I Pour It Out

Over the last 5 years, the holidays have been difficult.  My mother’s birthday falls a few days after Christmas, and I am reminded each year that she is no longer with us.  Absent from the body but present with the Lord. But knowing this truth, it doesn’t get easier.

The anniversary of her passing comes quickly after Christmas and her birthday. This year, like every year, I celebrate her life by doing what she loved on her birthday.  I went to a great restaurant and ate a great meal with a good friend. I said a toast to honor her for the amazing job she did in raising me and my two brothers alone. In spite of all the hardships she faced in her very difficult life, she never stopped pouring out love to those around her. She wasn’t perfect, but most people comment on how sweet she was.  I like to think that in this sense, I take after my mother. 

Additionally, after a few years of hardship in my own life and a particularly difficult end to 2017, I was very ready for a fresh start.  My spirits were high and I entered 2018 with a joyful heart, a smile and some dancing, of course. 

A few days later a late evening shower brought a new dose of reality.

I’ve been taking charge of my health over the last few months, including a new diet and exercise regime I started in October.  I’ve lost 21lbs of fat and I am glad.  Had I not, I wouldn’t have been able to feel the lump in my breast.

In that moment, the memories of 7 years of watching my mother fight Stage 4 Inflammatory Breast Cancer flooded back.  It developed quickly and spread aggressively, into her lymph nodes and ultimately as a brain tumor.  My mother never drank, she’d never done drugs, she ate healthy, she worked hard, and stayed sweet.  

In those 7 years, I watched her go through numerous chemo therapies, grow weaker. She continued to work at her job in a shelter for women who were victims of domestic abuse, up to 6 months before she died. She was a tough cookie.

I thought on all these things as I stood in my bathroom, wrapped in a towel, my hair dripping cold water down my back.  I got dressed for bed and tried to sleep it off. I didn’t want to think about it. The next morning I was on the phone with my doctor making an emergency appointment.

For years, as my mother fought breast cancer, I would ask my doctor about getting an early mammogram.  I was told that they were not done until the age of 40.  I would have to wait 10 more years under this rule.  At one point, as I did a self-exam, I felt something strange and asked my doctor to check it.  I was told it was probably a fibroid and nothing to worry about.

Probably.

Nothing to worry about.

No mammogram.

Unbelievable.

Didn’t they understand that I was watching someone I love die of something that I DID worry about.  My days were consumed with keeping track of doctor appointments, speaking with my mother’s case worker, surgeries, chemo therapies, and flying back to New York as often as possible to cook my mother healthy foods that she could store in her freezer in the off chance that she would actually try to eat that day.  In addition to the fact that I was on my knees everyday praying that my mother would accept Christ before she breathed her last breath.

Nothing to worry about is a poor consolatory statement for people who are living this reality.

I tried to remain calm. 

The day of my doctor’s appointment, I went to His word.

Matthew 6:25-34 New Life Version (NLV)

Jesus Teaches about Cares of Life

²⁵ “I tell you this: Do not worry about your life. Do not worry about what you are going to eat and drink. Do not worry about what you are going to wear. Is not life more important than food? Is not the body more important than clothes? ²⁶ Look at the birds in the sky. They do not plant seeds. They do not gather grain. They do not put grain into a building to keep. Yet your Father in heaven feeds them! Are you not more important than the birds? ²⁷ Which of you can make himself a little taller by worrying? ²⁸ Why should you worry about clothes? Think how the flowers grow. They do not work or make cloth. ²⁹ But I tell you that Solomon in all his greatness was not dressed as well as one of these flowers. ³⁰ God clothes the grass of the field. It lives today and is burned in the stove tomorrow. How much more will He give you clothes? You have so little faith! ³¹ Do not worry. Do not keep saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or, ‘What will we drink?’ or, ‘What will we wear?’ ³² The people who do not know God are looking for all these things. Your Father in heaven knows you need all these things. ³³ First of all, look for the holy nation of God. Be right with Him. All these other things will be given to you also. ³⁴ Do not worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow will have its own worries. The troubles we have in a day are enough for one day.

I wasn’t crazy.
There is, in fact a lump.
I was scheduled for the mammogram I had been requesting for the last 8 years.

So on the 5^th anniversary of my mother’s death from breast cancer, I was standing in the mammography room getting my first mammogram.  I tried not to cry as the gravity of this experience washed over me. I tried not to cry as I stood there enduring something quite physically painful, but in no way as painful as the feelings I was experiencing.

Afterward, I stared at the screen looking at the white mass that had been illuminated from the darkness and brought into my new reality. I’d seen numerous films in dealing with my mother’s cancer that I knew that was I was seeing was not normal. Next I lay there as I was given an ultrasound to see the density.

It was at this moment that I wished I didn’t know the things I know, like how to read mammography and ultrasounds.

I was already preparing myself for what is coming the future.

Once the results were in, I heard what I was expecting.

Most likely a Fibroadenoma.

Most likely a benign tumor.

Most you'll need a biopsy, possibly surgery.

Most. Likely.

Possibly.

I cried after I got off the phone with the doctor. I don’t want a biopsy. I don’t want surgery. In my late 20’s I had finally gotten comfortable with my body and my boobs! I don’t want a scar for something to remember this experience by.

A good friend reminded me, “You serve Someone much greater.”

This I know, and yet I worry.

I know it and still I cry.

I praise Him.
I get in His word.

I pray.

I breathe.

I worship.
I pour it out.

In His presence my soul is satisfied.

Every time.

