I struggled today with parenting. A big mistake cost me some ground. Out of love I addressed an issue. Out of impatience and shortsightedness I did it poorly. I cried out for help. And in the struggle in my heart and mind, in the brokenness of my failure, I encountered God. He showed up in a letter, sitting on my bed. Perfectly timed. Divinely written. As if the sender knew my struggle, and understood it from the standpoint of my daughter. You see she was a young teen when she lost her father to cancer. Now, thousands of miles away, and over a decade of struggling with feelings and faith, she is being used by God to comfort me and give me a glimpse into the window of my daughter’s heart. And it landed in my hands today. Seriously?

Yesterday I wrote about how I was not into the Easter “story”, rather the encounters with Christ. In further reflection, I realize that the encounters could not happen without the story. Christ rose from the dead, physically. That is the story. Without that, the comfort I have felt over the last 2-3 months, is just random warm fuzzies. Comfort just like today. Not random.

Tara’s shingles pain is managed, the lesions are healing, the nausea and aching from chemo are under control. She is talking about driving soon. Could it be that we are in a rhythm of life that is sustainable? She has been back in the game as an active mother providing for her children and a parenting partner for me. Intimacy is still growing. Our new level of love is working its way though the entire family.

Regardless of the ups and downs of parenting and recovery, the Maier home has been a blast. Joy and rest are common. Fun is found in every room of the house. Work is a great release for me. I am blessed to love what I do. Each morning we wake up, we are thankful for another day. I hope we never lose that.

It was a good Good Friday. But when I realized this afternoon that it was Good Friday I was bothered . It doesn’t feel like the Easter season, although I don’t know what Easter should feel like. There was no Lent for us this year. No extended family coming. No Easter eggs or candy. No dressing the girls up for Sunday morning. No spiritual preparation. It just kind of snuck up on us.

Honesty I never really liked the Easter formalities. Is that bad to say? Give me a burrito over ham and potatoes. As a child I hated dressing up and now I feel bad asking my kids to suffer through that. But I long for the essence of Easter. I’m not talking about the “story” of Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey. Or angels. Or disciples who ran to find the open tomb. The things that make a good pageant. It just doesn’t connect with me this year.

I don’t mean to minimize the story. But the essence of Easter (or Christmas, or Christianity in general) is an encounter with Christ. In our suffering we have encountered him in a fresh way this year. We didn’t dress up. Or prepare weeks in advance for his arrival. But what a great encounter it has been. He has been faithful to sustain us. He has given us hope and joy in this time, and it could have been quite different.

Happy Easter Encounter.

We are seeing the light at the end of this tunnel of a week. The doctors have been encouraging. The numbers are going in the right direction. A few bouts of pain again today. But overall, Tara is doing pretty good. All that remains this week is chemotherapy tomorrow morning. It’s the big dose (Platinum and Taxol), but we have the reference point of 3 weeks ago, when the big dose went great. That gives us a lot of hope for the weekend.

Yeah the weekend! It actually starts now for the kids. And not just the weekend, but spring break week. The house is full of excitement. They seem oblivious to the challenges of our life right now and we LOVE it. They run around giddy. They wreck the house. They play. They fight. They sing. They dance. At times we want to say “Settle down kids!”, but then we listen to the joy that is coming out of their mouths and we just go with it. When evening comes, they are big helpers.

Tara has had some great times with friends lately. Simply sitting. Talking. Sharing life. It is refreshing for her to talk about their lives. To love on them. To pray for them. She longs to be out of the limelight. To have the attention shifted to others.

But being in the light isn’t always so bad. The Bible says we ARE the light of the world, like a city on a hill. What a great word picture. I can imagine being in the country at night and seeing the city lights in the distance. I guess God is saying that even though he could light the world through his radiance alone, he chooses to do it through his people. Through Tara especially. So too bad Tara. The light is still on you…..or rather in you.

Tara was describing her day to me. Blood work. CT scan. Drinking the nasty puke water then getting some other stuff pumped into her veins to contrast the images of her insides. After the scan, Tara had severe pain through her body. “Way worse than childbirth pains”. Tara’s pretty tough, so when she says she hollered it means something. She thought she freaked some people out; some “skinny, bald woman moaning in pain” after a scan that should be painless. Thankfully by the time she was telling me the story she was laughing about it. Must have been the shingles.

It is amazing all the different ways to find out what’s inside a person. Xray. CT scan. MRI. Ultrasound. Cameras through any orifice. Surgery and more. Tara has had nearly all of them. They could have saved a bunch of money and just asked me. It’s two thirds heart and half guts.

Tara told me today that she needs me to celebrate the little daily victories with her more. I guess I have been trying to look too far ahead. Maybe that is why I feel disoriented at times. I can’t see where I am going that far ahead. A good result is not enough in my mind, because next week we have more tests. And remission may not be good enough for me if I am thinking about the next scan in 6 months. So I will keep trying to enjoy each moment. To celebrate each day as another one down. Each good test result as a victory that day.

The steadfast love of The Lord never ceases. His mercies shall never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness God. Thank you for sustaining us again today.

Tuesday night. Story night, remember? I read. The kids sit and listen. Right? Well tonight, they were kind of distracted. But they did it knowing it was important to us. We started reading the first of 8 chapters in a new book. Within 2 pages I was delirious. The pauses between my sentences began to grow. My eyes got heavy, and at each page turn, I hoped to see the chapter end. But I pressed on. Only once did Jenna say, when the pause was 5 seconds long, “Dad! Keep reading.” I snapped out of it, then fought it again. But when I was done, they wanted to keep going, or at least find out what happens in the end. But I made them wait because that is how I can get them back next Tuesday.

