Music | Monica Kaye Snyder

Mar 1
2015

What Can I Bring to Your Fire?

by Monica

This blog post was originally published on August 18th, 2013. Friday was Janet’s birthday. I can barely remember what the landscape of my life looked like before knowing and being known by her. I celebrate her every day.

I have seen them in cities, and in my own neighborhood,
nor could I touch them with the magic that they crave
to be unbroken. Then, I myself, lonely,
said hello to good fortune. Someone
came along and lingered and little by little
became everything that makes the difference.
Oh, I wish such good luck
to everyone. How beautiful it is to be unbroken. –Mary Oliver

It’s a quiet morning here because Dan has taken the girls to church. I woke up locked in my room. My neck doesn’t move at first when my eyes open. I remember I had surgery, and I need to heal today. This is what Sunday looks like for me. Healing is my one job. I call out to have Dan bring me coffee. Normally I would go out to my nest chair and drink it while everyone else comes to life around me. Twix will crawl into my lap for snuggles and then Danica takes a turn. Today I can’t seem to move. I call Dan again to please come and get out certain pills for me to take that may raise my cortisol level, help with pain and also loosen up my poor neck. He seems annoyed. He doesn’t ask me how I slept, although I ask him, and he doesn’t ask me if I need something to eat or nibble on before I swallow six super strong pills on an empty stomach. It doesn’t even cross his mind. I don’t ask. Since I’ve been home it is much like other surgeries. I am put into my room with the door shut. I think my family looks at it as doing me a favor. The kids jiggle the bed which hurts my neck. They are loud and silly. Mostly because of the pain and meds too much input sets me off. Still, I have missed them incredibly and being alone hurts in the worst way. As they all leave for church the attitude is negative. I asked Delaney to read me Psalm 37 out loud. It’s one of my favorites. All I can feel is this rope of bad energy tightening around me. The house is a mess. As soon as they leave I cry for ten minutes straight. You know the kind of sobbing where you are just gross snot pillow soaked blotchy face and chest heaving crying? I am given a week in Maryland and that is it. I have to be better. Tomorrow Dan will go to work. I will be here alone with my girls. Delaney starts school Tuesday. Wednesday Danica has kindergarten preview and Thursday they will both be back full time. In between here I am supposed to just be mom. I’m supposed to lift up this neck and do all the things people say are stupid and careless to do following this surgery but there is no one else to do them. I am not supposed to move my neck in flexion or extension for a month. In other words, hold very still. Aside from the surgery where I went away to heal at the lake house this is how it has been. My family can barely scrape together enough time off and energy to do the mom is in the hospital thing. When my ride dropped me off yesterday my dad was waiting with his keys to leave. I asked him to please wait until Dan got home. I haven’t heard from my mom at all. I just can’t be alone yet. Dan does not function without me. He is angry at this situation. I get this. It’s maddening. But I wonder if anyone is thinking about what it must feel like to be in this body and mind and soul. Do you know what incredible shame I feel to be causing all this over and over again? He cannot come and sit with me and talk to me about how I am feeling. Even in the hospital he sat there the entire day after my surgery saying nothing. I felt so insanely alone and guilty and wanting to just let him off the hook for all of this. I always want to say to him, “You can run. It’s okay. I would totally understand.” This surgery is huge. It’s a big deal. For me, even more than the physical, it’s a mental and spiritual choice I made to try to be better. I did this only four weeks after a major abdominal and pelvic surgery. I made this choice because my husband has been given an opportunity to perhaps take on a larger role at work, my girls start school this week and last year I was completely bedridden when school began with another surgery and then another and it hurt Danica’s adjustment greatly, and my mom is completely unavailable in every way this time of year. Her family is the 600+ students entering those doors Tuesday and my dad is preparing to go to China and India for a month and good grief, how much longer can things keep being about me?

Why after all these years of blogging am I saying these things now?

Because something changed me.

