Javelina Crossing! Surprise Encounter

Coming into Tonto Natural Bridge State Park yesterday, we had to grin at this sign.

It reminded me of unusual signs we'd seen in Australia on our mission trip to New Guinea about seven years ago,

signs that read "Kangaroo Crossing."

And signs in Colorado, "Elk Crossing."

Only here in Arizona, if it's not horse crossings or cattle crossings, it's javelinas!

Little did we know we would actually get to see a bunch of them--yes, right at the crossing! 

I was the first to spot them just as we were coming back to the car and getting ready to leave the park. Usually it's Jonathan who is the observant one, the one with the good eyes and smart mind, but this time, I had to smile, it was I!

He handed me his phone and told me to walk up and get photos while he drove up, hoping to keep the javelinas intent on the car instead of on the photographer.

I was fine until the javelinas appeared either more tame (or more wild) than I expected, and one of them started toward me instead of running away as the ones had done on Adera Canyon Trail a couple months ago.  

Jonathan claimed he got a kick out of how obviously nervous I suddenly became when the one javelina started toward me.

Of course, I would be thinking about some of the stories we'd heard about the terrible bites and toxic wounds javelinas can inflict on people under certain circumstances.

Apparently these were more tame than wild, for they did not seem to be bothered by us coming nearby. 

Jonathan managed to get several videos and few snaps of two mamas with two babies each, two wee babies always trying to get their share of Mama's meal in the form of milk.  

I think how often we come across surprises in our road--deer crossing, elk crossing, horses, cattle, pedestrians, wildlife of all sorts, skunks, kangaroos, and now javelinas. 

Certain places seem to be haunted (excuse the pun around this late October time of year) with special creatures that have their spots where they like to cross your roads--usually at unexpected times, though not always. 

Some creatures or situations are harmless enough, and you see them ahead and can simply slow down and avoid them. 

Some creatures are tame enough that you can stop and pet their noses, like friendly burros in Cripple Creek, Colorado, for example.  

Or they are at least tame enough that you can photograph them, like these javelinas or the wild horses we watched for an hour several weeks ago at the Salt River.

Others suddenly careen in front of you, like the horses that ran right in front of our van about four years ago, and there is no time to brake or dodge.

You just crash into whatever it is.

Like cancer and accidents and afflictions and disappointments of whatever sort.

But there are also the surprises along the way like autumn roses, still blooming in October in the wilderness of Arizona. 

Right in the middle of one's cancer journey, right when the javelinas start sniffing toward your neck of the lawn,

roses catch your attention. 

"And the wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them," Isaiah wrote. "And the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose."

Right in the middle of the desert and the cancer and the wild javelinas and the wilderness,

there are the roses.

There are the birds and the sunshine and the blue sky and the autumn roses and God's sweet, abiding presence,

filling all with good.

"Can God?" or "Please, God"?

Right in the middle of a very lovely day at Tonto Natural Bridge Park yesterday, I became very worn out and had a very bad moment.

It happened after Jonathan offered to go get our lunches at the car while I sat down (with my head on the picnic table) and waited.

He brought back his sandwich and my salad, and I asked if he'd brought my dressing. It had been in a little jar at home, and surely one of us had put it into the cooler. It was olive oil and vinegar and paprika and salt and stevia, something to make a raw salad a little more savory.

He went back to look, but he hadn't seen it earlier, and I was pretty sure I was going to have to not only eat only a raw salad for lunch, but eat it without dressing, like a rabbit. 

I was very tempted to be like the children of Israel who tempted God in the wilderness.

"Can God bring water out of this rock? We're thirsty! Waa, waa!"

I wanted to "waa" all right. 

I didn't want to be a rabbit. 

I wanted to be an American who likes as much dressing as salad.

Like I don't have a hard enough time with my cancer diet--okay, we can't go there.

Of course, there would be condiment on Jonathan's sandwich--woops, we can't go there.

Why did he not see my dressing and pack it in when I was busy with---no, don't go there. My lunch was my responsibility. 

 I thought about God, because, well, when I'm upset, I usually do think about God. When I'm helpless I think about Him. I turn to Him, or sometimes I grouch a little bit to Him. And then He helps me and I am able to stop feeling grouchy. 

This time--I wanted to grouch again. Gracious sakes! I have so much and then I want to grouch!

I mean, while millions of people are starving in the world, while Ukrain ian and Russian soldiers are dying in trenches and Israelis wonder where their family members are who were abducted by Hamas, I have a whole salad in a sunny park and I want to grouch because I don't have dressing. 

