That magnificent tension...

I am standing between the spectacular tension of the beautiful and the tragic. That's how I would describe this season of life. Beautifully tragic. Tragically beautiful.

When the tragic threatens to overwhelm, the beautiful is present... Sweeping away all deep sadness and reminding us that the world really is worth lifting up our heads and opening up our eyes to see.

My beautiful is my sons.
My beautiful is a message from a friend.
My beautiful is my husbands laughter.
My beautiful is hearing that song.
My beautiful is a really good coffee.
My beautiful is the subtle reminders of grace.
My beautiful is the not so subtle reality of grace.
My beautiful is this deep and abiding peace that I am graced with afresh each sunrise.

When tragic moments face us it is easy and often expected that we lose all sense of anything but the noise of tragedy. And tragedy is noisy. It has a loud, booming sound that reverberates on the inside of us, unsettling us with its existence.
I know it well... That place where I hear it. I have sat and cried there...
Quietly in the noise of the tragedy of the diagnosis of my darlings cancer. I have been assaulted by that cacophony of soundless grief. The what if's and the maybe's and the wondering how's...

And in that moment..
In that tragic noise...
Something beautiful has happened.

The magnificent tension has happened.

The truly tragic has been matched with the truly beautiful and I find myself smiling.

I find myself staring at the tragic from the place of something beautiful. Someplace wonderful.


I think this is how Jesus might have faced the cross.
The monstrous tragedy of His sacrifice was tinged with the beauty of His reward.
The horrendous grief of separation from His rightful majesty was coupled with the astounding beauty of my salvation.

My salvation is found in that magnificent tension of Calvary. The beautifully tragic moment of sacrifice.

If we were left to tragedy, without the tinges of beauty to be a calming balm, how desperate we would be.
But we are never given over to pure tragedy in all fullness.

All we need to do is lift up our heads and open our eyes.
Something beautiful is waiting in the midst of booming tragedy.
Some peace is waiting in the centre of some tragic storm.

And that is where we are.... Experiencing the magnificent tension.

Definite. Earnest. Resolved

Ok,so I'm sitting in the car park at Colour. It literally just finished and I wanted to share this thought.
Tonight Chris Caine tore it up. I mean, the girl can preach. And as I was listening to her talk about resolve I was encouraged to do just that: resolve.

I resolve to hold onto the promise of Jesus: that He would never leave me or forsake me. He's here, in the middle of the tests and the treatment and the searching.
I resolve to let the goodness of my God be ever on my lips- especially at this moment when things don't look so good. Things don't have to look good for me to know that I serve a God who is good.
I resolve to look to the moment of our miracle and not fear the time it takes to get there.

Something Chris said resonated deep within me.. Resolve is NOT the wishful thinking that we so often resort to.
I don't place my expectation in wishful thinking.
I don't rely on the pretend world of wishful thinking.

I resolve.
To resolve is to come to a definite and earnest decision about something.

When the trouble comes, when the towers begin to crumble, when the diagnosis isn't great, when the money disappears... Have you come to a definite and earnest decision about what your response looks like?

A definite
An earnest
Decision
Resolve

That sort of stance can face the toughest blows and withstand.
That sort of positioning can handle the toughest news and not totally fall apart.

That sort of definite and earnest decision means that regardless of the circumstance and the situation, I can say with definite and earnest confidence...with a resolved heart....that my God is in control. He cares. He is here. He catches my tears and He hears my cry.

Definite
Earnest
Resolved

Xoxoxo thanks girls.

Life,Death and the moments in between.

Life.
Death.
The moments in between.

I'm thinking about that today... It's just some light stuff to mull over.

Life.
Birth.
Beginnings.
The first hello.
Our extended family extended further last night with the addition of a new little girl. An angel faced 7pd 4oz bundle of perfection. My niece. Bayleigh Addison. What a sweet name for a sweetheart.
She is a breath of fresh air into the tough times we have all been walking through.
She is a reminder of the beauty that is life and wonder.


And then there is the other end of the spectrum.

Death.
Endings.
The last goodbyes.
Our extended family said goodbye to Nana two years ago today. Dates and times don't mean that we miss her any more or less. It's a marker. A way to measure the moments that she has not been here. A way to take stock of the distance we have come from that final earthly goodbye.

And in the middle ground-
The moments in between.
Some of the moments are breathtaking in their beauty and some moments are gut wrenching in their pain.
Some moments pass by so fast that you are left spinning in the tailwind and some moments seem to freeze in time.

I am sitting,waiting by a hospital bed in a recovery ward.
Again.
The beep and whir of machines has become a familiar tune.
I'm in a moment.
And I am reminded that this is a moment.
This is nothing more than a moment.
A moment in between.

Between diagnosis and treatment.
Between leaving the boys and returning to the boys.
Between packing our belongings and unpacking our belongings.
Between not knowing where we will end up and arriving at where we will end up.
Between believing for a miracle and seeing a miracle.

The moments in between.