Ninety nine out of one hundred of you may feel like this comes across as ungrateful, but if you know me you understand my spirit is only full to overflowing for every ounce of love and support from every corner of the universe, especially the sacrifices my parents have made. Still, what was given to me this time was something I have needed since I was a child. There has been a deep longing for a mother to care for me. Someone to just focus on me and build relationship. I have needed it so badly it is actually part of my sickness. I know this.

There she was.

An angel.

A woman I didn’t know personally until two weeks ago made this crazy offer. I didn’t really even think she was serious at first. She offered to come after my surgery and get me since Dan needed so desperately to work. Everyone who heard of this felt it was very strange. She bravely drove with her own physical limitations from Ohio to Maryland. She fed me. She took me on a hilarious trip around the beltway for prescriptions. She rubbed my neck and shoulders. I don’t think anyone had offered to touch me like that in months. Did you know you need human touch to be okay? I have been like an orphan tied to a crib. Failure to thrive. I need to be touched. She listened to me. I listened to her. Her daughter is sick with the same conditions I have. I think perhaps the windows into one another’s roles in all this was one of the greatest gifts. We talked for hours and hours and only scratched the surface of what our souls could share. I would fall asleep mid sentence and then wake and begin where we left off. She would quietly slip off as if knowing I needed space and then appear just when I was needing her. Gift. Gift. Gift. When everything else falls away WE are gift.

Before Danica’s major surgery in Cincinnati I wrote this post with a link to a song by Christa Wells that is truly my life song. I am amazed when one of the “thousand things” shows up. Christa’s new CD “Feed Your Soul” was released on Tuesday, the day after my surgery. I downloaded all the songs first thing that morning, and they played over and over in my alone time in the hospital. The song Come Close Now describes what Janet did for me.

God, every single step of this arduous journey You have given me Dayenu. It would have been enough. This present of knowing and being known makes me healed in places I thought would be broken until heaven. Even in my sadness today I understand I can only meet people where they are in their own journey. All the rest You will care for perfectly as I burn. Thank you for giving me someone to walk into my fire and just feel the heat of all this without shrinking back.

Do you know someone who is sitting in the burn today? Go close. Sing. Hold them. Be there in the fire. It will make all the difference.

Feb 25
2015

Heal the Wound but Leave the Scar

by Monica

It was our first night. After an exhausting day of travel we thought we would check in to the hotel and crash. Instead, the first whiffs of fresh mountain air gave us a second wind. We felt the enormity of the gift we were given in this time away and didn’t want to waste a minute. I changed out of my airport clothes and slipped my freshly pedicured feet into open toed shoes. We floated down the grand lobby staircase hand in hand and settled in to a cozy spot on the expansive patio overlooking the city lights. I’d been there before. I loved sharing the nightly tequila ritual and toast and special menu secrets at Salud. We sipped drinks made with cucumbers and fresh agave juice. Something shifted as we bared our souls in several hours of conversation under the Tucson stars. We hadn’t wanted to admit the way we were holding insecurities and hurt in tight fists. Now we wondered out loud. How long had we moved through the motions of marriage? Recognizing one another’s unique fragility we cared too much to make even the slightest movement. We knew even one bump had the possibility of upsetting our delicate balance of survival. With open hands and hearts we purged the pain and sadness and cast it all in the fire on our way up to our room. It was a fresh start like only Jesus makes.

The next morning we woke tangled up in silky white sheets and duvet after the longest exhale of love. It had been years since we had the time and place, desire and energy to slow our intimacy to the metronome of breath. For the first time in almost eight years I let him fully see me, and he wanted to look. He traced every single scar with his fingers, and we took turns telling the story together. Not my story. Our story. I never doubted we were one heart, but something about all those wounds often made one flesh a difficult proposition. With every surgery and every long recovery I felt a gulf widening between who I once was to him and who I had become. Suddenly I could see in his eyes and hear in his voice a truth I’d not known before. He loved me even more because of the suffering not in spite of it.

Today marks a week since we returned home. When I stepped out of the plane onto the jet way here the temperature was below zero. I began to cry. I rounded the corner in the airport to see my Danica running towards me bundled from head to toe. I was wearing ballet flats with bare tan feet exposed and no coat. I hugged my sweet girl and cried even harder. Coming back here, a place I know causes very specific pain and many of my symptoms, was heart breaking. Dan looked over and winced as he saw the Monica Kaye he had reclaimed already slipping away.

