New Year's Eve marks an important anniversary for me. For my heart it represents a line in the sand. I stepped forward into the year 2004 feeling the gift of time that had been given to me. I've gathered two blog posts that I wrote on New Year's Eve 2008 and 2013, five and ten years past my New Year's Eve of 2003.
December 31, 2008
Five years ago I was 25 with a three-month-old son and I was told that
the I mole I had removed was melanoma. It changed my life forever.
Today, New Year's Eve, is the five year anniversary of when I had my
surgery--a sentinel node biopsy plus removing the area around the mole
to see if the melanoma had spread. Every year since then, I start each
year with profound thankfulness. Five years feels even better.
Medically speaking, two years and five years are milestones
for cancer survivors. I am thankful to pass those markers, but I also
know that God is the ultimate holder of my statistics, each of my days
here on earth have been numbered long before I was born.
I often ponder
how different my life is now because of my cancer experience. When I
had my five-year check-up two weeks ago, the doctor left the room, and I
just started crying. I left the building, got in my car, and started
bawling. Tears of joy. The happiest tears I had cried in a very long
time. So thankful to be given another day, another year.
What
have I cried out to God the most in the last five years since God
preserved my life? To be able to stay home and raise my kids. To raise
kids who love the Lord. At that time I only had one son. My family talked
about what he would be like next Christmas at one-year-old, and I smiled outwardly, but inwardly wondered if I would be around next Christmas.
Now, we have three
amazing children. After our son, we adopted two beautiful
daughters--every day they amaze me. I have been given such a great
privilege to stay home with them, teach them, play with them, love them,
learn from them, and be amazed at what God is doing in our family.
God
allowed me to see what really mattered--I think my contentment in being
a stay-at-home mom is largely because I faced the possibility of not
being around at all. My life is rich. This New Year's Eve, I'm home
celebrating with a cheese fondue dinner, no-bake cookies, snuggling with
our three-month-old, smiling daughter, chatting with my son, listening
to giggles from our three-year-old daughter, and watching a movie with
my wonderful husband. This is the only place I'd want to be.
There
is so much I could say about this, but I'll end with the first verse I
read after finding out that I had melanoma: "Don't be afraid," he said,
"for you are deeply loved by God. Be at peace; take heart and be
strong!" Daniel 10:19 NLT
December 31, 2013
When my son was a baby and I would take him to the grocery store with me,
gray-haired patrons would OFTEN stop me to ooh and awe over him, and
then (without fail) remind me to cherish these years because they end in
a flash. So very true. I hope I have honored their sage advice spoken
from their life experience.
On
this day, 10 years ago, I was scared to death. Early in the morning,
leaving my 3-month-old son with my parents, my husband and I headed to the
hospital for my surgery. Several weeks before, I had been informed that a
mole that had been removed was melanoma. Since I had been pregnant when
it developed, they didn't know how fast it had spread. The surgeon was
removing a large chunk of area around where the mole had been as well as
removing lymph nodes to check if the cancer had spread from its
original site. I've journaled, blogged, and reflected about this time in
my life each New Year's Eve for the last 10 years.
Many events change a
life, but this one was a doozy. And really, I wouldn't change it. I saw
God's hand and felt His presence through it. It has directed the course
I have taken as a wife and mom probably more than any other factor.
That's not to say that I didn't battle tremendously with the fear, hurt,
and anger at facing this at 25 years of age, but I see how He's used it
in my life. He was and is faithful.
So
today, I am thankful. I have been gifted TIME. Time to be a wife and a
mom, time to be a sister, daughter, granddaughter, cousin, niece, aunt,
and a friend. I don't feel like I always use my time the best, I feel
unworthy and inadequate often, but always there is a thankfulness for
being able to be here. The journey is not easy, but worth it. Ten years
later I can say that I have continued to engage with the Lord. I may
cry,
question, yell, fear, doubt, and hurt at life sometimes, but I walk with
Him. Not because I'm so great, but because He is. My heart's desire is
to continue with Him--walking, running, leaping, limping, skipping,
crawling, piggy-backing, or being cradled...whatever it takes.
