Regenerating

Yesterday, I woke up and told Scott that the one feeling I had been missing forever so long, was finally breaking back through again - I felt like my cells could actually, maybe, hopefully - regenerate.  I felt like my bone marrow might be alive after all.  I felt like maybe if I expended some energy, I might recover to expend energy again.


I haven't felt that way in ever so long and it felt really, really good.


For the past long time - even before chemo - I just felt like if I expended energy, it was not going to be replaced.  When they told me it takes white blood cells five days to replenish and a lot longer for red blood cells, I kind of already knew that in my bones.  Even before I knew my diagnosis, I had felt that way - if I used up my energy - it would take a long time to replenish it.


Then with chemo, my body just would not, could not replenish that energy that starts deep in the cells and bone marrow.


I was like the Hebrew nation over ran by it's enemy armies during the time of Judges - hiding and laying low, not daring to come out of the caves.


But yesterday, there was a strong inkling that something was alive in there after all.  And replenishing.


Scott and Scotty worked on a project that we had actually started last summer - replacing the boards on the raised beds.  We have two sides to our garden - one side is Scott's and is all vegetable.  Those boards were replaced last summer.  My side is all perennial flower beds and had not been finished last year.  So they completed them yesterday.


They look really awesome.


I stood at a back upstairs window and remembered the first six raised beds we put in ten years ago - they were made of too-thin white oak boards I had purchased from the Amish sawmill behind Cinnamon Lake for one dollar - that's right - $1 for each board because they had planed them too thin.  So, I of course, thought them perfect to put in dirt.


They did survive almost ten years.


2003 was the year that Scott had several knee surgeries, so I did some of the work myself.  It was also the year that our son was in Iraq.  We had such a knot of fear in our stomachs that whole time he was gone, and working outside was a good way to get away from the news on the television and internet and radio.


He was in Fallujah when it was falling apart, and those people shown on TV were not all that fond of any American soldier in their vicinity.  I remember watching those from Fallujah, see their hatred, realize my son was in the midst of that, and I could not watch anymore some days.


So we went outside.


Scott was on crutches most of the time, but he was right there with me laying things out and determining how we would do this, probably to make sure I left some room for vegetables.  We didn't realize how much "dirt-hauling" we were setting ourselves up for. 


It was more than a couple of 'truckfuls'.  


But, watching them yesterday, made me start to cry - even on the best recovery day yet.  Not because they were working on my side of the garden and doing what I had wanted for a while, but I was overcome with emotion because out there in our "recovery" garden as we had called it in 2003 - recovery from surgeries and recovery from the emotional fallout of having our son in harm's way - but out there was that same son, working with his dad, to please me with something beautiful.


Perennial flowers only give us one thing - beauty.  I don't harvest any of them to use.  They take a lot of work that Scott has taken over this summer.  We just love them and the beauty of one bloom and then the groups of blooms.  They relax us and regenerate us.


But it was even more beautiful to me to watch that son out there that we were not sure we would ever see again while building those raised beds the first time, but there I stood looking out into my backyard and was watching him repair them.  It was beautiful to watch him working with his dad, out there strong and doing well.  It was beautiful to me to look down at them in the garden then look over and see two sleeping wee ones that are getting suddenly tall and skinny, and know they are a gift from God the Father above.  They would not be here, if he had not come home.     


It was all pretty miraculous.


And it was my best recovery day yet.


***


You might glean that I am spending time in the book of Judges in the Bible.  I have actually made it almost to the end of the life of David.


I love David.


Along with reading that, I am reading the historian Josephus.  I am pretty intrigued and even though moving along slowly have opened my jaw in downright amazement at times.  I have read that the writings of Josephus are accurate on archaeological reports, but what has been fascinating to me is how he "fleshes" out the stories I have read for so many years in the Bible.


And don't worry, I am keeping in mind that Josephus is not the inspired Word of God, but nevertheless - I'm liking him.


This morning I read about Absalom, oh Absalom!, and was reminded again how even the one's that God loves and directs and blesses can end up on the road to calamity because they want to overlook *things* in their own lives.


David lost his kingdom for a bit and was shamed and lost two sons because he didn't take care of evil and sin that was right under his nose.


He ignored it so, that his son Absalom thought he needed to step in and correct things.


Oh, it's still hard to read even though it is thousands of years later.


So it made me ever so thankful to God this morning for my children, and I prayed that hopefully our kids would think on our sins and know that we are repentant and forgive us, and remember our times of standing against sin and protecting them, and be glad.


***


I am still drinking my one half cup of coffee each morning, and since yesterday morning at 6am, I am having two good days in a row.  Which is crazy.  Crazy good.


And enjoying a lot of blessings surrounding us, and resting and eating doing just a little bit more and loving it.


Yesterday, I played with elephants and cows and sheep and polar bears and dinosaurs - all placed on one farm, then put a pair of snippers in my hand for half an hour and I am not needing to take whole days to recover energy lost.


***


This is a Psalm that David wrote when fleeing from his son, Absolum.  For my brain exercises, I replace "foes" with "cancer" as well as "enemies" and "wicked".  It's kind of all the same thing in my brain in a lot of ways.

Lord, how many are my foes!
    How many rise up against me!
 Many are saying of me,
    “God will not deliver him. ”

 But you, Lord, are a shield around me,
    my glory, the One who lifts my head high. 
 I call out to the Lord, 
    and he answers me from his holy mountain.

 I lie down and sleep; 
    I wake again, because the Lord sustains me.
 I will not fear though tens of thousands
    assail me on every side.

 Arise, Lord!
    Deliver me, my God!
Strike all my enemies on the jaw;
    break the teeth of the wicked.

 From the Lord comes deliverance. 
    May your blessing be on your people.


Psalm 3