It was a week ago I exiled myself with my Savior for His forty days in the wilderness. I’m daily sitting with Christ as best I know how. I’m listening to His heart as He prepares for the immense sacrifice He’s been asked to make on the cross. I am brought face to face with a God who knows every ugly sin I’ve committed or will commit. He sees my unspeakable mistakes and feels the bitter shame that wounded Him. His humanness, his hunger, his temptation, his pleas for release from this before the world began plan break me again and again. He is God made man. He sympathizes in every way without sin. My redemption could only come through a sacrifice this understandable and this unexplicable.

I’m walking closer to the days when I will see Him crucified. The wilderness, however uncomfortable, is just a preparation for the week when I will have supper with Him, tell Him I love Him, turn around and deny Him and then watch Him take the lashes, carry the cross and be wounded for my transgressions. At the last hour He will be completely forsaken by His Father and suffer hell for me.

When I’m face to face with Him I know for sure the scars I bear both inside and out are completely redeemed. His dying love stops my breath. His resurrection starts it again.

Since Tucson I pray for fresh starts and new beginnings. I long to live in a place that gives me a more whole body and healed spirit for my husband and daughters. I ache to take all this pain and turn it into a beautiful ministry for others walking this similar road.

When I’m face to face with Him. When I remember His love for me. I trust Him completely.

Every cut of my flesh has healed into a bumpy red reminder of God’s mercy to me. Every sharp memory of sadness and sin has kept me on my knees even though I’m completely free.

Dan and I hiked several miles up a mountain into the Sonoran desert. On our way we stopped to build Ebenezers. Each of us chose seven large stones to symbolize our seven years of tribulation. They stand as altars to God’s faithfulness. We were living something impossible. We were away together on vacation. I was hiking. I was breathing. I was well. We lifted prayers of gratitude as we moved on and my Dan began singing softly as he led the way.

Come, thou Fount of every blessing,
tune my heart to sing thy grace;
streams of mercy, never ceasing,
call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
mount of thy redeeming love.

Here I raise mine Ebenezer;
hither by thy help I’m come;
and I hope, by thy good pleasure,
safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
wandering from the fold of God;
he, to rescue me from danger,
interposed his precious blood.

O to grace how great a debtor
daily I’m constrained to be!
Let thy goodness, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
seal it for thy courts above.

My song today.

Heal the wound but leave the scar.
A reminder of how merciful You are.
I am broken, torn apart.
Take the pieces of this heart and
Heal the wound but leave the scar.

I’ll build an altar of the rubble that You found me in and every stone will sing of what You can redeem.

Don’t let me forget everything You’ve done for me. Don’t let me forget the beauty in the suffering.

Heal the wound but leave the scar.

(This beautiful song by Point of Grace has been on my “healing” playlist for years.)

Feb 10
2015

Anticipation. A Calvary Love Story

by Monica

“..that sanguine expectation of happiness which is happiness itself.” ― Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

Today is Dan and I’s anniversary. We are leaving for Tucson, Arizona early tomorrow morning. I can’t remember a time in our life together, even waiting for our babies, when we have longed for something in this way. The past few weeks have been full of wistful conversations about our upcoming trip. We have been flirting. We have been writing love notes and texts. We have been aching in anticipation of eight days of vacation from the long hard here. I am excited to take Dan back to a place I traveled a year ago following my shunt revision. I healed and tasted wellness there. I want him to see me this way. I want to be only one thing during this time. I want to be his Monica.

Song of Solomon keeps coming to mind. It is a book in the Bible I have mostly skipped over. Since I was a child I felt like reading it was akin to sneaking into the 612.6 section of the library to learn what I could about sex. It’s full of strong erotic imagery telling a story of lovers. Chapter two explores the expectation of them running away to be alone together but also speaks to restoration after a bleak time in their relationship and lives.

