The Pause Button

Sometimes we just need a Pause Button for life.  No matter the crisis, the agenda, the to-do list, the cancer chaos - we just need to hit Stop and breathe in slow.

Today I was given the most innocent of tasks, to hold the cherub babe while she slept.  Oh, and to rock her just so, while she dreamt...

Simple Bliss...

She nestled sweet into my arms, and time slowed.  I counted feathery eyelashes and watched her rosebud lips soften into sleep.  The old rocking chair creaked as we rocked, keeping rhythm with my rusty lullaby.  My pulse relaxed, her breathing sighed easy and moments suspended...

No thoughts of grief, nor of pancreatic cancer.  No worry over dad and the desperate missing he feels.  Not even the hurt of knowing mom will never rock her... Nor whisper her beautiful name.

Just this little one and me.  Watching her sleep.  Sweetness intensified.  Time stilled.

The Pause Button.

Do you suppose that's what God intended all along?  He speaks it plain...

    "Be still... And know that I am God."

                                            ~Psalm 46:10

A supernatural Stop.  Be still.  Don't speak.  Don't justify.  Don't do.  Just. Be. Still.

I haven't done that enough, as of late.  The Be Still part.  This cancer has sucked our lives into a roaring vortex, where sometimes all we heard were words; test results, prognoses and treatment plans.  The dying and grieving has only layered on more. 

I didn't realize how much more, until I held the cherub child today.  In stillness.  In quiet.  Watching, listening, running a soft finger across her just-from-heaven-kissed cheek. 

Deep, deep inside that stillness, I knew that He was and is and always will be.

For who but a Mighty, Creator God could bring such innocent beauty out of the mess of our lives?  We need the still moments to remember just who Holds each of us.

He is Mighty.  He is Creator.  And He is Bigger than all the noise we make.

Today, I needed this time.  Time to Be Still.  Time to Know that God is.  And that is enough.

Praying you may find the perfect Pause Button for your life today.  May it be the sunset, the beauty of a child's laugh, or the warm hug of a loved one.  Take time to be still and breathe slow... Savor that moment.

Finding Grace in the Stillness this day, Jane

Time Enough

It's been almost 4 weeks since Mom's gall bladder surgery.  And she's improving a little bit more each day.  Less pain, more energy.  More appetite, less nausea.  Good combinations!   Hopefully she's gaining ground in the weight department too.  We go back to the oncologist this Friday to start the next round of chemo, so she's focused on getting prepared for the next battle.  But for this week we patiently take it day to day. A little better each day is our goal.

And each day that she's given is a gift. I was reminded of that over the weekend. I'm reading a great book by Ann Voskamp, called One Thousand Gifts.   Mom shared with me several weeks ago that one of the hardest things about this cancer diagnosis (among the many she could list) is the knowledge of her finite time left here. We all know that death will one day greet each of us, whether we're ready or not. But there's something panicky about knowing that that time is coming sooner than you expected. It fills you with a need to try and cram everything you can into a limited number of minutes, hours, days. We find ourselves praying for just a little more time. Another minute, another week, please another year. And that conversation has stuck with me. So Saturday evening when I read this particular chapter in Ann's book, the words just flew off the page. They spoke to me and gave me a measure of peace and if you'll indulge me, I'd like to share an excerpt here:

A little background first. Ann is the busy mother of 6 children. Her life is hectic from the crack of dawn until the last downy head hits the pillow. She knows a thing or two about time, or the lack thereof!

"I speak it to God: I don't really want more time; I just want enough time. Time to breathe deep and time to see real and time to laugh long, time to give You glory and rest deep and sing joy and just enough time in a day not to feel hounded, pressed, driven, or wild to get it all done - yesterday. In a world with cows to buy and fields to see and work to do, in the beep and blink of the twenty-first century, with its "live in the moment" buzz phrases that none of the whirl-weary seem to know how to do, who actually knows how to take time and live with soul and body and God all in sync? To have the time to grab the jacket off the hook and time to go out to all air and sky and green and time to wonder at all of them in all this light, this time refracting in prism.   I just want time to do my one life well."

Enough time to do my one life well. With grace and dignity. To live presently each minute of my life and to trust that there will be enough time... My prayer for this treasured day and each one to come, until that moment when I can look back and sigh with contentment, "It was enough."

With Love, Jane