But you know how that is. 

"Can God--" I thought, remembering the Israelites. "Can God make dressing for this salad?"

In that moment, I was not grouching, much as I was tempted. I can honestly say I was simply turning my heart to Him in my disappointment, and instead of saying, "Can God?" I thought how He might like to be approached.

And I approached Him that way.

"Please, God," I prayed, a tired, weak, shaky, and hungry little lady trying to stave cancer off a little longer so she can stay with her family a little longer, 

"can You help me think of a way to create a dressing from this salad?"

I needed food with which to take my pills--the anti-parasite meds and anti-cancer drugs. I needed food for strength. 

Please God, I need help eating this salad--without dressing, unless You can help me make a dressing!

Well, it dawned on me that I could chop the little cherry tomatoes into small pieces. There was no dressing, but there happened to be a sharp knife. And I could cut into small pieces the chunk of homemade goat cheese I'd brought from South Dakota. And I could eat a bite of olive with a bite of salad and sprinkle on salt.

And in the middle of Tonto Natural Bridge State Park, that is how God provided dressing for my salad.

He had provided the carton the day before when an almost stranger and old acquaintance showed up in Phoenix and wanted to take us out to eat. They wanted to take us out to Organ Stop Pizza where a pipe organ plays the whole time, but I can't eat pizza and the restaurant was only open in the evening, so they took us to Taco Bell where I ordered a salad--and kept the carton with its lid

for just such times as yesterday when I needed to take my own salad along for lunch. 

Thus God provided my salad, my carton for the salad, and a dressing for the salad, out of the salad itself, 

in the middle of a cancer journey and a weary and hungry moment.

He still brings water out of rocks,

and dressing out of vegetables,

and manna in the wilderness,

today.

 

  

 

"Please Reconsider." So I Did.

"Trail is steep and strenuous," the sign read at the head of Waterfall Trail Saturday where we were visiting Tonto Natural Bridge State Park that I already wrote about. "If you have any health problems, please reconsider."

I read the sign with a bit of concern. Jonathan claimed he'd read the trail was only about 300 feet long. Surely I could make it that far. But "steep and strenuous"? I was already weak and tired after trying to hike the other trails which weren't so strenuous. Maybe I shouldn't try it.

But I did. I reconsidered, and went anyway.  Jonathan declared that he would carry me back up if I couldn't make it. I thought about how he'd been huffing and puffing back there on another trail, and countered that it was probably I who would end up carrying him--which he pooh-poohed big time!~

But down the trail we started--me with all my reconsidered health problems.

Shortly coming across a very mossy cliff, I pondered how the Christian life is not necessarily an easy one. The trail is sometimes steep and strenuous, and certainly narrow. Jesus made it very clear that those who take that road must count the cost. Will they take up the cross or not?

I was glad I considered and reconsidered and decided to take that trail. It was like a bit of New Zealand right in the middle of Arizona! You would never have known that such a beautiful, dripping paradise lay just a couple hundred feet down the trail.  

Count the cost of walking the trail with Jesus. Health problems or not, it will be worth it. 

Adventure and beauty await you! 

Natural Bridge--When God's Comfort Bridges the Gap Between Us

Yesterday for the first time in the well over two weeks we've been here, we decided that after being at the clinic for my post-chemo labs in the morning, to go see something beautiful. I hoped I could manage the short hike. 

We went to Tonto Natural Bridge State Park near Payson, AZ.

Shaky weak or not, I find it helps to go somewhere and see God's beautiful creation. Entrance fees were only $7 each, and we could drive most of the way to the underground bridge. You wouldn't know this place was here, way back inside a vast Arizona wilderness.

It was absolutely worth it!

We started off at the top near the parking lot, where a brooklet of water was burbling through a little channel to the edge of the cliff behind us, and dripping down over the mossy roots of the trees growing there. 

A little closer shot.

I loved the almost spring green colors in the sun. It was the perfect autumn day to come, sunny, with gorgeous blue sky.  

From the top, we could see the trail below, and a long bridge going across the stream far below. I tried not to think too hard about the hike.

If I could just do one step at a time, I could probably make it. 

So we started heading down the trail, stopping near the bottom to eat a bit of a snack we'd stuck in our pockets. Jonathan had an orange!

Since we were done at the clinic, we had all day. I took off my sandals and stood in the mineral-rich mud of the quiet pool for as long as I could. 

Earlier that morning, Jonathan had played his audio Bible, Isaiah chapter 51. The verse that had stood out to me was, "The Lord shall comfort Zion: He will comfort all her waste places; and He will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody."

