Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Happening


Life is still happening.
The world is still moving... the sun keeps rising and setting...
and we are still in what seems to be a holding pattern.

Brain cancer, or any cancer I guess, is strange that way.

How do we know if it's getting better or worse?
How do we know what God is doing?
How do we know what our life is going to look like?

These are questions that plague my mind.

These days my life seems a surreal mix of tragic and normalcy.

I find myself praying for HUGE things from God.
Miracles, really.
I plead for complete and total healing for the Captain.
I beg.
I ask for God's will in our lives...

BUT

But please heal him.
Please take this away.
Please don't let this hurt .
Please.

Please give the boys courage and peace
Please give them a love for You that will not waver in pain and hard days.
Please let them grow up with a daddy.
Please.

And we wait.
In our very own, personal holding pattern.

And the days keep coming.
All the normal days filled with stuff that is important, but pales in comparison to what awaits on the fringes.

And I wonder...
What is God's plan?
What is He doing?

It is so hard not to know, to sit patiently and wait.
To live in the here and now and do normal stuff.
When life seems so horribly abnormal.

BUT.

What a gift.


To feel the normal everyday.


To share the little things.


To have time to snuggle and laugh.


To have time to play and do dishes, and fold laundry and run errands.


To have time.

To have time.

To have time.

I'm trying so hard to balance the two sides.


In the meantime, life, this strangely wonderful - blessed gift of a life God has given me, keeps happening.




5 comments:

Lindsey said...

Such sweet pictures. Continuing to pray with you.

cherylsblogdoodles.blogspot.com said...

Hi Cari, we're a bit north of you, in St. John, IN. God has us in a holding pattern too. My hubby was diagnosed w/ Hodgkins Lymphoma 1 yr 2 mos. ago. He is "holding" without remission so far, but there is a reality that it could come back at any time. A friend send me this wonderful poem....one that I read often, and it reminds me of what a blessing it is to WAIT...may it bless you in your WAIT as well!

WAIT

Desperately, helplessly, longingly, I cried.
Quietly, patiently, lovingly God replied.
I pled and I wept for a clue to my fate,
and the Master so gently said, “Child, you must wait.”

“Wait? You say, wait!” my indignant reply.
“Lord, I need answers, I need to know why!
Is your hand shortened? Or have you not heard?
By faith, I have asked, and am claiming your Word.

My future and all to which I can relate
Hangs in the balance, and YOU tell me to WAIT?
I’m needing a ‘yes,’ a go-ahead sign,
Or even a ‘no’ to which I can resign.

And Lord, you promised that if we believe
we need but to ask, and we shall receive,
and Lord, I’ve been asking, and this is my cry:
I’m weary of asking! I need a reply!”

Then quietly, softly, I learned of my fate
as my Master replied once again, “You must wait.”
So, I slumped in my chair, defeated and taut,
and grumbled to God, “So, I’m waiting – for what?”

He seemed, then, to kneel, and his eyes wept with mine.
And he tenderly said, “I could give you a sign.
I could shake the heavens, and darken the sun.
I could raise the dead, and cause mountains to run.
All you seek, I could give, and pleased you would be.
You would have what you want – but you wouldn’t know me.

You’d not know the depth of my love for each saint.
You’d not know the power that I give to the faint.
You’d not learn to see through the clouds of despair.
You’d not learn to trust just by knowing I’m there.
You’d not know the joy of resting in me
when darkness and silence were all you could see.

You’d never experience that fullness of love
as the peace of my Spirit descends like a dove.
You’d know that I give and I save (for a start),
but you’d not know the depth of the beat of my heart.
the glory of my comfort late into the night,
the faith that I give when you walk without sight,
the depth that’s beyond getting just what you asked
of an infinite God, who makes what you have LAST.

You’d never know, should your pain quickly flee,
What it means that “My grace is sufficient for Thee.”
Yes, your dreams for your loved one overnight would come true.
But, oh, the loss! If I lost what I’m doing in you!

So, be silent, my child, and in time you will see
that the greatest of gifts is to get to know me.
And though oft’ may my answers seem terribly late,
My most precious answer of all is still, “WAIT.”

Author Unknown

Andy and Cari said...

Thank you, Cheryl. Very much.

Emily said...

Cari,

Your words are such a testament to who He is and who He desires to be in our lives. May He continue to get the glory. Thanks for being honest and real and willing to share and encourage (me!). The One who has called you is faithful, and He will do it.

cherylsblogdoodles.blogspot.com said...

I came over (here) tonight just to check on you...b/c I too, have been praying for your man...and am hopeful! I care.