Sunday 8 July 2012

MRI

 MRI

I feel weary to my bones this evening.  Tomorrow's dawn brings a trip to Vancouver. The sun has beat down today and the forecast is good for tomorrow.  Driving the sea-to-sky highway before the world wakes with the rising sun, I will see it at it's best.  I have longed for this day to come and simultaneously dreaded it.   Jasmine will have an MRI tomorrow morning and by early afternoon we may have a preliminary reading of the report.  With that result there can be no turning back.  People say that fear of the unknown is the worst kind of fear.  I'm not so sure.  Right now is unknown and I can believe that we have travelled the hardest part of the journey already.  Right now, I can believe that my daughter is healing, that the cancer has been eradicated, that the tumour is not growing back, or metastasizing in another part of her body.  I can trust that
the radiation, with all its side effects that harm, has been worth it.  That she is well.
My beautiful girl finds it hard to eat anything, and she rests as though the life coursing through her veins is 70 years older than it is.
I have prayed hard for her life and she was delivered back in to my arms.  I have prayed hard for her to walk and eat and talk, and all those things came to pass.  I have prayed for her to feel well and she danced through her treatments.  God is good.  I have no doubt.   But fear is still creeping.  If I trust God with all my heart and the worst is to come for Jasmine and our family, how do I do that?  Ann Voskamp says all is grace, and grace and love freely given, and that the hardest part is giving thanks for that which we don't want and doesn't seem good. She dares me to live fully right where I am - give thanks for it all - all. I understand this.  It is hard to give thanks for cancer in a body so young and innocent.  I will just say thank you - for the daughter who stands before me with a small smile, a request for milk and a bedtime story.  I'm grateful to be able to scoop her up in my arms this night and joke while we brush teeth.  These simple things should not be taken for granted, so thank you for these things, this night.