THE DECK CHAIRS

We have been here for a week, and I knew it was time to do it. I had to put out the deck chairs. It was the one task I knew would carry the most emotion returning to this scene of my first days with cancer. The 3 chairs were nestled together, two touching, much like the warm, bitter grief that spilled from each of our souls onto the other’s as we sat and tried to assimilate what we had just found out last August. It was on those chairs that shock and sorrow rained down on our bodies and hearts until we felt we would never be able to come up for air. It was on those chairs that I said goodbye to my life as I once knew it. It was on those chairs that the devil convinced me that I would never see this place I love again.

Sam and I took them out of the garage this afternoon and set them back on the deck. I had my “moment” and then, I did what my sweet friend Lee told me to do: look at those deck chairs with my “new eyes.” Lee reminded me that last summer, I had the inevitable eyes of defeat and loss and sadness. I now have new eyes of faith in healing. And that is what I did. I looked at them with my new eyes of faith.

I did it, and I was not swallowed up in the old grief. As my faithful prayer partner Julie (whom I will dearly miss all summer every Wednesday at 1:00) told me, “Do NOT let the devil steal your joy.” Ju, I did not let him. He might have come to settle in and stay last August 13. But he is defeated. He was kicked out of this scenario a long time ago. A party guest that was not invited and stayed too long. He brought his cancer and planned to crash my life party. But when Jesus reigns, he has to flee. He has. He will not steal my joy.
　
　

THE DECK CHAIRS.....WITH NO MORE SORROW!