I trust Him to work all things out for my good.

I remind myself that if it’s not good yet, He’s not done.

I remind myself that in every season, I am loved by the one who created me.

He is my defender, and the one who calms the storm.

He is my Jehovah Rapha, my God who heals. 

Romans 8:28 Amplified Bible (AMP)

²⁸ And we know [with great confidence] that God [who is deeply concerned about us] causes all things to work together [as a plan] for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to His plan and purpose.

I come before You, Just as I am

I lay me at Your Feet

I bring before You, All that I have

I lay it at Your Feet

Refrain:

You are worthy, worthy, worthy Lord

You are worthy worthy worthy so –

Praise like oil

For You I pour it out

For You I pour it out

I pour, I pour it out for You

I pour this perfume, not to impress

the people standing around

I pour this perfume,’cause of your worthiness

as I behold you now

(Refrain)

Bridge:

It’s foolishness I know

But your foolishness is wiser than my wisest

Wiser, wiser (Repeat)

(Refrain)

You Will Keep Him in Perfect Peace...

 I have been having the same dream. 

I am in the middle of the ocean, and the sky is dark as night.  The wind is billowing up and the waves are tossing to great heights.  I’m not on a boat, or a life raft.  Nor am I floating in a life preserver.  I am walking.  I am walking on the water.  I know who I am to look for.  I am looking for Him; my Jesus, my Savior, my Strength.  But no matter where I look, I can’t find Him.  I’m not afraid, I just keep walking, waves tossing, sky flashing.  I keep walking.  I keep searching for Jesus. 

I wake up.

I have lived my whole life close to the ocean; first, on the beaches of Long Island and now on the beaches of South Florida.  I love to lie on the beach and listen to the waves lapping the shore, seagulls gulling, children splashing about.  Many a childhood summer was spent floating, face to sky, listening to the underwater tinkering of tossed shells. 

Yet, I fear the ocean.  The steady waves can eat away a shoreline, tear down a building, or snatch you up and draw you out to its depths never to be seen again.  There’s the real fear.  I know the power of a riptide.  I know the fear of gasping for air as the waves and water fill your belly.  I have felt the panic of my helplessness as I struggled to swim.  I have known the feeling of wanting to just give in and let the water overtake me.  If you have ever almost drowned, you understand.  I have a healthy respect for the ocean.  I also have a great fear of it.

No one knows better the fears of my heart, the joys of my soul and the love of my God than King David in his psalms.  And never have I understood more, the words he wrote about the depths than in this season of my life.

Psalm 42:7- Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.

Psalm 69:2- I sink in the miry depths, where there is no foothold. I have come into the deep waters; the floods engulf me.

I have certainly felt the roar of the waterfalls and the flood engulfing me.  I have felt myself sink into the miry depths where there is no foothold.  I have felt myself drowning in an ocean of despair in the midst of a situation that seemed to have no hope.  And yet, when I could have listened to the voice saying, “Just give in.  All is lost.” I continued on in a desperate attempt to find relief to fight the lies.  To fight the fears.  I got on my knees and prayed for 3 days.  I saw the sun rise and set as I prayed to God. With an great ache in my heart I began to think, “Dying is the only thing that could cure this pain.”  I cried out to God; knees hurting, at the top of my lungs, head buried in the couch cushions.  

Then God the Holy Spirit brought to mind…

Romans 12:3 (NKJV) -  ³ For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.

I prayed boldly.  I dared to pray for an extra measure of faith.  I needed Him to give me more faith; to help me believe.  And as suddenly as the storm had risen in me, it was calmed.  I felt His peace where fear had overtaken me.  I felt His joy where sadness had driven me to despair.  In an instant my tears dried up, my fears silenced.  I felt His compassion.  I felt him leading me. I felt His presence.  It was freaky.  It was overwhelming.  It was awesome.  

Micah 7:19  (ESV) - He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.

Psalm 139:9-10 (ESV) - If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.

I am reminded of Peter walking on water when Jesus called him.  It says he got out of the boat, walked on the water and came to Jesus.  But Peter looked at the storm around him and began to sink.  When he cried out to Jesus, he reached out his hand and took hold of Peter.  (Matthew 14:22-23)  That means, Peter walked the length of the sea in the midst of the storm, got within arms reach of Jesus and then looked away!  Peter was within arms reach, in God's presence and he looked away!  How may times have I myself been so near the presence of God and looked way?  

So what of my dream?

In my dream, I am walking.  I don’t see Jesus, but I am looking for Him.  I am not looking at the waves except to see if Jesus is stepping out of them.  I am not looking at the flash of lightning, except to see if its light has revealed Him.  In my dream I am not afraid.  In my dream I am not sinking.  In my dream, my mind is on my Savior.  In my dream I am determined to find Him; to be in His presence.  

In the light of day, I see the sun is shining.  I see the palm leaves swaying in the morning breezes.  The storm rises up inside of me.  The fears rear their ugly head.  I remember my dream.  I remember to keep searching for Him.

I am at peace.  Because, I think of Him moment by moment.  Because, I trust in Him.  Because I asked for more of Him.  

Luke 11 (ERV)-  ⁹ So I tell you, continue to ask, and God will give to you. Continue to search, and you will find. Continue to knock, and the door will open for you. ¹⁰ Yes, whoever continues to ask will receive. Whoever continues to look will find. And whoever continues to knock will have the door opened for them. 

Never stop searching.  Never stop asking.  You will receive.  

Oceans (Where Feet May Fail) - Hillsong UNITED