Mere thorns

"God has called me to courage, and that has not at all looked like what I thought. I thought it meant fighting harder upstream. Unfortunately, that path has lead me to deeper failure. 

Courage has actually been taking the plunge to let go and submit my "normal" filter in exchange for an eternal one. 

Courage has been taking the next step into the dark when every fiber in me is crying to turn around. 

Courage has been choosing to float down the river of His raging grace, leaving my personal goals and dreams behind hoping that said grace would be enough to survive. 

Courage has been admitting my limits, choosing what I have energy for, and realizing that the globe will still spin in spite of whatever my 100% measures up to that day. 

Courage has been allowing others to stand in the gap and intercede for us when all I wanted was to cling to some shred of self sufficiency. 

Courage has been sowing seeds of His peace and grace when all I want is to be a puddle on the ground. 

Courage has been loving well when I'm not loved well in return. 

Courage has been making myself available to those that haven't made themselves available to me. 

Courage has been choosing laughter in spite of horrific failure and malfunction. 

Courage has been losing ALL of myself and finally being okay with that. 

God has done the impossible. He has walked us deeper into this cancerous mess, yet, He has remained a constant banner of Hope. We are hurting. We are to the end of ourselves. We have been planted in a drought. We are living everything we never wanted to live and walking down all the avenues we never wanted to walk, but He is here all the more in the depths because He walked it first. His voice is louder, His hand is clear, His peace is beyond comprehension, His grace is unending, His provision is perfect, and my roots are growing deeper."

I wrote this five years ago and I needed to read it again today. I remember it. Ryan had finished thirteen months of chemo and all his post surgical side effects lost their camouflage. The rubber of "in sickness and in health" met the pavement in spinning, burning fashion. Those vows were the heavy air in my lungs as I crawled on my hands and knees to scrub chemo vomit off the bathroom floor. They were the salve to my heart when he was in bed far more often than he was out of it. They were a not so distant memory as I watched him pull handfuls of his hair out at the boys 2nd birthday party. They were in the welled up tears as I paid for the dental work to repair what radiation had decayed in his mouth, knowing our bank account would be negative. They were the lump in the back of my throat every time I shaved his misshapen, surgically-scarred head. They were at the tips of my fingers as I treated the radiation burns on his cracked, papery skin. They shattered the last delicate piece of my pride as he applied for disability at 26.

Those days are hard to forget. Every step has required courage I didn't have, tolerating what many consider intolerable, and accepting that less had to be more for a while. In Matthew 5 it says, "Let your 'yes' be 'yes' and your 'no' be no.'" By saying yes and choosing yes each day, we get to see the fruitfulness of everything God had in mind. It's been beautiful.

Ryan is in dwindling percentages and has officially had six years of stable scans. Family vacations are in our vocabulary again. New, attainable goals are within reach. Laughter is our greatest medicine and saving grace. We take God way more seriously than we take ourselves. More and more leaps are being taken without gritting our teeth. The best part is that God's dreams are becoming ours. There is refined gold filling in these fractures and that eternal filter has made ALL the difference.

All of Ryan's brain surgery anniversaries come and pass in January. As I attempt to follow suit by picking new words, verses, and making goals for the new year, I usually settle for simply breathing a little deeper. It's a hard month, but this was the first year the emotional weight didn't hit right away. I thought maybe we would dodge it altogether. Turns out, it did hit in rapid succession but through seemingly unrelated circumstances. The past and the pain has come flowing back. 

In the past three days...

All four of us have gotten a flu virus and are fighting off secondary infections.
Two family visits we had been looking forward to for months were either ruined or postponed.

I missed saying goodbye to a dear friend before she returned to South Africa.

All of the lights on my car dashboard lit up. The "pull over immediately and call the dealership" kind of lights.

Via social media, I was called out for a mistake I addressed and apologized for privately.

My washing machine stopped working.

In the wee hours of the morning, a mouse scurried under the bathroom door, across my feet, and squeezed through the access under our jet tub while I was getting a cold washcloth for a blazing 103 degree fever.

We have been brought down to ground level. It hurts. It is a familiar place to be fighting battles we didn't ask for and tipping dominoes we didn't mean to touch. But there is always this thing I come back to: It's not about me. It's not about my past hurts. It's not about self justification. It's not about validation. These are all mere thorns. It's about becoming more like Christ.

There were and still are nights I don't know if Ryan will wake up from the seizures he has, but I do know with absolute certainty that tomorrow a new sun will rise and an already God-traveled day awaits. Chemo was not forever so I know the flu isn't either. Negative bank accounts weren't forever so I know malfunctioning cars and broken washing machines aren't either. My mouse of a problem could be someone else's elephant and vice versa, therefore, no measurements or comparisons are necessary. That's a beautiful grace to give. Above all, my greatest comfort is that God always conquers every word that death utters. Relationships will always matter more than cancer or any other illness. Seeds of grace and words of life will continue to be sown in abundance. My life with Ryan may not be as permanent as I prefer but, just as God delights in us, my delight in walking alongside him grows more and more with each year. My cup is filled to the brim.

Copyright 2020->Renee Sunberg