Tara and I want to know the end of our story. Especially me. I at least want to know the direction we are headed and plan for it. But the pages are turned one at a time. Each day is told one at a time. We can guess where it will end up but that is kind of silly, because who really knows. So we trust in God. He lights up the next step of our path and we take it. One at a time. And we have to trust in his goodness, love, mercy and grace. He loves us deeply, and desires good things for us. He knows the end of the story but makes us wait, because that is how he can keep us depending on him day after day.

Tonight, Micalyn had some despair about tomorrow. She gets home from track in time to shower and eat then go to church. Very little time for homework. She asked for us to ease the burden and let her miss track. We answered her with love saying “no”, knowing she is the one who has to temporarily “suffer”. But the end result is that she learns to be disciplined, to not despair, to work hard, to stay focused and so on. She cannot see how it will help her, but we do. It would be silly for us to let her make the decision because she would take the easy road and would be the worse for it.

God knows we would also take the easy road if we had the choice, and we would be the worse for it. Thank you God for guiding us in this trial. We trust you.

Every day we gain a little ground. Today Tara had the biopsy of her thyroid and we already got word back that it is benign. This is a huge relief for us. We have a day off tomorrow, then we have appointments 3 days in a row. One day at a time.

Many people have asked how else they can help. With Tara still not nearly at full strength, and my busy season at work coming quickly, our friends have extended the meal sign up another month. We cannot imagine having to think about groceries and meal preparation yet, although honestly, I kind of feel bad that we can’t. You can go to the ‘meals’ page and sign up if you are interested in helping in that way.

We are encouraged and God has proven his faithfulness again today.

Do you want to run a short race, or just wear a T-shirt in support of Tara and her battle with cancer? Lets show Tara how much we LOVE her! Join “Team Tara” with us! If you haven’t already signed up for the run OR just the T-shirt, here is another opportunity. Click the link to the sign up form. You have until April 7. Thank you!

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1VI8LpSZCiXfbiGcjqqCTdQYVIJpQnWrgNMAZ0OPjY9Y/viewform

I used to tell my family, “No matter what you do in a day, there are only 24 hours in it and it will be over at the end.” I would also say, “Everyone is busy; either busy sitting around or busy doing stuff. We might as well do something.” That was my rationale for being too busy.

Today, we were swamped. First we had to lay in bed. That took until 9:00. Some of that time we had to multitask; cuddle with kids AND lay in bed. Then we had to loaf until about 11:00; again multitasking along the way. At 11:00 we went out to eat. It continued with this kind of busyness until now. Wow, I’m beat. A day with this kind of busyness refreshes my mind, body and soul.

Of the many lessons I have learned in this season of life, a big one is that life is too short to be too busy; to not to have margin. Margin is the leftover time or energy that you have after the stuff you must do is done. Since life is unpredictable, margin is essential. If you want time or energy to have a spontaneous conversation with your wife or children, you cannot spend all your time and/or energy doing something else. If I want to help a friend in need (like you have done for us), I cannot fill up our schedule with “stuff”, no matter how good that stuff is.

This week is busy with clinic appointments for Tara. Tomorrow is the thyroid and upper chest lymph node biopsies. Wednesday we meet with the Oncologist to discuss results of the biopsy and with the Gynecological Surgeon to look at the abdomen to get official clearance to lift, walk, run, etc. Also on Wednesday we have a genetic consultation to discuss how this cancer came to be and what that means for our children. Thursday we have a CT scan of her body and blood work. Friday is chemotherapy.

Thanks for having margin in your lives to be able to help us. I hope it is not using up time you need for your family. Pray with them tonight. Tell them you love them several times. When your child asks to tuck them in, even if you are tired, find that last bit of margin to go for it. At the end of the night, it will be over either way, and you will have either done it, or not.

After yesterday, we needed to be reminded of the faithfulness of God. It is not in question, even when we are down in the dumps. Not very distant are the memories of surgery, first weeks of recovery, not being with the kids, struggling to even go to work, much less be productive. We have come a long way since then. At that time we looked back to see the way God had prepared our family for this time; physically, emotionally and spiritually. We remember that now again. We have also been encouraged, all along, by the people praying for us in Rochester, the US, the world.

I told you last week that I would take a picture of that map and show you. I spent some time this morning with the kids going back through those comments to make sure we accounted for everyone. Then I took a picture.

This has been incredibly encouraging today. God has used you to show us his faithfulness. Thank you!

If it weren’t for having to do it, we wouldn’t be doing it. What choice do we really have? Here we are; Tara is in pain with shingles…and justifiably grumpy. I am tired of telling the same story over and over again of how we are doing okay. Are we? My kids need more of me and I don’t know if I have it to give. We are sick of having people in our home. Tara is tired of getting treated like an invalid. We are only doing what everyone else in the world could do in our situation; surviving, barely.

We just heard the Easter story at church tonight, and I don’t feel very moved. In fact I feel like going downstairs and watching a UFC fight or a movie with some senseless violence. I know, I know. It should be different. But that is where I am at right now.

The beautiful thing is that without moving from where we are; without a change of heart; without having to think some spiritual thought first; God is willing to love on us; all pissed off just like we are. Now that IS moving. Somehow the realization of total acceptance no matter how we feel or how we act, does change my heart. Slowly.

I remember several times at home when I was mad at something and Tara quietly loved on me. Humble and gentle. I could not stay mad. She won my favor. That is what God is now doing in my heart. No expectations. Humble and gentle. Quietly loving on me. Winning me back again to hope and joy. Maybe the Easter story tonight was more impactful than I thought. This is the crossroads of life and faith. It meets here.