It wasn't a bad british accent for a five year old! "Ma'am, may we stay here?   We've climbed up your porch and we need a place to live."   Shaina looked at me very sincerely, her hoodie peeking out awkwardly from where she had stuffed it under her blue dress.  Kate chimed in, "Yes, this is my Mudder, and she is very beautiful, and she has a Cinderella dress, and can we live here?"    We agreed that the rent would be two dollars a month, and Noah grinned while I told them about my strong son who protects everyone in the house from bad soldiers.  

Shaina extended her hand and curtsied, "Thank you, Ma'am.   We had nowhere else to go."   Kate also extended her hand, the wrong one, and said, "Thank you, Mommy, for letting me and my Mudder live here."   She was too cute and irresistible.   "LIttle girl, may I hug you?"   I love it when my children get caught up in a little make-believe adventure!   I sat on the couch and pulled her little self into a tight hug.   She smiled up at me, "I just love you so much, Mommy, and I love you too, and can I see your boo-boos?"

It always surprises me how it comes out of nowhere, the sudden desire to see my scars and know that I am well and healing.   It is almost always Kate who asks.  I haven't shown them very often... we are pretty careful as a family about trying to keep certain places in the private category!   But they also understand the process of my cancer, and Kate in particular is very comforted to know that my boo-boos are healing.   I wish in a way that she could just forget, but maybe better than forgetting is finding a place of peace where we are now.

I certainly don't forget.   Today my memories have been very close.   At 10:22 AM I looked at the clock and remembered how exactly a year before Nathaniel and I had been driving down the highway to pick up my Mom at the Anchorage Airport.  I had just donated my hair to locks of love, and was looking in the visor mirror trying to see what I looked like with that new bob.   I remember Mom's embrace at the airport... we'd been wanting to hug each other ever since that cancer diagnosis, and the only thing in the way of her motherly embrace was my big belly.

Everything started going wrong soon after that.   The excruciating test of the amniotic fluid nicked Caleb's umbilical cord, and I spent the afternoon in triage.   I was induced that evening.   Labor started slowly the next day, and so Caleb didn't make his appearance until the wee hours of the 19th.  

I have been thinking of the goodness of the Lord.   Most of all, He let Caleb live.  One year later and we are returning to life again as a family.   I think I would have panicked last year if Carlee of today could have appeared to Carlee of then and told her that it would take a whole year, and of how many of her worst fears would come true.   I miss her, the me that used to be.   I'm back living in her house, and I think that makes me miss her more.   There are changes that trials bring, some are beautiful but some are sad.   

I think my soul is deeper, my concern for others is absolutely more profound.   My faith in God and His Word are stronger than they have ever been.   My patience is thinner, though, and body is weaker.   My optimism is no longer unsinkable, and I have this annoying habit of fighting tears and a deeply lonely feeling when I'm in a crowd.

I've been thinking about how tied we are to life and earth.   We never were supposed to be... every bit of scripture is telling us that we are to live as residents of another realm and kingdom.   But it is so easy to become tied to here, to view through our fading eyes everything around us and try to cling to it.   We're kind of like those odd stories of kidnapped damsels who fall in love with their captor, getting so caught up with the moments here that we forget to live for the rescue.

So here I am, walking through these memories of a year ago.   Maybe if I had a bit more of heaven's vision, I could more clearly see my losses as gains.   It feels like I am digging for treasure.   I felt my shovel strike something a while ago... so I keep digging.   Above it all I feel the confidence that I was never abandoned, that God was "riding on my storm" and seeing to it that His purposes were accomplished through it.  

I keep trying to come up with some nice, neat sentence to finalize this post.   It just isn’t there.   I guess maybe because there is no final conclusion yet, I am still scanning the horizon for a sign of my Rescuer.