24

I wish I were surprised and could say so, but the fact is: call attention to the return of your joy, and you'll almost certainly discover a cat and its poop in your minivan, also a dead bird in your driveway. I'm not even much phased, anymore; I just clean things up best I can and roll with Plan B.

(Plan A had involved my migraine-stricken friend Anjie.)

I was on my way to the zoo with the little kids, Plan B. I called my brother on my way, as I am wont to do, because I like to razz him about monkeys. He was in bed and couldn't get up. Some form of paralysis, he said, and he could shuffle a little after getting assistance to his feet, but he couldn't lift anything.

After my sister-in-law returned with meds, I hung up with my brother and called Pastor David, who prayed with the little kids and me via speaker phone. The kids and I drove on to the zoo and had a nice enough time. I called my friend Christy on the way home (where I found a dead squirrel in the driveway), and she prayed with me, too.

Cade got off the bus, and I scrambled to oversee his homework process and drive him to his dad's, manage my (napless) daughters, and clean up the main part of the house while carrying Baby Chip. It was crazy town, and when Rob arrived for small (large) group, I was cleaning the bathroom.

But, later, I laughed myself to tears because--when a man other than your husband leans in the doorway talking to you as you give your toilet a frantic scrub-down?--you know you've become family. And I could've handed that toilet brush right over; he wouldn't have blinked. So funny.

Soon enough, the log cabin was stuffed to the gills with six families, and how we've managed to get ourselves a thirteen-year-old babysitter who can manage as many smaller kids as we can shut in a playroom (fourteen, last night), I'll never know, but there we were: eleven adults learning and praying in peace on freshly-vacuumed carpet.

Rachel and Zach lingered and were eating with us when the phone rang: my mom. My brother had lost all use of his arms and legs and was in an ambulance, headed to Knoxville. I hung up with Mom and blinked my dry eyes at Rachel and Jim. I felt insulated, isolated, underwater. A little numb in the face, but floaty. At peace.

And the lame--with his restored level of potassium--walks again, today, and will soon leave for Baltimore and Johns Hopkins and a neurosurgeon. Please cover him in prayer, along with my sister-in-law and nephews.

You know, he told me, recently: he no longer fears anything but the Lord, and I made light, a little, saying something about my great fear of mice. But I understand, suddenly. A person can reach the point of utter surrender: do what You will, Lord, as if it were ever up to me, anyway. I'm all in. I acknowledge without reservation that everything I have and everyone I love has always been under Your supreme authority. I'm tired of pretending otherwise and, in fact, I'm awfully glad You're in control, because I'm so tired. So very tired, Lord.

And there is no fear on that foundation of faith, only peace. Only peace.

For My Brother