Lions and snakes - they're all the same...

Come later this summer, the delicate pale pink blooms of the beautyberry will develop into tight clusters of glossy, iridescent purple berries that give this native beauty its name.

Beautyberry grows wild in the moist thickets along Pollywog Creek - often entangled in grapevines and hidden by rusty lyonia and the heart-shaped leaves of potato vines - except for this one we transplanted to the backyard along the chain-link fence where it doesn't compete for space and nutrients, and we can more fully appreciate its colorful beauty long after spring and the azaleas have stopped blooming.

Delightfully cool mornings have drawn me and my work out to the backyard swing this week - where I can not only enjoy the beautyberry, but the cardinal family that still visits the feeders and a fox squirrel who's been sneaking in to raid those same feeders.

One morning I was comfortable on the swing - with my laptop, basket of cameras, and a fresh cup of coffee - and focused on an assignment when a long black snake slithered right past my feet and raced into the azaleas. I nearly had a heart attack.

Darn snakes - they've been ruining our day from the very beginning.

It was suggested that I put my feet up on the swing, but there was no room, so I concluded I'd just have to remain on alert - and there's a lesson in that, I'm sure.

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

I Peter 5.8

Snakes. Lions. They're pretty much all the same.

A heaven-hearted hope...

It's my favorite word in medicine, JR tells me after I describe the ongoing pain in my gut that landed me in the hospital two months ago and the grumblings the pain appears to produce. Borborygmus, he continues. It's onomatopoetic, don't you think - the medical term for intestinal grumblings? Borborygmus. He repeats, drawing out the bor bory, slow and deep.

JR is a PA in my gastroenterologist's office, and his little English lesson in the middle of my visit is amusing and makes me laugh, but it's not at all funny to hear that there are no easy solutions to the adhesions that they are sure are the source of my pain. Unless they cause a blockage, surgery to remove or cut them simply results in more adhesions.

The rheumatologist calls before my appointment last week. My hemoglobin levels keep dropping and he wants me to get more blood work before I see him. I'm not surprised. I can't remember being so fatigued as I've been the past few months. My iron levels are good. B-12, too. It's the anemia of chronic illness, he tells me. Iron supplements, a change in diet, or B-12 shots won't help, so he refers me to a hematologist for procrit injections. I worked for a hematologist once, so I know how this goes, and I resolve to refuse a bone marrow aspiration, should he suggest it.

I read that treating the chronic illness more aggressively is the best treatment for this kind of anemia, but my options are few. The rheumatologist offers the only biologic he believes won't make my lungs worse, but it comes with the rare risk of a fatal, untreatable brain infection. The risks are low, he tells me, but that doesn't mean anything if you are one of the ones that get it. 

I'm between a rock and a hard place, I tell friends, and that I think I'll stay on the Rock for now. I mean it. I'm not afraid of medicine. I'm an RN, a nurse practitioner even - once upon a time. For years I've willingly followed the suggestions of those in the medical profession I respect. But this? I pray and pray, but I don't have a peace about this medicine's risk, rare that it is, and I don't dare move forward unless or until I do.

The endocrinologist's office calls to remind me that I'm due for a sonogram to check on those nodules in my thyroid. The cyst on my cheek is getting larger and I wonder if I should have the surgeon who removed the cyst on my neck last summer take a look at this one before it gets any larger. And while I'm at it, I need to see the podiatrist about the corn on the bottom of my left foot that's causing me more and more pain. And I laugh again, thinking of JR's onomatopoeia and my mother's growing older ain't for sissies and the merry heart that's good medicine.

But what also comes to my mind is this...

Affliction is what fuels the furnace of this heaven-hearted hope. People whose lives are unscathed by affliction have a less energetic hope. Oh, they are glad to know they are going to heaven. But suffering makes the Christian experience more than signing the dotted line on an eternal health-care contract. Suffering turns our heart toward the future, like a mother turning the face of her child, insisting “Look this way!” Once heaven has our attention, a fervent anticipation for God’s ultimate reality – appearing with Him in glory – begins to glow, making everything earthly pale in comparison. Earth’s pain keeps crushing our hopes, reminding us this world can never satisfy; only heaven can. And every time we begin to nestle too comfortably on this planet, God cracks open the locks of the dam to allow an ice-cold splash of suffering to wake us from our spiritual slumber. 

Suffering keeps swelling our feet so that earth’s shoes won’t fit.  

~ Joni Eareckson Tada

I believe it. I truly do. And I'm OK with it, too. If I had a choice, I wouldn't choose these momentary afflictions that are swelling my feet anymore than Joni would choose paralysis and breast cancer, but to have that heaven-hearted hope and a fervent anticipation for God's ultimate reality makes it all OK.

