During a recent event at Macy’s historic Walnut Room (which is a story for another blog entirely…), our family had the pleasure of meeting Jon Hansen, a news correspondent and host on Chicago’s WCIU.
Our children immediately fell in love with his energy and joy, and so, when Jon invited Chase and me to come to the west loop to record for his current events show, we were thrilled to join him.
It was a joy to talk about Chase’s cancer story, finding hope, amazing organizations, and other things that you hear me say all the time, but in truth, the best and funniest part – the show stealing element – was, of course, Chase himself. Keeping track of yourself in front of a television camera is one thing…keeping track of a squirrelly six-year-old who just discovered his mic is another thing entirely. 🙂
Somehow, 74 days have passed since I last wrote here…
There have been so many things I’d like to share with you, but I’ve let the words get swept into life business. Each weekend, I’d think “This next week, I’ll start again…” and each week would slip by while I thought of this site like a long lost friend I’ve been meaning to call.
Chase deals with moving things out of the living space…
Change of any kind is especially challenging for a child like Chase, but he weathered it nicely and wow, the look on his face when he saw the re-made room… WORTH IT.
We are so blessed!
Enjoy!
~MbM~
Our most humble thanks to Lou Manfredini of HouseSmarts TV, design ninja Nathan Fischer, and the Buikema’s Ace Hardware employees who put together this amazing gift.
This day that brings a new start; a new week. Why does it betray me on the regular?
The weekends are full – sometimes precious, sometimes hurt-filled and disappointing, but always tiring. And then here it is a new morning and I feel like I’m starting a fire against damp, weak wood. I’m out before I’ve ever started. I don’t even have the energy to even fake it and somehow, the hours leading up to 9:00am are chalked-up full of the classic one-two punch – sometimes literally.
One child has a cold, drama, and undone homework.
One is having trouble breathing and can’t find inhaler, glasses, or gym shoes (which turn out to be wet and muddy when found).
And one has a headache which leads to a vicious unraveling – a spewing of anger and frustration on everyone in the house.
Between thinking about a healthy breakfast, trying to care about lunches, drying shoes, finding glasses, and hostage-negotiating the bald headache victim, I can’t find my own breath; my own pace. I can’t even hear myself think.
These hours are full of reaction, not planned pro-action and I feel my senses filling up with overwhelm.
Why me? Why now? Why is it always this way? What am I doing wrong that the wheels not only fall of the wagon, but seem to be forever lost?
How do I fan a flame for life and diligence when the day feels ruined before it’s hardly started?
I find myself searching like the drowning. Where is the salvation that will allow my head to stay up and breath through just one more day. One more moment…
I heard it yesterday on the radio and my mind flashes back in a rare moment of clarity:
“The Word of the Lord endures forever.”
I have nothing. He is everything.
My moments will pass like breath. (why did I think they’d do anything else?) He is forever.
I don’t have to fight for strength because in my weakness, He is strong.
So, as I stand in the middle of a day hardly begun and already shattered, I find hope and strength – not in the picking up of the stressful pieces, but rather in the act of LAYING THEM DOWN.
Choosing a hopeful surrender…
Moment by moment.
The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever.
Isaiah 40:8, NIV
Stock photo from Pexels: courtesy of unsplash . com
Just before the sun rose on this day four long and quick years ago, the last unknown action of a growing brain tumor was finally known as my boy seized in the wooden crib of his baby years under the waning moon.
We should not have had even six months, and yet somehow, we’ve had four years.
They have been long and full of shadows and anger, but also precious with more joys than we deserve.
And as the shadows lengthen into longer life than we’d ever have dreamed, and we persist in this atypical life and it’s challenges, the words of Matt Papa have been close to my heart.
Lord I’m tired…
So tired from traveling
This straight and narrow is so much harder than I thought.
And on this path I’ve met both doubt and pain and I’ve heard their voices say ‘Yeah, you’ve given all you got.’
But there’s a cloud of witnesses – the ones who’ve run this race – and even louder than my fears, they’re crying: ‘Warrior, lift your face!
And keep running, keep running, don’t lose heart, and don’t you give up now.
Don’t turn around.
You’ve got to find a way somehow to keep reaching; keep fighting.
The pain cannot compare to the reward that will be yours; that waits in store for those who just keep running.’
Don’t turn aside…
No compromise…
Just lift your eyes to the glory that’s coming.
If you’re like me, you feel like you can’t go on, you’ll never see the dawn and you’re just about to break.
But don’t stop now.
Know that every sacrifice will all be worth the price when you finally see His face…
