorded, memories etched in small minds will have to be enough. But how can they be enough. None of it is the good story I imagined over and over as I nursed True. That season when my world plodded along all cozy and right, and the biggest problem was how long he napped in the day for and which playgroup to attend.

Yes. I've lived those days. Not all my days have had a ticking clock in the background, the endless swallowing of heaped pills morning and night. Not all my days have been achingly lonely because how can I ever ever explain or articulate the endlessness of having to say goodbye when all I want is to stay.

On the day that will be my last on this earth, it will be well with my soul if I have lived this life the best I can. Not in that 'striving to get it all done/freaking out over not getting it all done way', but the knowing that I know that I know I loved with all I am, gave with all my heart, treasured and nurtured my four boys, my three littles with my whole self, and gave my heart daily, hourly to love big my Huz. All in the name of Jesus. Without whom I would have self combusted a few years back.

I can't fathom walking this yuck of cancer without His presence in the deep places.

Just needing You to help me do it Jesus. So glad you never leave me. Please remind my tired heart tonight that Your good is better than my imagined plans that seem better.