The voice of my beloved!
Behold, he comes
Leaping upon the mountains,
Skipping upon the hills.
My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag.
Behold, he stands behind our wall;
He is looking through the windows,
Gazing through the lattice.
My beloved spoke, and said to me:
“Rise up, my love, my fair one,
And come away.
For lo, the winter is past,
The rain is over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth;
The time of singing has come,
And the voice of the turtledove
Is heard in our land.
The fig tree puts forth her green figs,
And the vines with the tender grapes
Give a good smell.
Rise up, my love, my fair one,
And come away!
O my dove, in the clefts of the rock,
In the secret places of the cliff,
Let me see your face,
Let me hear your voice;
For your voice is sweet,
And your face is lovely.

When I think back over the last sixteen years of my life there is one constant thread binding the story. Before I really knew what Calvary love was; Before I had tasted real Grace that changes you from the inside out; God gave me Dan. I separate my life into chapters easily. I know telling the whole truth out loud about those years before Dan will someday be important. For now, I can only tell you Dan’s love saved my life as surely as God’s love saved my soul.

On a one night anniversary trip in 2012, two and a half months after my brain surgery and fusion and a month before I would head back to Maryland for my tethered spinal cord surgery and Tarlov cyst removal, I laid on Dan’s strong chest, my happy place, in a beautiful room at Gervasi. I was feeling ever discouraged with the never ending pain and suffering. I listened to him talk of his dreams for our family. He shared his new found peace with where we were. He asked me if I believed we would really move past all this in the future. He told me why he did.

My heart trusted him. To hear him verbalize something about our tomorrows besides being “stuck” gave me the very hope I was needing to move forward. He rescued me and faithfully loved me when I was so unlovable. He has always believed in the promises we made. He has laid down his life, his wants and his needs over and over again to care for the girls and I. He’s shown me Jesus when I couldn’t see Him anywhere else. I look at my husband, Dan, and see more than human love. I see Calvary love.

We will keep dancing.
We will keep sailing.
We will keep doing hard things because we promised, and His promises are true.
We will keep dreaming.
We will keep expecting good things.
Our Hope remains.

(Thank you to those who generously made this trip possible. You know who you are. Thank you to those who are genuinely rejoicing with us. God has been so good to continue to give me a measure of health since my December plasmapheresis. Will you please pray I will stay well and be fully physically present during this trip? Will you please pray for safety in every way for our sweet Delaney and Danica as they remain here? I will be offline except for sharing photos on social media because so many of you have asked to see glimpses of our happiness. I will return writing here soon and will resume my “If” series and giveaways. LOVE.)

This is one of our favorite love songs by Andrew Peterson. It plays often in the soundtrack of our lives.

Jan 5
2015

I Will Follow. We Will Follow. A Dan Post

by Monica

It’s been quite some time since I’ve written anything for Monica’s blog. I’ve done Christmas letters and year-end reviews for our family in the past. I usually say something hopeful and overused like, “Next year will be our year!” I am finally realizing this is much like making resolutions you know you cannot keep. My outlook for 2015 does not differ much from what transpired in 2014 or the slowly passing years before. This is not pessimism. It is our reality. The coming winter months are the hardest on Monica. We are one in many ways. Most noticeable is I am not okay when she is not okay. I’m forgetting who she was before all this. I’m forgetting who I was. This frightens me. At the same time I realize this leaving behind our early life together and our old selves is the work of Grace. This change may have never happened had it not been for our countless trials stripping us of all we once held dear.

I don’t write often enough but hopefully this post should develop a common thread for you to follow throughout the paragraphs. I do love to tell stories.

When the very first iPad made its debut years ago, I was fortunate to purchase one with the help of a few donated gift cards to a local retailer. Though I’m in the tech industry and an “IT Professional,” I usually get all the electronic hand-me-downs from my wife who in turn gets hers from her parents. I’m typing on her very old laptop that will lose power without notice as the replacement battery failed months ago. The chance to own an iPad was an exciting surprise. Those with an iPad understand it makes an outstanding gaming station for kids, so it quickly became Danica’s iPad. It was loaded with free games and helped pass the long hours in her little “storm trooper” body cage and wheelchair. My intentions were to cherish this first edition iPad forever until Danica dropped it recently on a cement sidewalk. It functions like new but the glass screen is shattered. I loaded up a few hundred family photos and use it as a digital album now. From afar our family pictures look fine but up close you’ll notice the images have jagged wandering lines running through them.