Something profound can happen in these moments.
Greatness in this world has been achieved by people who found purpose in the moments in between.
Moses was in a moment in between.
He was in between being an on the run fugitive and a leader who changed the face of a nation. He was in a moment in between.
He was in a desert.
In between being a prince and being a patriarch.
In between being incapable and being able.
And in his moment in between he came face to face with God.
Face to face.
And it wasn't when he was a prince. It wasn't when he was a leader of a million.
It was when he was in that moment.

That moment in between.

Oceans: Soundtrack of the rescued

As I type this I am listening to a song that has weaved it's way as the soundtrack for these moments we are walking through. It's called Oceans... Where feet may fail.

I have some idea of what that place can look like... That ocean, where feet may fail.

Walking through a cancer ward. Seeing my beloved in a cancer ward. He faces this with steadfast hope and overwhelming dignity. He is strength.
Here is that ocean, where feet may fail.
Watching the stories of other families unfolding around me.
A mother holds her sons hand and stares out the hospital window...faces set with grief as they prepare for surgery in the morning. A mass on the brain. A dark spot on a slide that is held up to a window. The fear and the longing is palpable. It's an ocean, deep and dark.
Daughters leaning in to place a gentle kiss on the head of a dad who is struggling to recover from the last chemotherapy round. Their world is being rocked by rolling waves of crisis.
The gaunt and frail body of a patient who painfully and slowly rolls towards the wall. He just wants to sleep. He is tired. He has had enough of the questions about how the pain is right now.


In deepest water.
In wildest waves.
In chaos and in trial.
In the midst of the storm.

I don't know if you have ever listened to a song or heard music that grabs you. It holds you in it's grip and it carries you. Where you hear in melody the echo of what your very own heart beats.

Someone, somewhere wrote this song.
Not knowing that today this woman would walk through a moment that deserved such a soundtrack.
A family would experience a trial that demanded such an expression.
Where feet may fail.
Deepest ocean.
Darkest water.
Wildest wind.
Failing feet.

Because in oceans deep, He stands.
Because in wildest wind, my eyes are focused above the roaring waves.

I have thrown my trust and my words of belief and declarations of faith at the foot of the cross for years. I have staked all that I am and all that I ever want on the One I call saviour, my commander of the angel armies.
And He has never NEVER never failed... He won't start now.

He holds the broken and the sinking above the deep.
He lifts the tired and the weary from the depth.
He pulls the drowning from the darkest deepest water.

I know this.
I am this.
I am being held, I won't sink.
In my desperate weariness I am being lifted. Up...My eyes are drawn.
In that second I thought I would drown in the grief of diagnosis, I was rescued.
I was rescued.
From the deep.
From that ocean, where feet may fail.


So, thank you songwriter who heard the ocean roar and wrote what this heart needed to sing.

Cyclone Stupid Cancer

A cyclone is brewing off the coast.
It started as wispy white trails of cloud and slowly it builds. It may become a raging giant or it might just wander out into the ocean, a big blob of white on a map.
Locals don't really ever know if the storm clouds that roll in off the sea will become the cyclone that shuts down the city.
They hope for the former.
They build for the latter.
If you have a house in this part of the tropics, you make sure it's cyclone proof long before its cyclone season.
If you are building a dream home, you ensure the roof is going to withstand cyclonic conditions.

I read a quote the other day and it stuck with me. It was on a mug in a gift shop.
"You can't fatten the pig on market day".

You can't cyclone proof your dream home after the winds begin to howl.
You can't fatten a pig on market day.

It's all in the steps before the moment.
The building.
The preparing.
The feeding of that pig on all the days leading up to market day.

I have had the privilege of being built up and fattened on hope and incredible, life sustaining faith on many moments and days leading up to these ones we find ourselves walking through.

My house of hope, standing internally, is built to withstand the cyclonic winds that Cyclone Stupid Cancer whips up.
I have gorged myself at the table of faith, feasting on the assurance that the One I serve is holding us close.

In the blue skied moments of life, it is imperative to build the structures of hope and faith to cyclonic wind standards.
When the winds whip up and the storm clouds develop into category 5 monsters, shelter in security and safety. Know that although the wild wind roars, nothing of true value will be blown away.
The master builder has prepared us for this storm season.
He has not left us to be thrashed and flattened.
I have been fed on the good stuff... The countless words of encouragement and truth have fattened us up for this season.

We are ready.
We are market ready.

So... Though the wind blows powerfully and the storm rages indefinitely - we rest easy.
It's not always easy to rest easy.
Anyone who has sat through a cyclone knows that it's not easy. If you have built to specific recommendations,you know the roof will withstand but you still might cast furtive glances upwards, putting your trust in the capable hands that completed that work.
That's what resting easy really is. It's being confident in the stability of the structure in the most uneasy of moments.

We fly south tomorrow. Away from one storm that sits sulking off the coast and straight into the force of one called Treatment.

We are ready.
We are storm ready.