Tiny Treasure

You were there weren't You Lord?  When our hearts were split open, raw and bleeding.  The day we watched our beautiful daughter rain down tears upon the newborn she cradled.  You came in the midst of our celebration, inconceivably disguised in the rags of Cystic Fibrosis and brought devastation. 

There was no way to prepare for this - our very personal 9/11.  We were floating in new baby bliss and absorbed with frilly pink dresses when the diagnosis first struck the safe fortress we had erected.  We prayed, we bargained and we denied reality.  We even dared to ask for that miracle. Minutes stretched into hours and hours into days as fear morphed into reality.

But we would relive that day again a thousand times to know the joys of this first year.  Not because You healed our baby, but because you healed us.  You gave us unending joy in the midst of circumstances we would never choose and a celebration of milestones and moments that are rendered ordinary in the absence of a life threatening disease.  A precious little girl captivates us every minute of every day, enriching our lives. In reality, we are all better people because of our Aubrey.  I now understand that You didn't cheat us. The truth is, You loved us way too much to give us the “lesser things” we thought we had to have.   Pain has seared the film from our eyes, restoring our perspective on what is good and what really matters.

Last week we celebrated her first birthday.  We sang. We clapped. And we wiped sticky frosting off of a happy little cherub’s face.  Our spirits soared in ecstasy as we watched her take hesitant steps upon wobbly legs, reaching for a future that You hold in Your Hands. 

And each time I kiss that velvety skin and see her blue eyes dance with laughter, I know it can’t get any better than this.

Singing in the Rain

Recently, a rather insignificant sentence leaped off the page - the obscure black print after the all important Red.  I was reading in the Gospel of Matthew and came across Matt 26: 30: When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. 

Hymns traditionally sung at the conclusion of the Passover fellowship were Egyptian Hallel Psalms – Psalms 115-118 –and were sung as praise.  Excuse me?  Singing and Praise?  But He knew.  He knew betrayal was coming.  He knew that He would bear the weight of the sin of the world and that His Father would soon turn His Face away. He knew there would be excruciating pain and darkness would descend.  And those He loved would scatter, even one who professed allegiance unto death. 

And yet, still He sang.

Obedience moved his voice and then it moved his feet as He assumed the path of suffering for me.  He was motivated by a love that I can’t possibly grasp and He gave a gift I can’t possibly earn.

But He also knew that a time was coming when the curtain would be torn and an empty grave would cease the sting of death.  And eventually there would be no more tears.  You see Jesus understands about hard things like chemotherapy, loss of a child and divorce.  He’s been to those impossible places of suffering that look as if nothing good can come from them and He's come back with the victory. 

Most of us sing praise when we are joyful and have a kick in our step but hardly en-route to our own crucifixion.  This makes me ask myself: How do I love those I know will betray me?  How do I face my accusers? How do I walk an avenue of guaranteed suffering and put my feet to the pavement when the storm is brewing and I feel like giving up? And yet still sing?

My response will determine whether mine is a life well lived.