Lowly Garden Squash--Symbol of Hope and Love

  Just before Jonathan and I climbed into his truck to leave South Dakota for Arizona and cancer treatment, Danny came running up the path from the house and garden.

He was bringing me a handful of early yellow squash he'd just picked in our garden for us to take with us.

"Look!" he exclaimed. 

And I looked. How could you help looking? 

The first early squash from our garden was a pair of squash that looked like this!

Just like Jonathan so tenderly taking care of me right now. 

And God also wrapping me with His love.

Just had to celebrate this little garden gift that gave me hope and joy...

...as we said goodbye to three of our children who stayed behind to take care of things in South Dakota. 

Mountain Daisies--My Brother Elon's 29th Anniversary

Twenty-nine years ago today, my brother Elon wed his sweet "daisy," Anita.

I couldn't help thinking about them when we stopped along the way in the mountains of Colorado last week and saw these beautiful daisies. 

Anita has always been partial to daisies, and I always loved daisies where I grew up in Pennsylvania.

But where we lived in Colorado, I seldom saw any. 

Year after year I lived without daisies--until on my way for cancer treatment!

There was a whole meadow of them further along the way! The photo doesn't do it justice. That whole meadow was just full of sunny-hearted daisies. 

I took lots of photos to send to Anita and Elon in Mexico, where they are now with their oldest daughter Amaris, who is undergoing treatment for her lyme and other complicated issues.  

Her battle right now makes mine look pretty small.

But the daisies reminded me of how Elon and Anita were wed just a few weeks before Jonathan and I were 29 years ago--and they were wed in Arizona--an outdoor wedding by a stream.

It was hot there, too, near Scottsdale. Not as hot as here in Phoenix, but hot on that July day. 

They went sailing in a little rowboat down the stream together afterward--so happy and blissful!

Happy anniversary in Mexico, Elon and Anita, 

the "oak" and the "daisy."

Seemed Anita and we did so many things together way back then--and now we do this together again--fighting severe physical battles with either ourselves or someone we love.  

Jonathan loves his Colorado columbines, and I do, too. 

But daisies are special.  

Especially when they remind us of someone we love--like Anita and Elon,

in a difficult situation,

but still trusting the God of the oaks and the daisies,

on their 29th anniversary in Mexico.

 

When You Must Make a New Plan--and it Includes Passing Through the Waters

A couple weeks ago, the blood test from Rapid City showed that my HER2 tumor numbers had doubled, despite all my best efforts. Other symptoms also seemed to be worsening, and my doctor in Arizona told us to basically beat it down there for more in-depth, high-power treatment.

Our plans in South Dakota came to a screeching halt.  

 The house had just been painted at last.

 Danny had been learning how to texture. 

Jonathan and I had chosen a color for outdoor siding.  

The kitchen cabinets for main floor kitchen and guest apartment downstairs, as well as bathroom vanities, had been delivered.

As Jonathan and I admired the beautiful hickory cabinets (the least expensive ones available in our area), I found myself clinging to the hope that I would, by God's grace, get to enjoy them. 

But I didn't know.

Our children kept our spirits up with their youthful  humor. 

"You aren't nearly dead yet!" Rose reminded me in a phone message.

Danny was so upset with himself for plunging through this door from garage to the house when plastic had been hung over it inside for painting, that he made a big sign to remind himself not to enter--

only to forget it anyway and crash through anyway!

While Jonathan picked up some items needed for our house, I ran into a thrift store in Pierre to see if there was a top to match a flowered denim wrap-around skirt I was packing for the hot weather in Arizona. 

But the sign I'd just seen at a church across the street was weighing on my mind. 

"When you pass through the waters..."

And I found myself almost tearing up in that cute thrift shop. 

(It didn't help that the name of it was Hospice Thrift Shop, with proceeds going to help cancer patients, etc.! )

All I could think about were the waters ahead of me. 

Deep waters of cancer treatment.

I tend to forget the rest of the verse, about how God will be with me, and wallow in the first part. 

