Psalm 121:5-6
The Lord watches over you-
the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.
There have been times where I have not so much believed those verses in the core of my being. We have encountered some pretty crazy things and endured other people's fallout from sin maybe too much in our lifetime. One pastor told us that we had to be experiencing the "year of Jubilee" that coming year because we had "been in bondage" the past seven years.
I remember agreeing at that time, and just thinking and thanking God that "He had protected our health at least"........ That was in the mid 90's. Scott's back was injured, we had the requisite broken bones with kids, and such, but in my mind the next hammer to fall if you read the book of Job, was health. And we had seemed to escape that.
In fact, I keep looking over my shoulder a lot, and it's all due to past experiences. My personality that God so richly *blessed* me with, looks at those experiences and tastes them and processes them and mulls them over looking at them from all possible sides. I have to delve in and study the "whys and whynots". I read the Old Testament a lot, and a lot of commentaries with it, because the experiences of the ancients were sometimes relative to what I was going through - how sin can hurt. How losing everything can cost more than you ever imagined. How little this world sometimes cares when you are being squeezed to the point of breathlessness.
How hard it is to walk in the dessert.
And those experiences have honed me, but they have also left me thinking sometimes I would not totally "experience God's full awesome goodness and Kingdom" until I got to heaven.
Au contraire, dear friends. (I did take two years of high school French and remember three phrases)
*******
I struggled much with whether I could sneak into the benefit, thank the workers, look about, and then - leave. Get my sorry low blood counts in the door, then out the door and back to bed. I drugged up a little. Rested a lot that day. It was day three of my chemo that week, and I didn't want to get nauseous at inopportune times.
That last pill is always the hammer.
We tried to leave early enough so we would not encounter a lot of people there - but then Scott thought there might be less exposure after we were sure the kids had all left the school.
I struggled over the dilemma of wearing a wig for the first time or wearing a hat. I had the wig because I thought I was going to be working all along, but alas, it has sat on a shelf for several months, unused.
I've not been anywhere to use it.
Scott said he had seen me without any hair for so long, that it looked more natural to him for me to go with the hat. Hmmm... I waited until Heidi got here, and we leaned towards wig - as it is not such a huge leap of "look" from when most people saw me last December.
My friend Mara had given me an eyebrow kit. I practiced once, as it had been a long week. It was amazing how a little bit of color where my eyebrows had been changed my face.
It's been a while here folks.
Heidi had given me an upgraded eyelash kit. The Walmart one I had bought didn't turn out so well.
Tanya, the girl helping us clean every other week, is all things "beauty" and she gave me tips on putting on eyelashes, then she said sizing up my shaky hands "you know, you could just wear an eyeliner and that might be enough". I readily agreed.
It has been so long since I put on makeup in earnest, with hair fringing my face, that I'm not sure Scott recognized me.
*******
We walked into the school and I was *dumbfounded*.
It was one big blur of pink. Women with pink t-shirts on, and men with pink t-shirts on. I know some men struggle with that, and I marveled.
There was pink everywhere and on everyone.
There were so many people there already. We chatted a little with different folks then Heidi and Kristi slipped me into the stage door trying to protect my wimpy blood cells - and also protect my brain - it was rather apparent to any I talked to that I would not be passing any drug tests this side of home plate.
But, I was overwhelmed squared, cubed and beyond.
I wasn't the only one amazed. People were astounded that there were enough people that could 'pull' together to 'pull' this off. It was simply miraculous.
The words that keep walking around in my brain are "What hath God wrought?"
More than the money, more than the finances of the evening, there was a feeling that God was being reflected. There was a feeling that God was being given the glory for a lot of people's hard work. There was a feeling that a large of group of people had come together to make sure that I realized that God was holding me tight in His love. In their love.
There was a lot of "God's shade" going on there.
There was such a *community* of people there, that I was humbled beyond words. Beyond feeling for these past days. Beyond knowing what to do.
*******
I started a study in earnest last year on the Bible from viewpoints I had not considered before. It was basically taking scripture and expounding on what the Hebrew side was. I had so many questions answered that I had wondered about for years while reading through the whole text. The more I explored, the more fascinated I became - the Jews know their text. They have thought about it, studied it, expounded on it and argued proofs over "the very Words of God" for years and years and eons and eons.
Genesis, seen through their eyes is awe inspiring. I had long felt for Joseph - suffering while others seemed to be tooling along in life just fine. But I never understood the blessings. Why Jacob switched up his sons blessings.
The book of Exodus suddenly had a whole new light, a whole different perspective, a whole life changing teaching. I had always loved Moses faithfulness while in the wilderness for forty years, but now understood the gods of Egypt that he stood up to and understood the wilderness on a whole new level.
It was a desert.
One concept that showed up several times, was the idea of God wanting us to live in "community". I was not such a big fan of that idea.