In our great room we have an entire wall dedicated to “print” family portraits. There are twelve framed photos in all. They are all stunning natural light pictures taken by a friend of Monica’s who has gifted her time and efforts over the years capturing these moments for us. Over our mantel is a beautifully framed piece of art. It is a Marc Chagall etching with watercolor of the Prophetess Deborah. A friend of Monicas collects art and loans pieces to us to enjoy. To round out the room we have an old Craftsman bookcase inherited from Monica’s maternal grandmother. Our full glass storm door allowing the warming and healing sun into our home was a present from her parents. Our living room is basically how Monica and I dreamed it would look but with very little from our own efforts. There is not a day we do not feel gratitude for this sense of place after moving from our home and selling most of our possessions to live in her parent’s basement those eighteen months in 2011-2012.

Early in our relationship and marriage our house was our idol. We bought and sold new homes during the real estate boom. Monica loved interior design. We spent much of our time on weekends hunting for the right furniture, rugs and art for a space. While selling one of our last homes in Leesburg, Virginia the couple who purchased it requested a separate transaction to buy almost everything in our house. I believe God took our home from us so decisively to uproot the temptation to ever make a place matter more than one another. We hold things loosely. We know at any moment this could be lost, and we would survive.

Nice cars were another idol I held close. When money was not a concern I would routinely trade in a BMW for a Lexus or an Audi. I bought an SUV so I could tow my waterski boat around D.C. to impress my then girlfriend, Monica. The car I drove was an important outward display of who I thought I was. God stripped me of all this. If it were not for donations, I could not have afforded any type of vehicle the past six plus years. When Danica was first sick, a foreign exchange student Monica’s parents housed was returning to South Korea. He lived with them for years and became like family. He gave us his old Jeep when he left. It did not have working heat, and I drove it back and forth to Fairlawn during the freezing cold. I loved it because of the kindness it represented and hated it because of the humility it was teaching me. The Jeep ran as long as it could. Many months later, a friend of Monica’s donated his 2003 Mazda SUV to us. It was after owning this Tribute for a while, I no longer dreamed of new vehicles. The car simply runs even though you have to start it twice every single time. The kids actually love the cloth interior, and it hauls my cardboard, glass and plastics and yard trimmings to the recycle center. We have had to put money into it for things you would expect in a car this old, but it is faithful. The friend took really good care of the car, and I am extremely grateful for his gift. It is proof that being good stewards of our belongings pays off in the long run.

Taking care of Monica and our girls is an endeavor I now humbly and gratefully share with many people. The expanding network of love that has grown around us because of Monica’s pursuit of telling our story and keeping relationship is staggering. The gifts I mentioned above are only a fraction of what our family has received since our journey began during Monica’s pregnancy with Danica over eight years ago. From across the United States, here in northeast Ohio and even from other countries, we have opened hundreds of cards and motivational letters. We’ve been given contributions to help meet surgical fees and travel costs, prescriptions and never ending medical bills. Most of all we are covered in countless thoughts and prayers of support. It is an immeasurable amount of love that at first was almost too great for a proud husband and father to bear. It slowly began to change me. It taught me about selfless giving and gracious receiving. It also rearranged my dreams about what I might be able to pay forward someday by the Grace of God.

One of my favorite songs is “I Will Follow” from Chris Tomlin. Though the lyrics may seem simple, the message is often times difficult to accept into one’s life. The song represents the duality in my life comparing my relationship with my wife and my relationship with God. When I return home from work I am constantly cleaning the house, vacuuming, grocery shopping, baking cookies, doing yard work or simple car repairs. I gladly welcome it all. Not only because I have been called to do this, but because my best friend in the world, my wife, and my greatest gifts, my daughters, need me.

