The two pictures above have a lot of significance for me.   The first contains two very precious gifts.   The bottle rests on a quilt that was given to me by my Mom the day before she left for Ohio.   To my amazement, she had been working on it the entire time we were in Anchorage.   It is spectacular, and full of deep significance, sort of a documenting of this journey.   I never knew she was even at work on it... slipping in to the quilt shop where they were lending her their machine when she was out shopping, after dropping me off at appointments, etc.

The bottle itself is from my sister Danielle.   She gave it to me as a tear bottle, a visual reminder that my tears, maybe even the ones just cried in the spirit, matter to God.   He said they do, that He is taking account of each one.  

The second picture was taken when Nathan and were first in Anchorage for this last round of chemo... From my perspective, it was a disaster, ending in surgery, exhaustion, and a tough climb back to strength.   But the first evening we met with a great friend, Matt Johnson.   After getting slightly turned around, we found an amazing trail that took us up towards Byron Glacier.   The scenery was HUGE, beyond the scope of what your eyes could really accept.  

While Nathan and Matt were checking out an ice cave, I sat on a pile of rocks for a few minutes to rest.   Caleb was in the front pack on my chest, sleeping soundly.   The sound of the stream rushing by covered the sound of my voice... giving me courage to start singing.   The words of this song came to me, and as the mountains towered overhead, I found myself worshiping in for the first time in a long time.

Immortal, invisible,
God only wise,
In light inaccessible
hid from our eyes,
Most blessed, most glorious,
the Ancient of Days,
Almighty, victorious,
Thy great Name we praise.

Unresting, unhasting,
and silent as light,
Nor wanting, nor wasting,
Thou rulest in might;
Thy justice, like mountains,
high soaring above
Thy clouds, which are fountains
of goodness and love.

To all, life Thou givest,
to both great and small;
In all life Thou livest,
the true life of all;
We blossom and flourish
as leaves on the tree,
And wither and perish--
but naught changeth Thee.

Great Father of glory,
pure Father of light,
Thine angels adore Thee,
all veiling their sight;
All laud we would render;
O help us to see
'Tis only the splendor
of light hideth Thee,

    And suddenly, God began to be right-sized in my eyes.   Not that I had been purposely making Him small... I think I had just let so many of my cancer situations fill my vision that they were looming like giants.   They shrunk to their rightful pea-size, and my heart was caught away in the awareness of a God who was both unresting and unhasting.   What a thought!   Tireless and Purposeful, that is the God who is willing to carry me through this valley.

That place at the foot of the glacier has become a place that I can close my eyes and suddenly be.   I’ve gone there in the morning, when I’m tired and don’t really feel like facing the day.   I went there, weary and wasted, when Harvey and Nancy prayed over me last Sunday night.   

How is it that we forget to worship, or pray, or meditate, or any other countless number of spiritual disciplines?   Perhaps less than forgetting, it’s just that there are seasons for some of these things.   I think I’ve been in the season of desperate clinging, if there is such a thing!  But even as seasons begin to change here in Nome, maybe my season is changing as well... to a place of less pleading, more praising.   Can our spiritual season change when our circumstantial one hasn’t?     I’m thinking it must!

A friend here in Nome sent us an encouraging email this morning, and he made a statement that struck me so deeply.   He said in his prayer, “ You are our well from which we can draw continuously and when we go back to You, You are always gracious and giving.”

I have found this true!   These last 2 and 1/2 months of cancer journey I have found in God a well deep enough to draw from and not compromise it’s flow.   And He’s never condemned me for coming, limping and wounded, so thirsty for the grace and hope I had previously found.

It’s not that I am loving having cancer!   I’ve found that in my mind I have this funny fondness for things that happened before I knew about the cancer, like they are hued with with a rosiness that I haven’t caught sight of in a long while.   

But there are new hues to life now, not very pretty ones, but so capturing. I think they are the browns and grays of bedrock.   Stripping away the soil and finding that this Rock we have built our life on is sufficient for the storm.

I’m not sure what all of this rambling means... I guess that I’m still weeping, still comforted by the realization that my tears matter to Him.   I think it also means that like the woman of so long ago, I don’t want to live my life just filling up bottles in the tear bank of heaven!   I want to somehow lavish them back on Jesus, worshipfully washing His feet with the product of these days, trusting tears.   Not that anything I can do would augment God, but many things I can do can help to keep His grandness in perspective.