In Spite of Everything, It is Well. A Note From Jan.

Raining. Down in the dumps kinda day for me. Need to get off CaringBridge soon. Feel like I’m coming off life support. It will soon be a year of connecting through this helpful medium.  A year since family urged me to consider this as a better way of connecting with folks than individual emails, phone calls or snail mail. Couldn’t have done it without Martha, editor-in-chief-friend.

The Net. Not signing off today but trying to decide when and if I want to move out into the blog-o-sphere. Some have urged me to take what’s been written and do a book. Not sure what to do. Writing is not optional for me.  It’s essential. Maybe just go off into a quiet corner and write. All corners are quiet today. Sometimes I sense a holy hush; other times it’s just really quiet. Lonely, once in a while.

This morning’s reading was Psalm 90…a prayer of Moses…man of God. “Lord, you have been our dwelling place through all generations.” (NIV) or, as it reads in Mama’s old worn-out Bible, “Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.”  The exact wording on Mama and Daddy’s grave in Wilmington, NC

The same verse is also carved above the door at the welcome center for Brooksby Village, multi-level care/retirement complex in nearby Peabody. I know because I stopped by there a couple of weeks ago to check out the facility. Wondered if those words were a sign.

Well, the only nudge I felt was to flee. Got back in the car and headed for our perch. Settled down. Breathed that salt air…slowly…in and out. Can’t deal with another change.

Psalm 90:15-16 reads, ”Give us gladness in proportion to our former misery!  Replace the evil years with good.  Let us see your miracles again; let our children see your glory at work.” I’d written in the margin “Stem cell Harvest at MGH…12-1-11.” Never were able to harvest Jud’s stem cells. Tried and tried to get them to come forth but never happened, and, in 2014, the bone marrow transplant with a donor’s stem cells never took, as most of you know. But God showed up through good medical staff, good medicines, prayer, the NET of family and friends and one stouthearted, faith-full man who did what he could while God did the rest, so we could enjoy a few more years than predicted before his cancer returned a year ago.

Today on this stormy day, as the sea rages and waves crash against rock outcroppings, I’m reminded of words from an old hymn, ”when sorrows like sea billows roll…whatever my lot Thou has taught me to say, it is well, it is well with my soul.” There were miracles that never showed up and some that did. “Whatever my lot… it is well with my soul.”

Change so many changes in one year One unchanging truth… “Lord, through all the generations you have been our home.” (NLT) Grandparents. Parents. Jud’s home. Mine. Somehow it is well with my soul. Somewhere along the way, “whatever my lot,” I’ve been “taught to say, it is well with my soul.” Taught by Christ.  Taught by saints and not-so-saintly. 

So I take solace in six simple words….”Whatever my lot….it is well.” Reminders from a fellow sufferer.  A strong nudge that there are many, so many, who with or without a miracle in sight, “whatever their lot”, still choose to be faithful, to remember “the passwords of praise” and to allow God to tend and mend the soul until it is well… and when it seems nothing’s on the mend, even then, “even so” it is or will be well, somehow, some day.