The old hymn "In Christ Alone" has popped into my head. I love the whole song, but will highlight the beginning and the end...
"In Christ alone my hope is found
He is my light, my strength, my song
This Cornerstone, this solid ground
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm
What heights of love, what depths of peace
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease
My Comforter, my All in All
Here in the love of Christ I stand
...From life's first cry to final breath
Jesus commands my destiny
No power of hell, no scheme of man
Can ever pluck me from His hand
Til He returns or calls me home
Here in the power of Christ I'll stand"
 |
| wet, bedraggled, and laughing on the Grayson Highlands in Virginia |
December 31, 2015
Today is a spectacularly normal day. Bright blue skies and frigid air and temps. I will have three to four cups of coffee. I will go for a run. I will probably clean my house, I will listen to my kids chatter and play and argue and sing (Belle is currently singing a Latin Christmas song while playing by the Christmas tree), I will soak it up because it is all so beautiful. We will spend time with friends tonight and then return home to ring in the New Year. My husband will not tell me to go to bed because it is the one night a year I am entitled to stay up as late as I want. Can you tell we disagree on this sometimes?? He loves me anyway.
My theme for the year has seemed to center around the "beautiful mess" that is life. There is nothing pristine about the days I walk in, but I'll take them, every single one of them.
I believe to the core of who I am that joy and beauty can be found wherever you find yourself this New Year's Eve. That does not mean life is perfect, that does not mean that hardship and tragedy can or should be glossed over in a fake sort of happiness that is neither genuine nor realistic. It's just that God is good, He is active and moving, He has purpose, gives beauty and joy, and radiates love and grace into this shambled world. He has never wasted anything that I've walked through, He has been faithful and patient and loving and present through more yuck than I can say. To journey through this life with my Lord is worth it and there is no other way to do it.
May you all have a, joy-filled, beauty-infused New Year's Eve and start to the New Year!
...and a few shots from our Isle of Palms beach weekend...it's always a good day on the beach
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My husband and two friends have an annual New Year's Eve snowshoeing expedition that they take each year. I call it the Arctic Expedition. They had a blast this year and as usual it was very cold and very windy. Nothing has quite compared to 2013, so I pulled the blog post from that expedition below, just for fun.
Arctic Expedition, December 31, 2013
Now onto the snowshoeing excursion which was more like an Antarctic expedition
simulator.
Here's the estimated data:
- a hike to Lake of Glass which sits
at timberline (between 11,000 and 12,000 feet above sea level)
- 8 miles round trip
- pelting snow
- 13 degrees with
negative 8 windchill
- some gusts being more constant
than gusty
With these three guys that equals FUN. More or less anyway. Shaun said at one point he physically couldn't move his leg forward
because of the wind's force. Mark lost a glove that was whipped off his
person to unknown parts. With the wind at their back, they could
practically fly :-). Jeff shot some video because the pictures
couldn't quite capture the intensity. None of them had ever experienced
such wind and they would be what you would call "outdoorsy" guys.
Anyway, they had a blast, with much shared laughter and a growler of
Coop's beer to drink at the top. It was epic (the wives will laugh at
the stories, while shaking our heads in consternation).
After
surviving Antarctica, the guys drove through the flood-ravaged
valley and town of Glen Haven. The roads have been rebuilt, but many of
these new roads are temporarily dirt. The dirt roads show where the
floods completely demolished the previously paved highway. The
devastation is unbelievable.
As they rounded a curve, the tires hit ice
sending the car into a slow spin. The momentum of the spin seemed too
great to even think they would stop before the front tire dropped over
the edge, sending them rolling into the river below. In the moment they each
were rapidly calculating how they were going to get out of the car once
they rolled. But then the car stopped...less than a foot from hitting
the edge. Like an angel stuck a wedge under the tire, no joke.
Praise
the Lord for His protection!
