This Summer

I have struggled with how much to publicly share on my blog about this summer and all that is happening.  There has been so much to process and I'm not sure that my blog is the right place to do that when it comes to such personal family matters.  But it is a huge part of our lives right now and I do want to document some thoughts and remember what God is doing in the midst of the heartache.

For the kids, this summer has been an adventure.  A chance to live with their aunt and uncle and cousin who they normally see on brief visits.  A chance to visit new parks and pools and museums and to meet new friends.  And for me, when I remove myself from the reality of my father-in-law's cancer, those aspects of this summer have been fun as well.  This town we have lived in for the last six and a half weeks is a charming small town where the other day we walked down cobblestone, tree lined streets, from the pharmacy to the library to the park to the bakery.  We live a five minute drive from Grandma and Papa's cabin on the lake instead of five hours.  And we live daily life alongside family that we love so much but don't see nearly enough under normal circumstances.

But all of that is only part of the picture.  Behind the fun of this summer is the pain of walking alongside parents far too young to be in a battle such as this.  Their house that sits on a lake and 11 acres of beautiful land is still a magical place for our kids, who don't fully understand the circumstances.  But for me, the magic is gone.  The pain is real.  I want to scream in the face of this new reality and tell it to leave...to bring back the peaceful time where our visits were filled with tractor rides and boat rides and campfires and adventure packed days with Grandma and Papa instead of doctors appointments and scans and tests and news no one wants to hear.  Some days, I still can't believe this is real.

But it is real.  And so, like no other season of my life, I have chosen to cling to what I know is more real than my circumstances - my sovereign King, Jesus, whose promises have become more true to me now because they are all I have to hope in.  He is my hope...the One who is close to the brokenhearted and saves those crushed in spirit (Psalm 34:18).  He doesn't leave, He doesn't fail, He is not surprised by any of this. So no matter the circumstances, I trust Him.  Even when I don't want to and when I don't understand and when my heart screams out why.  I cling to the truth that He has overcome sin, He has overcome death and He has overcome this world.

In this season of life, I have also experienced a new level of being daily sustained by Him.  Not only in the pain of my father-in-law's sickness, but also in being away from home for what will be a total of eight weeks by the time we leave.  I have said many times this summer that logically, this should be much harder than it has been.  The five of us invading the quiet life of my husband's sister and her husband and daughter, who have so graciously allowed us to live with them in all of our noise and choas...living away from my family and our amazing community and the comfort of our home....all of this should be hard. But really, it hasn't been.  There have been one or two hard days, but God has so incredibly lead and protected this time and He has sustained me in ways I couldn't experience in my normal life at home.  And because I have been forced to depend on Him in huge ways, I have begun to invite Him into the tiniest, most seemingly insignificant areas and have experienced the peace of His presence there too.  For that, I am thankful.

So do I want to change my father-in-law's circumstances?  Yes.  But I trust so fully that God is weaving a beautiful story even if it's so hard to make sense of that now.  I am going home a different person, having been refined and refreshed in the desert.  I know this story is not over yet.  Our Storyweaver is never done working, always weaving and creating and orchestrating far more than we know.  I know there are harder days and more pain to come, but that is true of everyone's lives because the reality is that we live in a very broken world.  I am thankful, however, that the end of the bigger story going on is not eternal pain and heartache, but redemption and a world made new again.  Thank you, Jesus.