Fear

If I only had cancer to think about I wonder how I would feel. It was dark this morning when I woke up from a troubling dream about some teenagers who looked like everyone else, but no one knew they were actually slaves. Maybe its because of what has been in the news, maybe because I have three teenagers, maybe because my heart hurts for young people who fall into dangerous traps. This mind would not settle down. I gave up at 2:45 and tried to avoid the creeks in the floor.

All of the things I have been worrying about seem like a wrinkly basket of animated laundry. Real laundry just sits there but my fears make a jumbled circuit around and around in my head.  Legs stretched out on the couch, bible resting under my hands beneath my chin, that's a good place I discovered this morning to get the laundry folded. Only the faint silhouette of hills show in the darkness out my window as a little orange light makes the folds of the piano glisten warm in front of me. One by one I take some of my abiding clothes out of the basket and hold them up. It's not the methodical ritual you might envision, but in the end its a completed work. Chaos becomes orderly. Wayward worries have their arms and legs neatly aligned and tucked underneath themselves and they sit calmly on top of each other in my head.  He folded each one as I gave it to Him.

But this isn't always how I take care of fear.  I'm all about abiding right now, not just to live on this earth but while I am here to learn how to abide in Him as He abides in me. The command to love sacrificially and unconditionally is in flashing lights in the forefront of my mind, I know that is a prerequisite to abiding. I'm more sensitive to my failures now and I cringe more often, "Father forgive me, help me to abide in You."

Perfect Love casts out fear. How does this happen? I would like to know as I have so many things to be afraid of and they wake me up.  How do I move my tent over to His campfire, closer, so I can hear His voice more clearly? I figure that reading His word, the bible, is a pretty good place to hear His voice, so I break out of the once a day usually routine and gasp, pick it up at unplanned times. And when fear comes in like a load of rocous, living unfolded laundry, instead of watching it spin I find a place like that place on the couch this morning and hold them up one by one.

So here is my challenge for today..."Molly, this is Dr. Imler with good news and bad news. The really great news is that your lymph nodes have tested clear. The frustrating news is that we did not get all of the tumor out and we need to go back in to take some more flesh. How about tomorrow?" I'm not joking. I have until 11pm to eat or drink, to the hospital at 8 am tomorrow, and 10 they get the rest.

I'm so glad He likes to fold laundry. Now that I'm learning to let Him do it a bit more I'm looking forward to handing the cancer and the next operation and worries A,B,C and D all over once again. Is there any mess He can't take under His control? I think not, and that gives me peace too.

Psalm 104

¹ Praise the Lord, my soul.

Lord my God, you are very great;
    you are clothed with splendor and majesty.

² The Lord wraps himself in light as with a garment;
    he stretches out the heavens like a tent
³     and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters.
He makes the clouds his chariot
    and rides on the wings of the wind.
⁴ He makes winds his messengers,^[a]
    flames of fire his servants.

⁵ He set the earth on its foundations;
    it can never be moved.
⁶ You covered it with the watery depths as with a garment;
    the waters stood above the mountains.
⁷ But at your rebuke the waters fled,
    at the sound of your thunder they took to flight;
⁸ they flowed over the mountains,
    they went down into the valleys,
    to the place you assigned for them.
⁹ You set a boundary they cannot cross;
    never again will they cover the earth.

¹⁰ He makes springs pour water into the ravines;
    it flows between the mountains.
¹¹ They give water to all the beasts of the field;
    the wild donkeys quench their thirst.
¹² The birds of the sky nest by the waters;
    they sing among the branches.
¹³ He waters the mountains from his upper chambers;
    the land is satisfied by the fruit of his work.
¹⁴ He makes grass grow for the cattle,
    and plants for people to cultivate—
    bringing forth food from the earth:
¹⁵ wine that gladdens human hearts,
    oil to make their faces shine,
    and bread that sustains their hearts.
¹⁶ The trees of the Lord are well watered,
    the cedars of Lebanon that he planted.
¹⁷ There the birds make their nests;
    the stork has its home in the junipers.
¹⁸ The high mountains belong to the wild goats;
    the crags are a refuge for the hyrax.

¹⁹ He made the moon to mark the seasons,
    and the sun knows when to go down.
²⁰ You bring darkness, it becomes night,
    and all the beasts of the forest prowl.
²¹ The lions roar for their prey
    and seek their food from God.
²² The sun rises, and they steal away;
    they return and lie down in their dens.
²³ Then people go out to their work,
    to their labor until evening.

²⁴ How many are your works, Lord!
    In wisdom you made them all;
    the earth is full of your creatures.
²⁵ There is the sea, vast and spacious,
    teeming with creatures beyond number—
    living things both large and small.
²⁶ There the ships go to and fro,
    and Leviathan, which you formed to frolic there.

²⁷ All creatures look to you
    to give them their food at the proper time.
²⁸ When you give it to them,
    they gather it up;
when you open your hand,
    they are satisfied with good things.
²⁹ When you hide your face,
    they are terrified;
when you take away their breath,
    they die and return to the dust.
³⁰ When you send your Spirit,
    they are created,
    and you renew the face of the ground.