 

I had thought about this desert down here in Arizona, this Phoenix "valley" as it is called down here. This place of desert for me and my cancer, far from all my family and friends. Just a wilderness emotionally and physically.

 

 And now that we had to leave Fountain Hills and that lovely condo surrounded by quail families and bouganvillae and doves, I had wondered, when I heard this verse, how God would make it come true again for me--me in the middle of another wilderness of sorts, in a fenced and gated and locked compound underneath myriad electric wires and hundreds of jets a day spraying their toxic fumes all over us as they come in to land.

 How was God going to bring comfort and gladness and the voice of melody out of all this? I wasn't doubting about it, just wondering. And how little did I know that it would happen that very day! 

There, literally, in the middle of the desert that is Arizona, was a place like "the garden of the Lord."

Beautiful trees, grass, green colors, water dripping through porous travertine rock.  

It was idyllic.  

Cancer was almost forgotten.

Jonathan was badly missing getting to go elk hunting with the children this year. (Sam, Carrie, Rose, Tim, and Danny are all in the mountains this weekend hunting. And we had planned to travel up Saturday and see them Sunday afternoon, which wasn't happening now that my cancer is acting up.)  

But in the middle of our disappointments, we revelled in the unique beauty of this amazing natural wonder. 

The weather could not have been more perfect. All those months of triple-digit heat behind us, we could enjoy the October day in Arizona. 

 Truly, for yesterday, God made our desert like the garden of the Lord.

He even added in some stunning moments with wild javelinas, which I will blog about later.

And I am sure, He will continue to give joy and gladness and the voice of melody.

Wednesday night, when I wasn't up to going to prayer meeting here, we put on an old service at Beavertown, when the Allegheny ladies' trio was singing.

I was trying to wash dishes, but the words to the first song riveted me, and I went over and just stood at the computer, watching and listening.

It was beautiful arrangements, sung by three beautiful young ladies, and the words about how God will only keep the fire burning until He knows it's the right time, "'cause the Potter knows the clay" 

had both Jonathan and me crying.

Me sitting on Jonathan's knee, shaking with tears, him wiping his eyes. 

We the clay, God the potter, and the fire is hot.

But the potter knows the clay, and He's right there.

He'll bring a beautiful design out of our fiery furnace,

a lovely poem out of the wilderness,

and the voice of melody out of our desert.

It Looked Like Angel Wings

 

  Two years ago, on October 28th, the angels took Jonathan's mother home to heaven.

At her inurnment, the family released doves, and one of them spread its wings right over Mama's grave,

like angel wings,

  a moment in time caught by our camera.

And then this week, exactly two years later, down here outside the Oasis of Healing Clinic, a similar thing happened.

I was getting out, rather weak as usual, heading in for IVs and a doctor appointment, when I noticed all the birds on the lines above. 

Pigeons.

Doves.  

Other birds.

But especially doves. 

They weren't flying away as so often they do when we come strolling by. At least not right away.

And I stood there, me, having just noticed an almost overnight change in the tumor area--more aggravation, changes, things happening.

Were the changes meaning that the treatments are working,

or that the cancer is starting to "come roaring back," as my doctor said often happens with HER2 cancer, even after it's been zapped well with chemo and herceptin?

I didn't know.  

We'd be asking the doctor later, "If distance and money weren't a factor, what would your recommendation be for follow-up treatment?"

And without hesitation, the doctor said, "Herceptin."

It's the drug of choice for my HER2 cancer which has receptors that this drug can sort of deactivate so the cancer doesn't metastasize. It's administered by IV into a port, which means I have to keep my port indefinitely.

But doctors can't prescribe across state lines, so we can't get the herceptin treatments in South Dakota, at least not without more chemo, which I don't feel I can handle any more of.

Which meant Jonathan and I would be making some very sudden and serious changes of plans--all over again.

 

Instead of packing up all our stuff and driving back to South Dakota this weekend as we'd hoped, saying goodbye to this clinic, we decided to stay one more week so I could get yet another weekly herceptin dose, then leave our vehicle and belongings here, and just fly back to South Dakota.

Twelve days later, I'll be making another flying trip down here by myself, stay eight days, get two weekly herceptin treatments, fly back to SD for Thanksgiving.

Stay in SD a couple weeks, fly back for 1 or 2 weeks, and so on. Jonathan and I got tickets for SD this Wednesday for just $76 each straight through from Mesa, AZ, to Rapid City.  