I sing these words to my wife whom I love:

Where you go, I’ll go
Where you stay, I’ll stay
When you move, I’ll move
I will follow…

I sing these words to my Heavenly Father:

In you there’s life everlasting
In you there’s freedom for my soul
In you there’s joy, unending joy
And I will follow

This is not the life I imagined when Monica and I first met. This is not the life that makes a man proud. I have few personal accomplishments and almost complete dependency on others. This is the life that makes me grateful for my wife, grateful for our girls and grateful for our friends and close family who show God’s love to us over and over again. I am undeserving of this life, but those of you in our network understand what is at stake. Though the memories are cracked, the family pictured on the iPad is worth fighting for.

We have great plans for 2016. We see 2015 as one of maintenance for Monica’s treatments and more healing. Danica’s Spring Cincinnati scans and appointments represent a huge milestone in her recovery, and Delaney will finish 7th grade. We have said this many times, but it bears repeating. We would not be capable of trust and even peace in the face of despair if it were not for all of you. I now understand you are my friends and family too. We cling to hope. We breathe Grace. We are a family fighting our way through what some days feels too hard. Your love is a strong army behind us. One day we hope to give back in part what we have received. We dream of the ways we could use our story to help others on a similar journey. We know for sure nothing is impossible.

You don’t know my wife the way I knew her. There are parts of her story still to be told. You don’t know my wife the way I love her. When I married her I told people she was a fighter. I never imagined how true this was. We are stronger because of the brokenness. We are one because of the shattering and healing. Together we are finding life, freedom and joy as we follow.

Photo by Grace Designs Photography

Dec 22
2014

Star Song

by Monica

Salvador Dali 1969 Lithograph from the BIBLIA SACRA 33 – SANCTUS RAPHAEL ET TOBIAS

We have been having
epiphanies like stars
all this year long.
And now, at its close,
when the planets
are shining through frost,
light runs like music
in the bones,
and the heart keeps rising
at the sound of any song.
An old magic flows
at the silver calling
of a bell,
rounding,
high and clear.
Falling. Falling.
Sounding the death knell
of our old year,
telling the new appearing
of Christ, our Morning Star.

Now, burst,
all our bell throats!
Toll,
every clapper tongue!
Stun the still night.
Jesus himself gleams through
our high heart notes
(it is no fable).
It is he whose light
glistens in each song sung,
and in the true
coming together again
to the stable
of all of us: shepherds,
sages, his women and men,
common and faithful,
or wealthy and wise,
with carillon hearts,
and, suddenly, stars in our eyes.–Luci Shaw

If you’ve read here long or at my old blog you know I love Advent more than any other time of the year. The order of the liturgical season leading up to celebrating Christ’s birth keeps my heart in a circle of never forgetting. It reminds my soul continually how the plan for Redemption was THE only plan. Throughout the Old Testament there are the hints and guesses that grow into clear signs of who would come to save us. I love spending an entire month so mindful of the miracle. Christmas is a big reflection of what God asks us to do with our lives all year long. He wants us to watch and wait. He wants us to draw near to the simple and humble and the human so we can really finally understand what a sacrifice God becoming man was and is. It’s Grace in slow motion, step by step to Bethlehem.

Growing up in Staunton, Virginia our amazing public library had large reproduction art pieces that were framed, and you could check them out to hang in your home for awhile. I was obsessed with decorating and design since I was a young child. I was always wanting to make my space inspiring and beautiful. My mom would let me check out the art from time to time. My favorite was one of irises printed on a grass cloth type canvas framed in gold. We didn’t grow up with much actual art in our home. There were cross stitch samplers of Bible verses and one big watercolor painting of my sister on a carousel hung over our couch. That’s about it. I didn’t have exposure to art through museums or my schoolwork either. It was just something that felt important to me like a good thread count and the right lighting. It was something I was born hungry for like poetry and architecture. It is something we all need and want at some level if we are honest with ourselves. In many ways the place I grew up became the canvas I studied. Watching the seasons change year after year in the Shenandoah Valley shapes your soul for beauty. All art is born from the master artist, our Creator, and I was blessed to live in the bowels of one of His special studios for many years.

