Pilgrimage

I consider myself a fairly self-aware person.  I am "in touch" with my emotions (probably too much at times) and I have learned a great deal over the years of how best I function in the various seasons that life takes on.

Which is why after losing a dear friend to cancer in November and feeling weary from the 14 month battle she fought, I was quite sure I needed rest.  In fact, I believed that God had "called" me to "Compassionate Leave".  I had no idea what that actually looked like but I felt sure it involved saying "no" to new asks, lots of down time in the evenings and the ten day vacation my husband and I were planning for the end of January.   I needed a new landscape with sun and warmth and an ocean nearby.

And then December 5 dawned and by the end of the day I would know that my newly ordered life was going to be dismantled.  It's what happens when the word cancer is given to someone you love. 
And so here we are, 42 days since that day and Mom has had her first treatment of chemo, ordered a wig and added a laundry list of appointments to her calendar all the while enduring the symptoms of this disease and it's effects on her body.  This is so not what I would have ever wanted for her.  Not cancer and not a battle.  I've watched cancer and it's ensuing battle empty people.  But Mom has bravely chosen to try treatment, to lose her hair and parts of herself which are heart wrenching for me to watch.  Yet through it all, she, and my Dad have responded with their simple, humble, trusting faith.  Yes with tears and fears, but covered by God.  It's been inspiring for me.  Mom's on a pilgrimage...I can't use the word battle.  It's not what I am seeing.  There is most definitely a courage and fight in her spirit but there is a peaceful way about her.  A pilgrimage by definition states some of the following--"a journey made to a sacred place", "any long or arduous journey".  If treatment gives Mom extra years, that will be a sacred "place".  And if she goes to be with Jesus sooner than we would choose, this too is a sacred place. 

What I never could have expected in all of this would be the ways in which God would lead me on my own pilgrimage...a pilgrimage of healing.  There are so many pieces of my heart that He has shown me are in need of healing and one of them is the last cancer battle I witnessed.  Other places are long-held ways of pain.   And while I thought that rest and healing were going to take place at an ocean-side or by way of the empty places of a calendar, God has shown a different path. Ultimately, it's a path of surrender and willingness to allow God to bring "new wine" out of me. 

In the crushing
In the pressing
You are making
New wine
In the soil, I
Now surrender
You are breaking
New ground

So I yield to You and to Your careful hand
When I trust You I don't need to understand

Make me Your vessel
Make me an offering
Make me whatever You want me to be
I came here with nothing
But all You have given me
Jesus, bring new wine out of me