Jonathan felt that since I'd not be worn down with daily treatments, just weekly herceptin, it would be best for him to stay in SD with the responsibilities there, and maybe I could manage down here by myself, especially if one of our children could come for at least part of the time. 

I had suggested this very thing once--in a very brave, courageous, and crazy moment. 

But then I just couldn't face flying back here and being here all alone. I remembered how I nearly collapsed in the airport a few weeks ago, and Jonathan was with me. What will it be like alone?

And then I found out I will have to move out of here and move into an Air BnB when I return because Gospel Center here will be in camp meeting and needs the little house we've been so graciously allowed to stay in.

My emotions took a total plummet last night. I wailed into my hands, leaving Jonathan asking, "Is it really that bad?"

Hint: Never ask your wife any such question.

My sister Iva came to my rescue. She literally bought a ticket to come spend the week with me, and changed it for a day earlier when she found out I had to move into another place (the fifth place so far down here) when I arrive back. She is making sure to be here before I arrive so she can pick me up and help move my stuff into the Air BnB. My children hadn't had time to discuss it much, except for Rose who declared up and down that I was not going to be down here by myself, that she would come herself if none of the others could take a turn. 

So much has turned upside down. I don't know what's happening for sure tomorrow, much less a couple weeks from now. 

For the near future, all I could see ahead were trip after trip back and forth from SD to AZ and the other way around, with a long trip to Sioux Falls in the in between weeks--and who can say it will even work?

I wear out with travel when I am in good shape. All this travel is making me want to scream.

"This cancer will go away!" Jonathan assured me, the one who always thinks everything will be fine. "Everything's going to be okay."

 I leaned my head against his shoulder.

I could not speak.

And when I saw the picture above again on my camera, I zoomed it in.

Because to me, the one whose hope was wavering, 

it looked like angel wings.

When Mrs. Grouchy Face Stares Back at You

(This post is a few days old, but I will finish it now.) Last night I was having a rough evening. For the eighth or ninth day in a row, I was having to eat either mash or mush for my meals, and I was living in almost constant pain from mouth sores and oral surgery.

Chemo had taken away some of my appetite, and what was left of me was in a turmoil after the strong herceptin drug, including lung issues. Herceptin seems to result in my lungs and chest tightening, etc. I was already coughing a lot, trying to get rid of phlegm days after the oral surgery. Getting ready for a shower that evening, when Jonathan appeared, I warned him, "I'm feeling grouchy right now." (Wisely, he quickly disappeared!)

Sorta like the day a couple weeks ago in South Dakota when I suddenly started feeling unusually grouchy about the messes around the house. I was so upset about them that I started going around to take pictures to send my kids (what a glorious way to deal with it all!)--except that when I got the camera on my phone ready to snap, the picture below is what stared back at me!

I was meaning to take a picture of the mess. And instead, the camera was doing a selfie. 

And I didn't like what I saw. 

It was the most awful grouchy face in the world!

(Please don't anyone agree with me, or I will be very insulted.) 

It was so awful that it literally made me want to laugh. I wanted to laugh at my terribly immaturity. Here I was, 57 years old, and I was doing such a dumb thing as going around to take pictures of big messes so I could complain about them to my poor children who happened to have decided to not move to South Dakota with us. All because I was just overwhelmed in the moment and choosing to complain instead of to simply start to pick up some of the junk and pile boards more neatly. 

Just the Sunday before, Pastor Ambrose had spoken well of me up front, saying how despite everything I had been going through, Anna always had a smile when they came to see us.

I hid my face in my hands and outright spoke up and said I didn't smile all the time. That very morning I'd been pretty overwhelmed, I admitted. The photo above proves it. 

My blog is not about showing my perfect smiles, my perfectly angelic attitudes at any and all times.

It is about honesty. 

Often, it is simply the outcropping of my own struggle to process all that life has brought my way. 

No one has to read it.

Just the writing helps me, over and over. 

On this day, the wind had blown construction trash and animal junk all over the place, and I was overwhelmed. I was not smiling.

I was very, very frustrated and tired and upset.

But when that grouchy face stared back at me on the phone, I made a very, very good decision. 

It has been a decision that has saved me from insanity hundreds of times over again.

I decided to laugh!

When Mrs. Grouchy Face stared back at me, I was so shocked and embarrassed that I started to grin. At least on the inside. I still took some pictures and sent them to my kids, but I told them my little story about my grouchy attitude and my camera's trick on me, and they sent laughy faces back. 

And the selfie mode on my camera saved the day.