Last year when I changed my blog to Barefoot… Living a life vulnerable to God… I made the decision I would live my life purposefully, playfully, prayerfully. I would hug my kids more, stop and stick my toes in the clover of our lawn more, be still and know God more, and it never occurred to me this would be hard. Not just hard, but battle hard, one big war hard to live this out joyfully.

2012 was like a boxing match. Going round for round with an invisible enemy set on stealing my joy. The really hard punch came last week, right before December ran out. I had a biopsy done on a mole on my leg I got while pregnant two years ago. I’ve been watching this mole nearly that long, the skin specialist saying it looked okay, me returning ever six months to ask, “Are you sure it’s still okay?”

This last appointment after Christmas, I decided I’d had enough watching the mole, I wanted it removed. The skin specialist agreed with me. It looked darker this time. Wouldn’t you know it. The mole came back melanoma.

 Just when I’d told God no matter what, in 2013, by His grace, I’d keep my joy.

“I’m sorry. You couldn’t escape your DNA,” said the specialist when she called me with the biopsy report. “I know your mom had melanoma. Do you have any siblings? They need to be checked for this as well.”

“My brother’s had some basal cell cancers removed. He knows to watch himself,” I said. During this conversation all I could think was, How am I going to keep my joy with melanoma? 

I then broke down and sobbed over the phone with the physician’s assistant.

“Are you okay?” she asked quietly.

“I’ll be okay, I have Jesus,” I replied.

“But you’re human,” she answered.

“Yes, I’m human.” Hot tears splashed down my face. At that moment sitting in my car in our driveway on my cell phone, I felt fiercely human. Hold-onto-life human. Sad and scared and tempted to feel sorry for myself human.

“I know it’s not the diagnosis you wanted, but we caught it early. You’ll be okay.”

I hardly heard the doctor speaking now. Instead, I heard God whispering to my heart. “I will restore you to health and heal your wounds” Jeremiah 30:17. I’d read this verse that very morning in my new 2013 devotion: Jesus Today by Sarah Young.  

After telling Scott, then making a few phone calls to prayer partners and family members, I sat on the couch silently crying into Cruz’s soft curly hair. I hid my face in the dark room not wanting our boys to see my tears as we all watched Stallion of the Cimarron together. Cruz loves to sit facing forward on my lap like I’m a beanbag. Often I have to restrain myself thinking of all the chores that need doing, or just plain wanting a baby break from Cruz. But at that moment with my mortality muscling out everything else, I realized there was no other place I’d rather be. Not one other thing I’d rather be doing then cuddling Cruz and sitting with my boys in our little family room full of bean bags and falling apart couches. If this was my last day on earth, I’d choose to spend it mothering my children. So why didn’t I feel this marvelous way about mothering every day?

The realization filled me with joy. Suddenly. Wildly. Wondrously. I was born to mother my children. Born to be Cruz’s beanbag. Born to watch Stallion of the Cimarron one more time with my boys. Hopefully a hundred more times. Hopefully until all our boys, even Cruz, outgrows movies with me. Out grows junior high. Outgrows high school. How suddenly that mountain of chores facing me while raising all these boys looked like the German Alps on a crystal clear winter morning… breathtakingly beautiful.

For three days straight now, and on top of this the melanoma diagnosis, Cruz has thrown up with the flu. After the movie, as I held Cruz in my arms while answering the phone (one of my best friends worried about me), Cruz threw up all over me. Straight on, full spew, covering me chin to knees in smelly barf and all I could think was I’m so happy I’m here for Cruz to throw up on. Usually I’m a puke-with-you kind of person, but it didn’t make me sick at all. I smiled.

Night and day, I’ve cleaned vomit. I’ve washed my hands umpteen times and they still smell like vomit. Even making a trip to the laundromat with beanbag pillows coated in vomit yesterday suddenly turned sweet. That inconvenient trip to the laundromat oh so very sweet in my memory.

To my great wonder, and a supernatural joy that has startled me, my life just got a whole lot sweeter.

And Jesus just got a whole lot sweeter. I’m trusting in His Jeremiah 30:17 promise of healing and I’m asking all of you who pray, would please pray for me for awhile? Not just for my health, but for my joy. I hope to have surgery next week, possibly as soon as Monday.

Before my diagnosis yesterday, I’d sought out some Bible verses on joy because I was struggling so in this battle for joy, and decided in 2013, I’d win this war. The verse below jumped out at me before New Years, but bounced around my mind, not my heart.

Today, it hit my heart…

“You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand” Psalm 16:11 NIV.