But as soon as I realized that, I tried to stop thinking about the waters, and pull out of the doldrums.

 

 Back at home, there were these beautiful roses Tasbah Lavery brought one morning after I'd been in pieces from the news about the tumor markers, and I'd had to ask for help with breakfast for the last morning for our workers who had spent nearly three weeks taping, mudding, and sanding all the walls and corners in our whole house.

Crystal later arrived from Missouri, having enjoyed her trip to Africa. She brought fresh veggies from gardens in Missouri. (Thanks, Fain, Regina, and Joella, and whoever else!)

Sunday morning at Lakota Chapel where we've found a temporary place to worship when I'm busy with cancer protocol till late morning and can't travel far, the pastor wondered if I'd be willing to come up and be prayed for. "Heal what has been damaged in her," he prayed quietly, "and make her whole again." Those few simple words clung to me. They were precious.

Sunday evening, I was presented with this beautiful blanket by Tasbah Lavery at Hope Family Chapel!

I laughed that I wasn't going to need it in the 110 degree weather in AZ, but Tasbah knew how I freeze in air conditioning! So I packed it with me. Tasbah prayed for strength for me, and healing. 

God answered the strength part already, for Monday morning of last week I was amazed how I had strength to do last minute packing. 

And then later that day we received word from the clinic in Arizona that I could not meet with the doctor till later in the week, and we would have time to spend a day with our children in Colorado. 

 Little had I known when we left SD for AZ, that God would give me some time in Colorado with my children, another day in the mountains on the way to AZ, and even a night in a charming cabin where we would eat our little breakfast (complete with fresh cherries from Jonathan's dad's new wife) out by a stream. 

All I could see ahead was hot Arizona, cancer treatment, and deep waters.

 Little did I know I would get to spend time wandering through mountain meadows of flowers (more pictures in a future post I hope)

and sitting by a sparkling stream with the hummingbirds and butterflies flitting nearby,

enraptured with the bliss God's mercies had sent to me along the way.

 Tomorrow I may be facing deep water,

roaring rapids,

flooded rivers. 

But last week God led me barefoot, wading a mountain stream. 

What if, after our fears of deep water, God's mercies will lead us by a gurgling brook?

Ever Seen a Hummingbird Sip at a Stream?

It's difficult to spy there in the middle of the photo, but that is a ruby-throated hummingbird that was perched on a branch by the stream I waded in last week on our way through Colorado to Arizona.

 So there I was, taking off my dusty black sandals and stepping on the smooth rock, "grounding" as they say--something I hear more and more about, and read about in my cancer research. 

Going barefoot on the ground is a way to ground oneself, they say, rid oneself of unhealthy electrical charges that we sort of collect as we trot around on our rubber soles--

just one more little thing to do in a journey toward better health.

And then there was the cold water. 

I remembered how I have read that native Americans and others interested in good health would go for a cold dip every day in a nearby stream or river. 

And Rose has been learning about the benefits to one's health of having a cold shower!

It sort of shocks one's body into "resetting," she has learned. 

When she discovered her brother taking baby steps because of a back that had been hurting for a month, she suggested a cold shower, and within two days, he was back to normal!

(Don't assume that will work for you or me, but who knows??)

Would sticking one's feet into a cold mountain stream have good benefits, then?

Well, whether or not, I went wading!

Whee! 

This was what it looked like upstream, a spot near Ouray called Baby Bathtubs, 

so called because of how the boulders in the stream create little pools like baby bathtubs!

It was right near the road, and since I didn't have the strength to hike, I simply walked, waded, and sat on a rock, enraptured with the bliss of the beauty and rest God was allowing to me on my way for cancer treatment. 

Like Jonathan's truck radiator thirsty for fresh water or antifreeze because of a slow leak, my thirsty soul was drinking up the beauty of the mountain stream, and basking in the knowledge that it was my God Who was the Creator of all this beauty.

