A Blessed Candlemas - Light in the Darkness
We count our lives by sunrises and sunsets.
Forty days. Forty days since Christmas.
Six days. Six sunsets since my first chemo infusion.
134 days. 134 days since my breast cancer diagnosis.
Sixty days. Sixty days since my double mastectomy.
8,185. 8,185 sunrises since I married the love of my life and we have been journeying together in sickness and in health.
7624 days. 7624 days since I became a mother and met our beautiful first son, Joshua.
6745 days. 6745 since I prayed to the Holy Spirit for help during labor and He answered, giving me a deep sense of peace and calm as Noah was born, our second son.
5449 days. 5449 since the Lord answered my prayers for a daughter and the whole room of nurses, doctors, and mothers burst into joyful tears at the coming of Veronica.
4518 days. 4518 since little Teresa, my mother's namesake, entered into this world, our second daughter.
3524 days. 3524 since the umbilical cord finally unwrapped from the arm Maria Grace, freeing her into the world, our third daughter.
906 days. 906 since the Lord fulfilled His promise of another child He had in mind for us and we met our darling Lydia, our fourth daughter.
Forty days after Jesus was born, Mary and Joseph proudly and reverently brought him to the temple to present him to the Lord. Simeon and Anna prophesied that Jesus was indeed the Savior, the Light of the World. With Simeon's prophesy of joy and hope also came the foretelling of the sword that would pierce Mary's heart.
Today, Candlemas falls again in the middle of a grey winter. Most people's Christmas lights and decorations have been stored away for next year. Yet, most of us are still certainly in need of something merry and bright. I certainly am, and am thus very thankful for Candlemas, a liturgical reason to light all of the candles in our home and let them burn bright all day, a glowing reminder of my Light in the World.
Candlemas is a reminder of the ongoing miracles in our lives. Jesus was the miracle of miracles. He continued to be so after the day of His birth, after his presentation, after his adorable toddlerhood, after his awkward growth from boy into man, in the everyday, humdrum, simple life of the Savior and His family.
God has me on the lookout for "simple" miracles in my own life.
Chemotherapy is a wondrous miracle of healing. After my diagnosis, we prayed for healing. While the Lord did not grant me an instant miraculous healing, He knew better. He alone knew of the miraculous work He would do in my body and in my heart through this season.
When explaining that chemotherapy is a miracle, our teenage daughter replied, "No, it's not. It's science."
Does something being scientific make it less miraculous? Did the first oncologist and the first cancer patient who watched cancer cells die away and the patient restored to full health not wonder at the miracle of chemotherapy? Is it not miraculous that the Holy Spirit gave the needed wisdom, knowledge, and understanding to scientists and doctors so that they might dare to infuse poison into a patient's body to kill off what was sickness but not harm (too much) what was healthy and vital? Would cancer patients from a century ago have found chemotherapy to be miraculous? It is any less so now?
As I walked out to the parking lot after my first infusion, I needed a little encouragement. My wonderful mother grabbed me the sandwich baggy of pretzel sticks she had packed to stem off nausea and brought me to my side of the car. There, next to the car door on January 28th, was a small cherry tree with blossoms. I have never seen a cherry blossom bloom so early. In the pink hue foreshadowing spring, I knew the Lord was giving me that encouragement.
New life is coming.
Resurrection is coming.
The fallow earth will bring forth great fruit.
Summer will bring abundance.
The pruning away will bring greater life still.
Believe in the hope of the Resurrection,
the hope of Easter.
I am coming, indeed, I am here.
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| I quickly took a photo to remind me of God's encouragement that day. |
I've been reminded of the reality, economy, and science of miracles through the great work of Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. Hallow will be featuring this book for Lent this year and connecting it to Henri Nouwen's The Return of the Prodigal Son, a beloved book I have read several times for School of the Heart.
I had started reading The Brothers Karamazov about a year and a half ago to prepare for teaching a world literature class. However, due to the length of the book, I decided on Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment instead. It has been such a gift to listen to it now in anticipation of the reflections from Hallow this Lent.
In the book, Dostoevsky reminds us,
Faith does not, in the realist, spring from the miracle but the miracle from faith.
It is the one who looks for miracles who finds them. Isn't spring a miracle every single year? Every year I wonder, where do the new buds come from? How does a thin, straggly, brittle branch bring forth abundant, lush blossoms that turn into juicy apples each fall? Where does the new life, the new plant cells, come from?