Windows...

     

Windows

        They offer a view into another place without having to experience the elements therein. As I sit here looking out this big picture window, watching the snow swirl and drift in the world outside, I wonder how the chill of that world has crept into my bones...the window has not offered protection from the cold world this time.

       It will likely be the last time I sit here and write, gazing at the snow fall on the other side of this glass. This house in Spokane has been a shelter for us way-faring travelers these past weeks. While Julianna has has her 6 weeks of radiation against this DIPG, our family has found refuge in this house. Owned by a stranger-turned-friend, who has turned out to be a guardian angel.

       I wonder what the next weeks hold? As odd as it felt to live here the first few weeks it has turned into some kind of a home. A place to rest and be together with the puppies. Finding this house was an answered prayer. The leading of God, the generosity and tenacity of friends, and the kindness of strangers.

       It has been winter every since Julianna was diagnosed. Not just the metaphorical winter of a bleak prognosis and chilling realities, but actual winter of frost and snow. More snow then we have had in many many years. Drifts, piles, and swirls. It seems that alot of snow has fallen outside windows as the fear has swirled and heaped in piles inside my soul. 

      The window looking out of the third floor hallway of Sacred Heart Children's Hospital Pediatric Oncology. Standing there gazing out of that window, my tears clinging to the glass on the inside seeming to mingle of the drops of rain and snow just outside.

       The front window of my car...my eyes clouded with tears join the snow flakes and the swishing back and forth, back and forth of my windshield wipers. Driving to Spokane on the November 20th, 2016 to see our girl. To hear the words, "She has cancer." Driving back and forth from home, to here, to Seattle, to home to here...Swish swish swish goes the wipers, drip, drip, drop goes the tears.

      The window of the Seattle Children's Hospital play room, waiting for Julianna to get out of recovery after her brain biopsy. A needle traversing her life center (brain stem) to reach the deadly tumor inside. Praying it wont damage anything important and leave lasting effects. That window held the warm air in and the cold out yet I remember shivering...

      I know there will be more window to look through. Winter weather will forever bring these days back to my mind...my heart. But for now, I sit and gaze at the golf course beyond the back yard unrecognizable by the piles of snow.

"Now we see through a glass half darkened, but soon we shall see face to face." 

(1 Corinthians 13:12) 

      We live with the promise that the view through these windows is not the final view. That what we see outside that glass, the chill of fear in our bones, the drifting snows of pain and doubt are not the real picture. It is the darkened picture of this world that we see only. We live in hope of the clear view, the full picture being revealed.

      On that day, then the darkness will be lifted and the glass will vanish and the scene our eyes will behold will be clear, and bright, and victorious! Holding onto that day, holding onto that hope. Please come soon Jesus...

- Sis