 And then the hummingbird came, flitting back and forth, humming around in the branches. 

It flew down to the water and sipped as Jonathan and I both watched in wonder and amazement.

We had never seen a hummingbird sip from a stream before. 

Such a small bird at such a small stream.

 

There were big streams elsewhere, even rivers.

 Like the one up at Yankee Boy Basin. 

But this little stream was just my size--small and gurgling, having a few little pools still enough for a wee hummingbird to sip from.

 

Remembering Him Who promised to care for even the little sparrow

(and I'm sure the littler hummingbird)

I sat quietly by the gurgling brook. 

While there are enormous mountains and great trees and roaring waterfalls in other places,

I am entranced by little thngs--

this little lady by a small stream watching a small hummingbird sip at a small pool!

"There's No Water Down There"--So What Was That Splash in the Bottom of the Well?

About a week ago, the well drilling rig arrived.

 Unfortunately, there wasn't good news at first. The first hole turned out to be dry. That was the one in a location that was pretty handy to the house and barn both. 

But it was dry.

So the driller went up the hill about 300 feet and tried again. 

This time he got water, but what seemed to be only about one gallon a minute.

 Now I am certain that with a cistern we could live on one gallon a minute, because if you do your math, that's over 1400 gallons a day!

I could live on much less than that if we didn't irrigate. But the concern is whether the well would easily dry up in dry years.

Anyway, the driller tried drilling in two more places--down by the prairie dog holes and then up on the hill on the other side of the house.

We didn't know what to make of the beautiful promise from Isaiah 12 thatg God had dropped into Jonathan's lap the very morning that the well drilling rig arrived. 

"Therefore with joy shall you draw water from the wells of salvation!"  

We had hoped the timing was meaningful. 

But we also had to understand that the promise, in its truth, was talking not about an earthly well, but about Jesus. 

And that even if all four wells that were drilled turned out to be dry, we could still draw water from God's well of salvation!

While the driller dug and worked in the hot sunshine, I went for daily walks and jogs up the driveway and all the way up the hill to the mailbox. I so enjoy seeing the wildflowers. 

When I was disappointed that something ate all the morning glories that Rose planted around our garden (unless they just died because we forgot to water them!) I remembered that God had thousands of these wild morning glories I could enjoy!

But back to the well. 

After days of trying this and that, drilling on down to 200 feet through the shale, and then coming back up to 100 feet, waiting to bring foam from Rapid City to try to clean out the sides of the well, and working through complication, the driller is optimistic that we do have water, even if it is just one or two gallons a minute. 

That remains to be seen. 

"There isn't any water down there," the man at the courthouse told me flatly when Hannah and I were there last week on some business.  No water down the hill there by the river.

And I had tried not to panic. 

There was no water in three of the holes, it's true.

But all we needed was one hole with water--and God provided it! 

And then today God provided a cistern when we traveled to Rapid City. Pierre didn't have any in stock and Jonathan was afraid we'd have to special order one and that it would take weeks. But many people in the Black Hills don't have water either and haul water in to their cisterns, so Rapid City stocks cisterns.

But the verse Jonathan shared with me the morning of the well driller's arrival stuck with me.

Even if the well runs dry, or the cistern begins leaking like this poor old one (that Sam is sitting on after a day of helping us this holiday weekend) that we'd used last year here until the extremes of heat and cold left it cracked and useless,

the well of salvation ever flows.

We were blessed to be invited to the baptism of the young son of a family we've made friends with. This little boy, along with two other young children and a mother were baptized just up the hill from our home Sunday morning. 

This boy and the others were drinking from the well of salvation! 

Well or no well, we felt so blessed to be part of this very special occasion in the life of new friends in South Dakota!

And then we had the privilege of taking a grandma and three grandchildren to church again Sunday evening to our church in Mission. 

The church was almost packed out with a special service of music. Our family, together with two Hagerty boys who came up this holiday weekend, contributed two songs. It was an inspiring service, with some patriotic pieces and songs about freedom.