{Photos: This week on Pollywog Creek - muscovy duck on the pond, a pair of grey squirrels in the sweetgum tree, and a fox squirrel out on a limb}

Sixty::Fifty-Seven

  Fox Squirrel

It wouldn't be Pollywog Creek without photos of our fox squirrels.

It's probably all my fault...

...but at least I now know that I shouldn't go to Africa. Not that I was even thinking about doing so, but Emily is and if I ever entertained the idea of joining her, I'm quite positive it would be a bad idea. I learned a long time ago what foods (sugar, grains, high carb fruits and veggies, etc.) are likely to cause my crohn's to flare, and I've been successful at avoiding them for some time now, but lately I've been pushing the edge a little and Sunday night at a missions banquet at church I went all out. Typical African meal - beans and rice and cornbread. Though I worked through it, by Monday I was in considerable pain. Yesterday I wasn't sure I was going to live. It was that bad. The worst of it was not being able to do the things others were counting on me to do - like watching Gavin and helping my elderly friend with her bath and housekeeping. And poor Emily, she was so worried about me yesterday that she called Louis to come home from work. It was that bad. My doctor thinks I probably picked up a stomach virus on top of the crohn's flare which is why yesterday was so awful, but the good news is that today is much better and by tomorrow I can probably start eating again. When I printed it out Sunday evening, "sick days" were not on my schedule for the week. There was no way I could have seen what awaited me just around the corner, but as I wrote in "Fear of the unknown" on Washing the Feet of the Saints this morning...

The truth is, none of us know what awaits us around the corner, but God does...

in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. ~ Psalm 139:16

I also know that when life gets hard, God's wisdom and grace will be abundant for the moment.

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. ~ 2 Corinthians 12:9

*Photo - a particularly spunky fox squirrel who could not be chased away from the bird feeders for more than a minute or two. After finally getting his fill of bird seed, he plopped down on a limb to rest.

There's color afterall...

...I was just looking in all the wrong places. In one of our devotional times this week, Emily I read Psalm 19, a passage I am quite familiar with, but on that particular day, it just seemed to say all there was to say.

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork... ...Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. ~ Psalm 19:1, 14 (ESV)

A few of my favorite things...

...from the past few days on Pollywog Creek.
This lichen growing on the wood fence posts is called cladonia cristatella or British Soldier. I'm fascinated by the various shapes and textures and the tiny red flowers. The thickets near the creek are overflowing with grapevines. I'm particularly attracted to the way they cling with long red tendrils, the scalloped leaf edges, and the colors and textures of new growth. I'm fully aware that not everyone has the same affection for the sweetgum trees that I do. The leaves are as brilliant in the fall as any we will ever have on Pollywog Creek. I even like the spiny seedpods and the way they hang from the bare winter branches. The goldfinches and other songbirds delight in the seeds before the pods fall to the ground and Gavin can collect them in a bucket. Who doesn't like the promise of a rose bud and yellow wildflowers and gold sparkling dragonfly wings? And it wouldn't be Pollywog Creek without fox squirrels. A sabbath sunset near the point where Pollywog Creek flows into the Caloosahatchee River. I'm awe-struck every time. Can anything but Christ Himself be more glorious than the rising or setting of the sun? I've been doing a little "blog-keeping" lately. A couple of my blogs have been like rooms in the house where the door has been closed and I'd forgotten what was in there, so I imported two of them - beautiful in its time and Project 365 - into this one, and eventually they will be deleted. Links to the imported posts from those blogs are in the sidebar. Our local crisis pregnancy ministry held a Walk for Life event this past Saturday. While everyone else was out walking, I stayed behind at the registration table and took photos of everything I could think of to pass the time until they returned - which is why there is a new "me" photo in the sidebar. My week is full of goodness. Today we were able to meet Casey long enough to give him a hug, some groceries, and chocolate cupcakes from Emily. The rest of the week is packed with "mission" opportunities, Bible study, doctor appointments (check-ups), lifegroup, my writer's group, a trip to Starbucks, lots of Gavin time (though its never enough), and planning for upcoming trips to Miami (for the Hillsong United conference with Emily), a Chris Tomlin concert in West Palm, a road trip to Gainesville, Atlanta, and Nashville, and finally a two-week stay in Texas when Austin is born - if the Lord wills it so. I told you it was full of goodness. What about you? What are some of your favorite scenes from recent days, and what goodness fills your week to come?