Tag: Advent

News…

So as we wait in the quiet winters of our lives—not only this season of Advent, but also this time of COVID, or whatever winters we are currently experiencing—we have to keep the light of hope burning in our hearts. God will keep his promises to us.

Just as he said.

Over the summer, my parents spent 78 days on the road with their dog and their RV. When they returned, my mom had soreness in her ribs that she thought was the result of slamming the bed lid on my dad’s truck one too many times.

But it didn’t get better and an xray finally showed that she had 3 broken ribs. It seemed odd that slamming the bed lid could break ribs, so she had a bone scan. She was diagnosed with osteopenia a few years back, which is the precursor to osteoporosis, so we worried that she may have finally crossed that line. But the scan came back ok.

The morning after Thanksgiving, she got up to use the restroom and threw out her back. When the pain, exacerbated by her ribs,  didn’t subside, my dad called an ambulance. New xrays showed that she hadn’t thrown out her back—she had cracked a vertebra.

I never bought the story that the cracked ribs came from shutting the bed lid. I suspected the dog—Maggie is 18 months old and full of life, and my mom walked her 4 times a day. I was sure that Mom tripped over Maggie on a walk and fell—but didn’t want to tell anyone. Maggie is the light of their retired lives, the newest baby in the family. Mom would want to protect her.

The orthopod said that he could do a simple procedure to glue the cracked vertebra together. That happened the first Friday in December. He didn’t like what he saw and took a biopsy. The following week she was diagnosed with multiple myeloma. This is how I explained it to my kids: MM is a cancer of the bone marrow that affects the parts of our bones that scrub old bone away and grow new bone. The part that scrubs old bone away becomes over-active and the part that builds new bone is suppressed by the cancer cells, making it possible to crack ribs from shutting the bed lid on the truck. Apologies to Maggie.

She is in the midst of diagnostic testing, while recovering from her back surgery and waiting for her ribs to heal—something that may not happen until treatment brings the bone scrubbers and bone growers back into balance. That’s a hard thought for everyone, because her pain is significant, and hard to watch. I have to be careful around her, because as a survivor, I want to tell her All The Things I Learned, but I know that’s not right. It’s her path. She has to walk it her way. She witnessed for me. Now I witness for her.

I didn’t get around to weeks 2, 3 and 4 of Advent, obviously. I took my girls south last week and we helped care for Grandma once she got home. When I came back here today to tell you where I went, Hope, Justified was the first thing I saw. I laughed. God does not always move in mysterious ways. Sometimes he moves in giant highway signs that say “For hope, please refer back to your own damn words”. All right, then. Winter has come, but my hope and faith are secure. I know there is a tightly woven blanket of love around our family, and good doctors, and my mom’s own strong body and mind. And I know I can ask you to pray for her, for relief from her pain and for healing.

Merry Christmas, friends. Here comes the Light.

Hope, Justified

The first week of Advent, the candle is called the Prophet’s candle, and the theme for the week is Hope.

The old testament reading on Sunday spoke to the hope of the people of Israel:

The days are coming, says the LORD, 
    when I will fulfill the promise 
    I made to the house of Israel and Judah (Jer 33:14)

My heart thrills to these words because I know they will be echoed on Easter Sunday in Matthew 28:6, when the angel tells the Marys “He is not here! He has risen, just as he said!”

Just as he said.

I didn’t understand how important this was to me until a bit ago, when one of my children asked me why I believe in God. “Because he keeps his promises” I told them without hesitation, and realized the truth of the words as they left my mouth. I am a Martha—practical and proficient. I am also a Thomas, in a way. I don’t need to see with my eyes to believe, but I need to feel presence. I need to be in relationship.

It takes a lot of hope and trust to be in relationship with God. I didn’t know that as a child. I thought the adults in my life could see God himself; I figured that at some point, I would have enough faith and poof! be able to see God too. When that didn’t happen by the time I was in high school, I kind of thought I wasn’t good enough. But who wants to internalize that? So I built a God wall around myself and dared God to climb it. If he loved me, he would. 

God could have blown my wall down in a hot second, roared at me in all his glory and humbled me into submission. But he loves me, so he didn’t.

He could have met my demand that he prove himself in my life by climbing that wall. But he loves me, so he didn’t.

Instead, he moved in someone else’s life, and I was lucky enough to be a witness.