Thanksgiving and the month of December are a time for looking backward and forward. As I play this long year in my mind one of my deepest blessings has been a friendship that came out of a strange and unexpected place. It has grown into part of my healing so deeply I don’t know if one would have been possible without the other. We are different in many ways and kindred in just as many. This creates an honesty and perfect iron sharpening iron way of communicating that is rare. We found out early on we both have a love for all kinds of art and need beauty around us in our day to day to be okay. Besides a whimsical collection from an Ohio watercolor artist Dan and I bought at the beach in North Carolina in 2006, which we have refused to part with during all our losses, we don’t own much meaningful art anymore. In our one year lived in and cherished home we have large walls with just empty space which is okay with us and especially me. I don’t want to hang things just to have something there. Everything in my life now really should reflect meaning and sometimes the empty space is just good. It’s part of the waiting for restoration and healing.

Not long after my hardware removal surgery, the second of three major surgeries in a row this fall, my new friend showed up on my doorstep holding a large piece of framed art to borrow. She had been in my room and even spent time lying in bed with me when I was too sick to get up. She could see I spent most of my hours turned on my left side facing a large blank wall. This particular piece of art had been in her bedroom and brought her encouragement through pain. It’s a stunningly painted forest with the richest colors creating a depth you have to trudge through. You have to explore it layer by layer until you reach this little patch of yellow, yes, light, at the very end of your journey. She brought it on a day I felt so hopeless, so sick, so lost in the woods I could not imagine making it through. She left the painting here for me to borrow. We hung it on the big empty wall I face when I am in bed the sickest. No matter what I could see the light. I could move towards the light. The painting changes depending on the day and the mood and yes, the light, and it has never looked exactly the same twice. I am still caught off guard when I stop to consider it. I still cry when I tell the story of how a little block of the purest shade of yellow somehow helps me believe it is going to be okay.

Several weeks later my friend showed up with a religious piece to borrow. It is in our living room over the mantel. Dan and I sat enjoying our coffee this morning discussing this particular piece. Beyond the literal meaning we have our own interpretations. The angel and light overshadow the struggle below of man. It is a hopeful piece. It came from an artist whose friend knew he was agnostic so he asked him to study Scripture and paint a series of work depicting Biblical stories in prayer of stirring his heart to come to see the truths he held dear. I think I will need to return this piece after the holidays before I become too attached, but it has illuminated our simple holiday decorating and speaks to the spiritual journey we are on this and every Christmas season.

Pulled by the tinsel and things and expectation of things I see the angel speaking to us glad tidings of great joy. Sit down. Be still. Listen to how this aching and hurting and waiting will unfold now. I know there were days and weeks and even months without a sign. You thought I had left you here without a Savior. Your suffering and your broken bodies and hearts will be healed by His stripes. A baby born of a virgin is just the beginning of the miracle. You will be saved! Do you believe? Can Redemption happen so slowly it begins as a shoot from a stump? Can it be as simple as a scene in a manger?

Light a candle tonight.

Take one step.

He is coming.

We have stars in our eyes.

(This is a repost from my blog last December with some personal narrative removed. Glynn Young wrote on his blog, Faith, Fiction, Friends, about the importance of art in his life. It sent me back to read this entry. The Dali is returned now and a Marc Chagall is my newest piece on loan. The sun is shining. I’m exhausted, and my treatment has been delayed until 3:30pm today. My dear friend and art benefactor will take me. Since I returned from the hospital this morning for blood draws I’ve been staring straight into the light. I’d rather go blind than look away.)

Dec 19
2014

Hello Courage

by Monica

“But now you must be strong and not let your courage fail.”–II Chronicles 15:7

There was very little sleep last night. The intracranial pressure so bad I had to focus on not throwing up. I tried not to cry. This makes the pain worse. My legs twitching kept me restless. My joints burning made every move agony. My mind and heart assaulted by fear and anger and self pity. This is what happens when fighting for treatment takes weeks from sudden onset. All the ground I feel I’ve covered towards healing and happiness is swallowed by more despair.

