Beautifully scarred

Turns out there isn't much time to post when you have freedom to get out of the house more!  Since my last post, we enjoyed a very fun 12 day trip to Georgia as a family of five for the first time since August 2011.  Long story short, we enjoyed seeing family that we have missed and meeting many, many people who we did not "know" but who have been praying diligently for Reese this past year.  It was almost as though Reese knew who these special people were because she leapt eagerly into their arms and gave them hugs.

We enjoyed Halloween with a lovely Cinderella, a little ladybug and a monkey boy. We've gone to the museum. We've been on walks. We've played in the leaves. We've gone to the zoo.  We've been out to eat. We've gone to church as a family.  Brian and I have gotten out of the house a few times without the kids.  It has definitely revitalized us a bit. It's still easy in the day-to-day to complain or feel grouchy with the normal demands and worries of life, but for the most part we are coming out of the hardest season of our lives.  Reese's MRIs continue to be encouraging and she is coming along with her therapies well.

Perhaps the most precious opportunity came this last Sunday as we were able to have our twins baptized together.   Brian and I also had an opportunity to share Reese's/our story.  It was very special for us and healing to think through, process things and package (a little bit) what the last year has been like and what God has taught us in the midst of it.  I shared first and told Reese's story and talked about several of the things that I have posted here before.  Brian talked next and then the babies (they will always be my babies even though they are fast approaching 2 years) were baptized after we took vows to raise them in such a way that God would be glorified.

Since this blog has been me, telling Reese's story through my experience of it, I close this post with  what Brian wrote and read for our church below:

Hast thou no scar?

No hidden scar on foot, or side, or hand?

I hear thee sung as mighty in the land,

I hear them hail thy bright ascendant star,

Hast thou no scar?

Hast thou no wound?

Yet, I was wounded by the archers, spent.

Leaned me against the tree to die, and rent

By ravening beasts that compassed me, I swooned:

Hast thou no wound?

No wound? No scar?

Yet as the Master shall the servant be,

And pierced are the feet that follow Me;

But thine are whole. Can he have followed far

Who has no wound nor scar?

(Poem by Amy Carmichael)

Most of my Christian life, I have wondered why God would want me to follow him. Mostly because I did not see evidence of sacrifice or scarring as a result of following him. How diligently can you follow Christ without emotional, physical, political, professional, social scarring. I must be afraid to follow him fully. Is there even progress enough to suggest that I am following him at all?

Reese’s diagnosis was devastating for me. I did not process it well and still struggle to put it in its fullest context, spiritually. But her wounds, the surgical scars that she now possesses, are battle wounds that declare her a cancer survivor. They are beautiful marks of a hard fought war in which she has not only survived, but thrived and grown.

What scares me the most today, one year later, is not a recurrence of cancer in Reese, but it is the realization that all my children suffer from a more deadly cancer – Sin. We all have a mortal wound- that if not treated correctly will lead to our demise. But God, in his infinite wisdom, allows sin to fester and grow for a time so that it might apply pressure/pain to our bodies and mind so that we begin to seek a cure for our ailment. Unfortunately for many, we are more aware of the pain caused by the cure than the insidious death that we succumb to over time.

Sin has to be cut out- often violently and harshly. We have to submit our fear of the treatment to the curing hand. We become scarred, and I would submit beautifully scarred. Reese has beautiful scars- two on her head, one on her neck, two on her abdomen – that will always remind me of God’s faithfulness to our family. On her first day of school, I will kiss her on the head and thank God that she is walking into her first class. On her wedding day, I will give her away and be fully aware that she was never mine to possess – her scars are evidence that she belongs to another. When she has her own children, I will be utterly convinced that God loves those that honor him to the thousandth generation. All of these more vivid because of her scarred body. But, I realize that each of my children will need a beautiful scar- maybe several and some disfiguring. For if I really believe that God is good and that he is personal then I want the tumor of sin removed from their hearts. And more so, I want to submit myself to his healing hand.

Only now, do I feel that I am immerging from the devastation of the last 15 months. I did what I advise you not to do. I sought isolation and solace in my own wisdom. I can figure this out, that’s what I told myself. I can get us through this. I was foolish. But how do you know what you will do when confronted with such an unimaginable situation. Fortunately, God continues to pursue.

And that is the most critical revelation that I have encountered. God continues to pursue us – even when we don’t want him to. Time after time, I have rejected his help and guidance in the form of Godly friendship and wisdom, or failed to think that the great gifts I have been given are in fact “good”. But what I realized, who am I that a God of any goodness at all would have any desire to know. I am not generally charismatic, I am self-centered, I can be cold and quiet. “What did I ever do, to deserve love from God?” The answer in fact is quite simple – nothing. God in his goodness reached down into this world full of people just like me and provided an answer to all our pain – Jesus. A wonderful God said, Brian I want to know you and for you to know me, but your sinfulness is between us. My Son will satisfy the penalty for your sin and you can know me and be near me. I would be lost in utter despair without the kindness and goodness of God.

We as men and women, made in the image of God whether we recognize that or not, must reorient our thought process. I must not interpret God’s character through my own circumstances. He is not only good when I get my way. He is not only good when he comes through for me. He is not bad or indifferent when things are difficult. No he is always good, and more than that he is always doing good.

On the death of his wife, George Mueller considered the 119^th psalm at her funeral.

“God is good and doeth good in giving her to me

God is good and doeth good in leaving her so long with me

God is good and doeth good in taking her from me.”

I want to live like George. God is good and did good in giving me Reese. God is good and did good in leaving her so long with me. And if he chooses, I want to say that God is good and does good in taking her from me. But today we celebrate his goodness in healing my daughter. More than that, we raise our children up to him and ask for his favor and revelation of sin and satisfying grace in their life.