When I was a junior in high school, my religion teacher Mrs. D was a sweet, young and faithful woman who was newly married. Early in the year, she announced she was pregnant. This is not an announcement that a teacher undertakes lightly. Pregnancy is a private matter, but in a way, your students are part of your privacy circle. You can’t hide it, and you know that they will become invested. So you think carefully about when you will tell them. In all three of my pregnancies, my students were the last to know, well into the second trimester.

I don’t know how pregnant Mrs. D was when she announced her first pregnancy. But she lost the baby soon after. When she announced in the Spring that she was pregnant again, she waited long enough that she had a bump. But again, soon after announcing, she lost the baby.

We were so sad for her. Sometimes in teenagers, that looks like anger. I was critical of her continued prayers in class that God would send her a child. It made me uncomfortable, like she was begging for something for which she had already been told no, twice. Her hope felt too vulnerable to me, too trusting, like her heart was laid outside her body and unprotected. How many time would she allow God to break her heart?

But she persisted, in hope and faith.

When we returned in the Fall, she was clearly pregnant again. She didn’t say anything. She walked around class every day, in maternity clothes, acting like there was no growing belly, nothing to see. We figured she was scared and who could blame her?

But she wasn’t scared. And she was not as pregnant as she looked.

She was carrying twins.

When she told us, with a clap of thunder, I could see God.

Not because of my faith. Because of hers. Not because God kept a promise to me. Because he kept a promise to her. Not because his plan for good won out in my life. Because it won out in hers.

I do not mean to suggest in any way that her struggle with becoming a mom was for my benefit. It’s gross to even type those words. It was her journey, and I don’t know the intimate truths behind it.

And at the time, I still thought her relationship with God—and therefore mine—was transactional. God had taken two babies away and then when she was ready?…deserving?…obedient?…enough, he gave her two babies at once. It would take me years to shake off this misunderstanding, that our God is a God of whims and manipulations. Not until my own spiritual battle around a serious illness did I understand the folly of that thinking: God does not create pain in our lives for his own glory later. He loves us and will work his plans for our good, for our welfare and hope (Jer 29), and work all things—even the bad and evil things—for the good of those who love him (Rom 8). It’s not transactional. We don’t have to deserve it. It is ours from love. Our hope is justified.

So as we wait in the quiet winters of our lives—not only this season of Advent, but also this time of COVID, or whatever winters we are currently experiencing—we have to keep the light of hope burning in our hearts. God will keep his promises to us.

Just as he said.

Emmanuel is Coming!

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I know you still have your fat pants on.

But Advent is coming.

I’m not rushing you. I have glad tidings: This year we have a whole week to get ready. None of this Thanksgiving on Thursday, Advent starts on Sunday madness.

Seven days, sisters.

Find your advent calendars. Or if–like me–you aren’t allowed to disturb the carefully crafted storage box fort in the garage, ask your husband to find it. And the wreath, while he’s in there. Try to ask before he comes back in from finding the calendar.

Click here to order advent candles from Amazon, because Michael’s and Joann’s will not have them. Will not, I tell you, and not because there was a 4 am rush for all the purple candles on Black Friday like the sweet Michael’s girl tried to tell me.

Click here to get your Advent Family Prayer Service.  About this–and if I ever taught you how to write an essay, please look away: I put it together five years ago for my family, and like all good educators, I begged, borrowed and stole it from others. I’m hoping the fact that it’s prayer will outweigh the part where I did not correctly cite my sources.

Click here if you can’t remember how “O Come O Come Emmanuel” goes.

Click here for directions on using a Jesse Tree as your Advent countdown–borrowed from Tara at Feels Like Home blog.

Click here for Advent calendars that countdown to Jesus and not Santa.

Click here for Bishop Barron’s Word On Fire, Dynamic Catholic’s Best Advent Ever,  or Richard Rohr’s daily emails for grown-up advent prayer and reflection.

Click here for everything you need to teach your kids or grandkids about St. Nicholas, whose feast day is December 6.  And here for everything you need for the Feast of St. Lucy on December 13, a day of lights and sweets.

Because Advent used to be observed like Lent, with fasting and sacrifice, here is a more sober cookie recipe: St Hildegard De Bingen’s Cookies of Joy. And by sober, I mean half the sugar and double the butter.

Last of all, remember to Get ‘er Done, so that your heart and spirit can be at peace in this sacred time of waiting.

Blessed and prayerful Advent to you and yours!