When I can’t pray I turn to music. Playlists of hymns and spiritual songs fill my thoughts with truth of God’s faithfulness and love and turn my eyes towards Jesus. I also turn to Scripture I’ve memorized. Reciting the promises of God bring my intense fear into perspective.

This morning I pushed my body out of my bed to get Danica ready for school. My head feels like it might explode. I believe this is not because perhaps my shunt isn’t working or the changing pressure due to weather but because my brain is swelling. All these things combined create the perfect storm of suffering. Dan rose very early to take Delaney to school for a field trip to Columbus. The roads were slick. He returned to make coffee and Danica breakfast, and he oozed fear. Everything our family has been through breeds this feeling that the worst will happen. We wrap our children in a bubble wrap of sorts that others cannot understand. Danica’s first words to me were about how her head and tummy hurt. I wanted to keep her home but how could I? She missed her Thanksgiving party and her Christmas program from illness. Her little heart was longing for her first grade Christmas party. She won’t have a parent there. Again. She said as she walked out the door with Dan in her swishy gold skirt, “Mom, I want to stay home, but I want to go.” How could I keep her home knowing I need to have my cath placed today and perhaps even have my first treatment?

My dad is on his way to get me. I am terrified of this puncture and placement. I am heartbroken this is happening to my family and I the week of Christmas.

I read this from Elisabeth Elliot in my quiet after everyone left.

Fear arises when we imagine everything depends on us. We assume burdens God never meant us to carry. How much better to take whatever is troubling us immediately to God, confess our helplessness and perplexity, and do the next thing.

Today I will do the next thing. Will you please pray I will lay my burdens down and rest in His faithfulness and great love for me? Will you ask God to comfort my husband, protect my children and give us all comfort and peace in this?

Here is my prayer in Elisabeth’s words.

Lord, You well know how my flesh and my heart shrink from suffering, and how prone I am to forget that I once determined to follow one who was crucified. Yet in Your human flesh, dear Savior, You, too, shrank from the bitter cup your Father offered. I humbly ask You to strengthen my weakness, forgive my hesitancy, and open my understanding that I may gladly receive the small share of pain which is mine.

Here is the song I played over and over last night.

Earth has no sorrow Heaven can’t heal.

“

Nov 30
2014

Come Lord Jesus

by Monica

“Lord Jesus, master of both the light and the darkness, send your Holy Spirit upon our preparations for Christmas. We who have so much to do seek quiet spaces to hear your voice each day. We who are anxious over many things look forward to your coming among us. We who are blessed in so many ways long for the complete joy of your kingdom. We whose hearts are heavy seek the joy of your presence. We are your people, walking in darkness, yet seeking the light. To you we say, ‘Come Lord Jesus!'”–Henri Nouwen

I’ve been toiling over several posts; half written drafts telling stories of my trip to Laity. I’m trying to mine the riches and words are failing me. I am changed in a way a few days would not normally morph a person into someone else. The profound nature of God’s work in me is not something I can tell lightly. I am quietly holding these things in my heart. Much like Mary I am answering, “Be it unto me according to your word.”

I was thrown back into daily life with my Danica getting the tummy flu the Monday night I returned home. She missed school Tuesday and Wednesday, time I would have reflected and written more. I began to feel sick Wednesday and am really not well even now. I have a cough that racks my EDS body and makes a sharp knife like feeling behind my left eye. We had a lovely Thanksgiving at my parent’s home but did not push to decorate that evening. For some reason our traditions are feeling less necessary as the girls get older. We are all willing to relax into this Advent season. We finished decorating our tree today and will begin our candle lighting tonight and readings from Unwrapping the Greatest Gift by Ann Voskamp.

More than ever before our little family is not wanting for any one thing. We still sit in ashes in many ways financially and face a new year of immediate appointments that mean deductibles and trips and scans. We have purposed in our hearts to face these hard challenges in January, but for this month we will celebrate the gifts we already have and the one and only gift we really need, our God made man. Tonight we begin following the star, seeking the light and crying out, “Come Lord Jesus.”

Our journey will be quiet, soft and slow.

On repeat.

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