For thirteen years I’ve been sick.  I have chronic Lyme disease. (Actually, now the Lyme tests are negative and I’m getting stronger and stronger.  I’m learning to say I had Lyme disease.) This is how it started.

How and when I got infected is a bit of a mystery, but I think it was the blackberry-picking that did me in. Every summer, my dear friend Suzanna and I would drive two hours south, into the Northern Neck of Virginia, between the Rappahannock and Potomac rivers, close to the Chesapeake Bay and beyond that the fresh ocean.  George Washington grew up here; Madison’s birthplace is not far away.  I imagine our presidents here hundreds of years ago in the sticky Virginia summer, in the oppressive heat and weight of the wet air, them with all their proper waistcoats and breeches, Suzanna and I in our shorts, with the beautiful Virginia countryside around us—the same countryside that nurtured these men who built our country. Continue reading »

Spring is always a season that moves me to wonder and praise, this year more than most.  I watch the world burst with joy and beauty as God brings delicate, abundant life to branches that appeared to be dead — riots of diaphanous pink cherry blossoms, bright yellow forsythia, delicate redbuds.  I look at these and my heart dances to see the joy of creation (and God’s joy in his creation) on display in this annual resurrection — life from death.

I watched this year and felt like my own body was going through the same thing, like God was bringing life and healing to my body which has been so damaged.  There’s unspeakable joy in this for me as I have seen God healing me over these weeks and months, as my hope grows for what may come.  I can’t put it into words.  Continue reading »