So as I was learning about community - I asked God to show me how. In my mind and what showed up on my *spiritual gifts tests* was that He had somewhat appointed me the job of "door-keeper" of sin at times -- I had seen too many stomped on and bruised almost beyond healing - how do you go about this community idea and also keep the gates of Hell closed and take care of sin in the midst of living *community*?
It's kind of clear in the Bible, but mostly difficult to enact it appears.
God has taken a year to push aside everything I have previously learned, and told me to "just watch". I'm not saying God gave me cancer to "show me". I am saying that in the midst of cancer, I have had a one-on-One tutorial on what God wanted me to know.
Probably because I asked and all.....
But if the first few decades of my walk with Him - my journey with Him - was all about the effects of sin on people, how to deal with it, how God feels about it, how the church should react to it - and I learned that in a harsh tutorial that I wish I never had to learn - but if my first decades of walking with God were all about that, then this decade might be the one that I learn the flip side of the coin.
Probably because my brain is not big enough to take it all in at once.
Or more than likely, God teaches us the same way we teach our children - ABC's come first, then they learn the sounds, then they learn to read. Or you take English 101, then 102, etc. It's a building process.
And maybe I would not appreciate what I am seeing first hand now, if I had not learned the horrors of sin that I had to learn previously.
*******
But I am learning *community* - God's way. Others keep commenting on the benefit, and I keep commenting that it was like nothing I have ever seen in my life. The Jews see the Kingdom of God as being something that is real, that we are supposed to be living right now. It's here on earth and we are the ones that are in it.
I always thought that was future, maybe.
Maybe I was mis-informed, or never paid attention at that point of the sermon, or just plain missed it - but I always thought that was something "coming" - not here and now.
Jim and Lee Ann would not tell me hardly anything about the benefit before hand. (They know me well, it appears....) But the stories are leaking out and I am learning that what happened was maybe the most representative of the Kingdom of God that I have ever seen, or touched, or tasted, or turned over a million times in my mind, or as I am doing now even more furiously - studied. At least as far as my chemo-brain lets loose with rationed brain cells that is.
And I am so glad I got to see some of it first hand. I almost missed that moment. (and if you wonder I had a sore throat last night and was doing some re-thinking myself - but it's all good now, smile. Scott said if anything was starting, all the chemo I got yesterday killed it.)
But I will hold that sight forever in my mind as a standard for the Kingdom of God working.
It is all so hugely humbling, but we have not even thought so much on the money part yet - that is so awesome - but not what we are taking away from this.
We are taking away from it that God showed us in a huge way what He was teaching us.
All because a bunch of people agreed that it was "what God wanted us to do". All because they pulled together and pulled it off. Not just raising money to benefit me. They pulled off reflecting the Kingdom of God in the whole process.
Honestly.
I cannot do it justice - I keep looking for a word that is better than "thank-you". But God keeps pointing the finger at what He has done and keeps saying "it can happen".
Pay close attention, Karen Gerwig. God has announced and then taught and then showed you - what you have not seen before. Pay attention and remember. And pass on that remembrance all the rest of your days. Because the Great I AM moved on your behalf and raised up a community about you like few have seen or had privilege to encounter.
*******
Jim and Lee Ann said it this way in their last email to all who helped. They included us on that last one and it was pretty awesome.
Benefit Family,
If
you follow Karen's blog, you have heard this song recently! Oldie but a
goodie, right Karen? Yes, we've included Scott and Karen in on our
final pre-benefit email! Hi, guys!
If
you are a former Messenger, you may remember listening to this at 2 am
at Bob and Lisa's house while our kids slept(or fought!) upstairs on the
floor. We've come full circle guys, and we've brought new ones with
us. How many people get to say that?
What
an example of the Kingdom you are. What a glorious, beautiful picture
of what eternity holds for all of us. No fussing, no fighting.
Selflessness, kindness, generosity.
Yes,
the Gerwig's are in Egypt right now. But God is executing judgment on
the gods of Egypt. Cancer, fear, anger, despair, loneliness, isolation,
pain, nausea, neuropathy, the unknown. In this journey, He has used us
to shine light in the darkness. These gods will be judged, and they
shall not prevail.
We are destined to win.
They have done the Exodus study as well, and realized along with me that I was in the midst of Egypt and its plagues. In the midst of having leaven grow in my body. In the midst of the dessert now.
But even though I have been isolated for months, the hilarity of the God I serve is that He has shown me in a great way what community is all about. The dessert is not desolate. Nor God-less, nor hopeless, nor friendless.
This is pretty cool if you have four minutes. If you don't - save it - you may need it later.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3bvRxbOp80&feature=youtu.be
But God is bringing me full circle. He is teaching me more than I ever thought I would know about Him. And probably more than I deserve to know. He is teaching me joy in the dessert, knowing Him in the dessert, and knowing His community when I have never been more alone, but more full of His community.
Isaiah 25: 4-5
You have been a refuge for the poor,
a refuge for the needy in their distress,
a shelter from the storm
and a shade from the heat.
For the breath of the ruthless (cancer, my word)
is like a storm driving against a wall
and like the heat of the desert.
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