Heart Hurts, Hands Work Part 2

I’m beginning to see a pattern here.

When (multiple) friends miscarry their babies, I mop the entire house. In one night.
When (three) friends bury their babies, I knit like mad. And I am a terrible knitter.
And when (two) friends have to help “torture their babies” with chemotherapy “in a prison”, I get sweeping. And window cleaning. And sewing. Anything to keep moving.

As if motion could make it all go away.

My mom wonders often, “What’s wrong with the world?”
I tell her just as often, “We are.”

Sin decays everything, even the innocents. I hate the devil. I hate cancer. I hate death. So I just cry out to God (who could have kept these things from happening….who is good, all the time…). And I keep my hands moving. I want to be angry. But how shall I be angry at God? He sees the beginning to the end. I know nothing. Worm. But He still lets me cry. And hurt.

Just last week my friend and I were discussing all of the crazy demands on her time. Two days ago all of that noise got cut off as she whisked her two year old son to the hospital where he was promptly diagnosed with leukemia. And there she is, with her son, while her husband and five other children and home and dogs and goats and poultry and new pony and milking cow await for the two of them to come home. In a month. Minimum. And then she can add “three years of cancer treatments” to her calendar.

But, hey….at least she can meet my 5 year old neighbor, who is there as well battling her own cancer.

*sigh*

When these things happen, I just get busy. I don’t know if I pray better that way or if it’s just a distraction so I don’t have to get buried in despair. All I know is that if I can create something lovely from working through the pain, then maybe…maybe it’ll be a puny way of kicking satan in the teeth. His bite may be horrible and fearful and loud, but even my friends know how it all ends.

The empty tomb was just the beginning. Someday, sweet mommies, someday…