Dear friends, thank you for checking in. It is not unnoticed that you are still reading these.

Obviously, I’ve struggled to write. For those who noticed and asked, thank you.

I feel bad as my last update described significant pain. Thank you for your prayers! Pain eased up within a week; grace and marvelous medicine (more grace)! As I shared initially, I have a variety of strengths, but playing-down pain is not one of them.

Pain seems to be easing across the board. Sometimes post-op’y/radiation pains; easier forms of zingers (those tight arresting pinches). It’d been probably over a week, when I got an intense string of them yesterday on my way to the dump. (Thankfully I was the only one in the van who had to listen to the swearing.) Slinging too many packed barrels of leaves & mulch may have had something to do with it. So, according to the good reminder my sweet mother in-law offered, “It hasn’t been that long.” Grace and patience. That darned arm pit isn’t all-better. Little things, but they pester. 

If you know me, you know I love cemeteries. I have a vast photo collection of favorite tombstones. One of my favorites, “Betty: a real trooper.”  That’ll do. 

As I mentioned, I’m not done. I’m on five year road with a medicine that’s supposed to significantly reduce my chances of cancer recurrence. Andy saw somewhere that 45% of women give up on it before finishing their course. Nice. My main side effects seem to be fatigue and maybe blues. Both of those are tough for me. I’m inclined to think both fatigue and sadness are in my head and I should just carry on. There’s wisdom in carrying on, in engaging in life-giving activities; but there is also a time or manner to honestly acknowledge when Things Aren’t As They Should Be. That is a tricky road for me to navigate. I’ll appreciate prayers to cut myself slack when I need to lay down or head to bed early. Even harder, to give myself emotional-spiritual space to process/sit with? hard emotions. I don’t mind engaging, I just don’t like lingering. As one kind friend reflected, sitting in the hard stuff is not my natural bent. Thank you again for interceding with and for me. I'm deeply grateful.

Since some of you may be learning-at-home with kiddos, I’ll throw out the book of the week: Teaching From Rest, by Sarah Mackenzie.  I’ve had a lot of big processing about our homeschool in the last few weeks. (Not corona related, but just because it was March, and March usually carries momentum and questions about how the year has gone, what we'll do next year, are we doing what we want/need to be doing, etc.). In my fussing and fretting, I received compassionate encouragement and profound wisdom from a kind friend. She’s breathed life and purpose back into What We Do. I’m sure she could write her own book!
For now, I’ll share a few nuggets from SM’s first chapter, Who’s Well Done Are You Working For; it’s one of the most anchoring and spiritually transformative pieces I’ve read on ...the Christian life. I’m still not sure how it’s limited to homeschool moms...

Enter into God’s rest and then serve Him wholeheartedly— not out of anxiety, but out of love and trust.

Our job is not to be successful— success itself is entirely beside the point. It’s faithfulness he wants.

Rest begins with acceptance, with surrender.

He’s calling me to be faithful and to trust Him for the results, which may not look like what I was expecting.

Because we do it [all] for Him and because there would be no point of doing it without Him. (In a paragraph about laundry, dishes, math lessons, etc.)

We are weary because we forget about grace.

Bring Him your loaves and your fish, even if you think them completely insufficient. They are insufficient. You are insufficient. But His grace is not. 


So, we press on in grace. I think I mentioned a dear friend’s insightful question about processing before, during, or after an event/issue. I’m realizing that I’m light on the “before,” and while I think I’m relatively present during the “during”, it doesn’t mean I’ve escaped the “after.”  Thank you for hanging in there with me. It all definitely feels a bit bigger and more drawn-out than I’d like it to be. 

Ah, and family details: Andy’s cough is nearly gone, but not quite. His classes are going very well from home, and we’ve all shown great restraint from bursting in during class with raucous silliness. No promises though.  Ali & Theo are quite well and I’m grateful for the ways they’re connecting and growing. I'll try to post more pictures in the gallery. I’m out in the garden a lot, and I’m very grateful to be.

The Lord bless you & keep you in His peace as you walk the road you’ve been called to. One more quote Mrs. Mackenzie used in that chapter. From C.S. Lewis, “What one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life— the life God is sending one day by day, what one calls one’s “real life” is a phantom of one’s own imagination.”

Press on in the good, with great Hope.
Love, Denise