The ward smells of cleaners and feces and my brand new nurses shoes squeak down the hallway. My scrubs are stain free and my 22 years had not yet experienced death. Suddenly, since I crossed stage and picked up degree, I am here every day, breathing it, dreaming it, seeing it, absorbing it. It is haunting most thoughts, my journal is riddled as I wrestle with it.

This shift I am pulled into office of head nurse and she says

“Melissa, I need to prepare you for this…” and she speaks unspeakable about tumors and death and I muster courage for the day to come. I’d seen much these last weeks; mouth tumors dissolving lips, men suffocating from the fluids in their own abdomens, I held fast to wife as husband took last breath. I thought, what more could there be to see?

I walked confidently to room 418 and slipped inside, introduced myself. The woman there, extravagantly beautiful, turned sharp green eyes on me and forced smile. We discuss the dressing change I need to do. She nods, sits up and looks out the window. I start removing bandages determined not to be shocked, but my body betrays as my breath hangs itself on my epiglottis.

Her chest wall is a wave of necrosis; black like tar, specked with scabs, her breast has disappeared into folds of enormous tumor. I keep rolling used bandage into gloved hand and am astonished to find tumor has tunneled through and emerges just below shoulder-blade. I don’t understand how she is still breathing. I am barely able to inhale myself, afraid the smell of dead tissue is contagious.

“Tell me” I say, still breathless “how is it that you just now, came to us?”

“I guess I was afraid. Someone called it denial. I don’t know…” Her voice drifts off.

That is it. That is what this strange feeling of deja vu has been.  I’ve been feeling like I recognize that wave of dead. It is familiar. I realize this is the first time I’ve seen fear in the flesh but I’ve known her a long time. She lived in the pit of my stomach as a child when my classmates acted up. She settled into my lungs leaving me breathless. That is what fear does. It festers and bubbles and chokes things to death. It grows and swallows. Like a cancer tricks your body into supplying nutrients, fear has tricked me into thinking I need her and I feed her whatever she wants. I create the worst scenario in even the best situation.

Here now, I start journey towards healing. The road is long and sometimes I’m only in maintenance, keeping her at bay, treating her to give myself a few more good years.

Other days we do better. I let sweetest soul doctor breathe life over dry bones. I’m brave enough to ask in every situation “and then what? And then what? And then what?” and every question eventually ends in “and then you get back up. Not right away, but eventually, you will get up, and God will STILL be God”.

I stop choking.

The black stops spreading.

I am at peace.

(But my friends…this week…as all weeks when we dream big…I’m feeling darkness creep a little. Will you pray for this???)

Sa

I’ve been thinking about calling, and destiny, and dreams, and vision. I’ve been thinking about stepping into them and claiming them and living them. I’ve been thinking about how there is no such thing as greatness and how a life is made by tiny moments that build into our characters and into our reputation and how each one matters. The truth of it is, that vision is never achieved; it is a direction we walk in and true heroes and leaders just continue faithfully in that direction, and suddenly look up to find people walking the same way. Each day it is living the small and ordinary with intent and with focus. Great moments, never feel that way to the people living them, but sometimes upon reflection you realize that moment really mattered; leave you thinking “I just brushed against greatness…I just saw it”. Others noticed that it mattered but that does not mean it is of greater import than the moment that preceeded it or the moment that followed. They are all just moments…lived well…or wasted.

I talked to a friend who said “I don’t know…I’m sick of all this talk about destiny. What if being a mom is enough?”. And my heart cried out “YES” more than enough. The fact of it, when the heroes go home and each of us pick up our lives, that is where greatness really happens. This season I thought about Mary, labouring to deliver first born alone, without midwife, in a barn. She thought I’m sure “This is the WORST. Really God? This is what the result of my saying YES is? Really? This is a great moment? A history altering moment? Really? THIS?”. The truth is that it was, and your very hardest moment could be too. The truth is your character is being revealed and refined by those moments, and by the ordinaries too. How did you treat that child that asked you to play a boring game for the 1000 time? How did you respond to your spouse who was late? Each moment we are determining whether our children, our husbands, our colleagues will rise up and praise us…or if they won’t. Each moment we can take tiny steps toward a dream that dwells deep…or we don’t. There is no arrival. There is no ‘greatness barometer’. There is no knowing…this side of heaven…which moments will prove to be the one that made you great. There is only the intent…to live moments well…and to learn to live in obedience to the Dream Weaver, the History Writer, the Vision Caster, The Destiny Caller. The only one who is Great, all the time.
Linking with:

He lit the sky on fire tonight. Canvas painted light orange and then blood red and even two year old sensed how spectacular it was and stood next to her daddy whispering ‘sun set, sun set’. We all sit in wonder and can’t help but worship sky writer and we whisper of His extravagance as we are afraid if we talk to loud we will blow the moment away.

2011 is stretching out ahead of me like a parchment and I’m picking up my pen. I’m taking into my hands the dreams in my heart, and I’m trusting that He has placed them there. I’m stepping in boldness and in courage and I’m stepping over fear and lazy and pushing through doubt and I’m chasing evasive dreams.

This year, all I want, is to be like the sky set on fire.

Linking with

We sit at window pane and we watch clouds roll in.

Fog socks in the valley below. Its choking. Its tight and we will always feel breathless when clutter rolls in. I feel the oppression of it as it comes for us too, sucking in mountain tops we usually see, moving quickly and encircling our little cabin in the woods. We’ve been living in that too…clutter and boxes and carpet layers and BOXES and clutter. And I choke and my vision gets small and I need to step back to remember that even in the mundane, in the clutter, in the mess, that HE is light and HE gives vision big enough to capture imagination and HE gives patience to the impatient. And he gives meaning to work of hands and he can be glorified in this.

So we turn back on boxes and clutter and give up on finishing and embrace now. We build snow men and we eat cookies and we lay beneath Christmas tree and we forget about the mess and we remember incredible gift we are living and the magnificient giver and we make space, chasing back foggy hearts. Every day we can….every day no matter how much emotional clutter rolls in, open your eyes to see the flashes of light and the ordinary or spectacular gifts you are in the midst of.

“I lift up my eyes to the mountains— where does my help come from? ² My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.³ He will not let your foot slip— he who watches over you will not slumber”Psalm 121:1-3

Linking this very imperfect prose today with Emily…I’ve missed you.