 

 

 

Get ‘er Done

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You know we like Advent over here.

But every year we buckle down to observe the holy heck of out Advent and we notice that the crap still creeps in.

Like Tuesday I’m sitting on my yoga mat before class, meditating (aka: trying to talk myself out of bailing and going for coffee) and I can’t help but hear the conversations around me that all sound like this:

“I have SO MUCH TO DO. There are not enough hours in the day. Not enough days in the month. Every year I tell myself I’m going to start early and I never do.”

We have all felt that. I have felt that. But that’s not how we should feel this time of year.

So here’s your pep talk.

This weekend, this one starting right now—Purchase. Wrap. Use Amazon Prime and Ebates to do it from the cushy, warm comfort of your couch plus free shipping and cash back. It doesn’t have to be wrapped nicely. It just has to be wrapped. You don’t need cute gift tags. A folded over square of paper works just fine.

Get ‘er done.

Decorate. We got our tree in the parking lot at the mall and I don’t even care. Last year we did the big family haul to the woods to cut it down in the wild. It was the most giant cluster ever. This tree is shorter and skinny, which means the kids could reach it. There are lights and ornaments. The end. The tree does not have to be a work of art.

Get ‘er done.

Sit down with the remote. Search up all your favorite holiday movies and set them to record. Roll through Freeform to find the kids’ favorites. One night two weeks from now when you have reached the breaking point you will be able to yell “GO WATCH TV! And don’t come back until you’ve watched Prep and Landing and Prep and Landing Two TWICE.” Then you can open a nice bottle of wine and catch up on your favorite A Christmas Carol. May I suggest Alistair Sim, although Captain Picard will work too.

Just get ‘er done. A few days of nose to the grindstone now will help you create the sacred space you need later to be calm and present. We’ll need our wits about us for the hard parts. And there are always hard parts. For lots of reasons.

But let’s don’t let one of those reasons be because we left it all so late that we didn’t have time to breathe.

We can do this. We can get ‘er done.

 

 

I have this cross

I try to walk with a “Thy Will Be Done” attitude, but I am telling you as a cancer survivor, the days surrounding the six month testing appointment challenge my resolve.

The appointments don’t loom on my calendar like they do for some, but you better believe I feel them coming. I don’t sleep as well. I’m irritable. And I rediscover my hereditary gift for superstition.

Tuesday morning I went to my ultrasound appointment, sipping my third cup of coffee, because everyone knows that’s calming.

I parked in a spot right in front and hopped out of the car into a pile of wet leaves. They squelched, so I looked down and this caught my eye:

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Some folks would say “Ooooh. A sign that He is with me!  My test is going to be fine.”

I said “Sh*t. A sign that He is with me. The cancer is back.”

In the waiting room, I tried to calm myself. I even texted a picture to my mom, who said “Nice message!”. But then the check in lady kept looking at the cross where I had laid it down on her desk. She leaned in and gently asked “You brought your cross with you to your test?”

My heart sank, even as I smiled and said “Oh no, I found this on the ground when I got out of the car! Can you believe it?” She patted my hand and said “You need it today. Hold on to it.” Then I heard her go around the corner and tell the lady at the next desk “She’s here for a cancer test and she just found a cross on the ground in the parking lot. Isn’t that amazing. God always knows what we need.”

I swear I almost crawled over the desk to tell the both of them “Look—I don’t even know if this cross is for me. Maybe I should put it back. Or leave it with you, in case someone comes along who needs it. I don’t need it. I am fine.”

But I didn’t. I picked up my cross and carried it back to my seat.

And I’m not talking about the stick.

Once you have cancer, you never don’t have it. You’re marked, in your own heart and by others. You never ever just have a cough, or a bump or an unexplained bruise. There is always an asterisk. And every odd thing that happens feels portentous. Why did I find a cross TODAY? Why is the nice lady speaking so tenderly? Why did she say I needed it?

Most everyone else finds a lump and calls someone who tells them “Oh my goodness. Don’t be dramatic. It’s not like you have cancer.”

But I did. I did have cancer and I can’t unhave it. Every six months I get to spend a day being that person again, the one others are gentle with and speak softly around. It makes me crazy, but it is what it is and it’s better than some of the alternatives.

Even though the tech said it would be two days, my doctor called four hours later to tell me my ultrasound was clear. For 179 more days, I have a clean bill of health, with an awesome cross thrown into the bargain.

I’ll take it.