The harsh clay ugliness in the midst of the blooming flowers

Back to the business of cancer ~ Tuesday's which for three months were my only "good" day, have now become my worst enemy the past now four weeks.  Something happens with my stomach, and it hurts like "do your first level of Lamaze childbirth breathing" feeling at times hurt.

Although, if you took Lamaze classes when I did, you know they told you "it wasn't pain - just contractions".....  And I'm a jelly fish swimming in the ocean.   

To date, heaven help me but I have not found the right drug to help it.  Scott rifled through his medicine chest of all-things-digestive-drugs last night, and found me another one to try, so I'm hoping today.  

It feels, and *smells* like something just curled up in my stomach and died.  My breath is noxious, and my teeth need to be brushed like five times a day as they get "coated" from whatever is going on.  It is painful - I don't want to sit as that adds to the pain, so I lay with a couple of pillows under my head and back to keep whatever "it" is, from totally dissolving my esophagus. 

I chill and get the sweats all day long.

I can feel my body start stepping down into this Hades on Monday afternoon.  This week, I am trying to just "drink" my calories.  

We talked about it last Wednesday while getting my chemo, as I was pondering a doctor's visit by late  afternoon the day before, and the nurses blamed it on the Taxal.  They said that even though previously Taxal seemed to be the least of my worries when it came to chemo drugs, it has a cumulative effect - so the longer I am on it, the more it's going hurt me.  And it 'hurts you' seven days out.  Each week.  

Which is Tuesday.

Wednesday morning early, it has abated enough to where I think it was all only a crazy dream as we drive to the cancer treatment center -- until I hit Monday afternoon and then Tuesday again seven days later.....

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This all seems miniscule compared to what two young couples are going through this week - they are putting their wee loved babies in the ground.   We went to church with most of them when they were teenagers, and it is just breaking my heart that they are having to go through this.

One set of the grandparents were at the benefit on Friday night, proudly showing off his "grandpa pictures" - and that very evening disaster hit their family in a way I cannot comprehend.

I cannot comprehend the depth of their suffering and sorrow.  I cannot comprehend how you put one foot in front of the other and move after that last sweet kiss.  I cannot comprehend the pain in their heart.   

It is beyond comprehension to me.  To us.  Scott and I just cried when we heard all of this.  Cried for the parents and the grandparents and how it will impact them.  We cried knowing a little bit how deep their feeling of loss must be.  We prayed God's mercy over all of them.

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My irises are blooming early.  My late-blooming lilacs by their own standards, are even early this year. There are two pink bushes that I cannot remember the names of that are blooming.  Scott just surrounded all of them with mulch last week, and we sat outside some and just relished the beauty of the blooms. 

They are all pretty tough plants as they were some of the first ones that I planted when we moved here, so they are sitting in some pretty hard blue-clay soil.  It took them years to decide that they might stay, might live and even bloom. 

I don't think I will ever look at them the same again.

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Scott got some good news on the phone last night.  It has been quite a week of pain and sorrow and blessing and blooming flowers.  When he closed his phone, he sat down and put his head in his hands and wept.  Wept that we have friends that care.  Wept from relief.  Wept that he won't have to worry about one more thing.

When there are some ugly things in life, and you weep with grief and hurt and with inside pain - standing out against that are folks living the Bible - I mean really living the Bible - stepping in to brush that curtain of grief and pain aside, and it touches you to your very core.

And sometimes you just weep tears of relief and gladness and gratefulness.   He has been carrying some pretty heavy burdens and trying to care for me and figure out fixes to problems alone - it has been a lot on him who is still in some ways having to be cautious with his own health. 

One of my friends was talking about the clay soil in Kentucky lately and how it made her think of the parable of the sower in the Bible, and I have been thinking a lot about that this morning, how the clay soil is so difficult, and how it needs to be amended continually and turned up and produces so little - yet it can at times produce some beautiful things that have adapted to it.

She said it this way:

Hard ground is something we had to deal with in Ky. The ground is totally clay...cracked, and breaks apart easily. It doesn't matter how much you water it , it never seems to stay soft. Just like our hearts, it is so hard to plow up the hard ground around our hearts. I'm so thankful He can turn the stony heart to flesh...He is the spring of water from within..the only One that can change us.

And that beauty in that difficult soil makes you wonder and pray.  I envision a God that is using a rototiller around our hearts and keeping the soil soft and watered and amended.  And that living water and cultivating and amending is all Him, and it's also all the body of Jesus surrounding us.

And we praise the King of the Universe that creates and blesses and takes away and allows pain and loves us more than we can ever comprehend.

It's all swirling in my brain as I lay a little upright and slowly type this.

The phrase that keeps going around in my brain the last few days is "What Hath God Wrought?" 

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Irises and lilacs and pretty pink bushes in harsh clay soil paint the picture somehow this week.