This post was meant to make its appearance at an earlier date — at least for the Chinese New Year. But today, March 4th — March Forth, seemed just right. We have had a wearying year so far. I was sick for six straight weeks. My husband and each of my children battled illness within these weeks also.
On Valentine’s Day evening as I was watching my daughter execute her adorable hip-hop skills during parent observation day at her dance studio, I received worrying and strange texts from my husband. I tried to reach him, but couldn’t. And then I received a call from a friend. “Steph. It’s not good.”
My husband was in the ER with confusion and an inability to execute simple tasks. It looked like a stroke. By God’s sovereign grace, he had managed to reach the one friend in our city that was less than a mile away and was able to reach him within minutes and get him to the hospital.
The miles I drove to the hospital felt like a slow-motion haze filled with horrific vulnerability. I felt the reality that either my husband could be gone before I arrived or that if he were having a stroke, my life would never be the same. My kids were with me and we prayed and we cried. The cold, physical darkness felt pervasive.
Two and a half weeks have passed in a different sort of sleep-deprived haze. Right now my husband is walking around our house picking up our backlogged clutter. He just commented that dinner “smells good.” Every test under the sun came back healthy and terrifically normal. His diagnosis: extreme sleep deprivation, high stress and bad nutrition. This combo crashed his brain, mimicking a stroke and giving him a recovery mirroring a nasty concussion.
He is more like himself every day. I’m thankful. So thankful. We have some changes to make. He has some changes to make. But he’s here. And that is everything.
“Courage, dear heart.” ~C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
This brings me to cake and laughter.
I finished re-reading Dear Mr. Knightley by Katherine Reay as the New Year arrived. I’m at 10+ read-throughs; it has become a comfort read in a stack of books that I will read at least once per year. I could write an endless list of everything that I love about this book, but this blog post is about one sentence from this book. (You should read it, that’s all I have to say…for now.)
In one scene, the main character, Samantha, is celebrating with two people who have become very dear to her. The author used this sentence to describe their evening: “We had laughter and cake.”
This is obviously not the first time I’ve read this sentence. I remember liking its succinct cadence and how adequately it described such a sweet season in Samantha’s life. It encompasses joy and community and the beauty of gathering together.
We had laughter and cake.
The current trend is to choose a word for the year. I have done this for several years and I like the tradition. My word is “WRITE”, but this wasn’t complete, only representing one facet of my life. So this year, as I was walking into January, I knew as soon as I read this sentence that this was my sentence.
We had laughter and cake.
This is what I want for my year. To gather, to laugh and to eat lots of tasty food with the people in my life. I want to cultivate community, creating opportunities for my family and for the people that surround me to connect deeply, to be known and to combat our culture is loneliness.
I love this sentence on its own, but also for its backdrop. The gathering, the celebration that was taking place in the story did not come with ease. It came with risk and vulnerability as all authentic, genuine-souled relationships do. It took effort being put forth on both sides, but it took one couple to step forward first. The same is required of us.
Our culture is as busy, disconnected, and fraught with loneliness as it has ever been. We need cake and we need laughter and we need to be together to accomplish it. (Because how fun is it to each cake alone? ;-))
What does this look like for us? Family dinners and family movie and game nights, a mother-daughter book club, hosting movie nights, inviting friends for dinner, gathering for spontaneous dinners over Little Caesar’s Pizza and pop and nachos to watch football games, coffee with friends, family walks whenever possible.
Some months we won’t manage much, (and this was certainly true in January and February) but creating a family culture filled with food and laughter has a soul-shaping value all its own.
I shared my sentence with my small group ladies over breakfast in January. As I had savored and soaked in the richness of the sentence, I had transposed the quote in my head. I shared my sentence as “We had cake and laughter.” So I suppose that it’s now my sentence too 😉 My sweet, lovely and talented friend, Amy sent me a text and picture on Saturday morning. She said that she couldn’t get my sentence out of her head and used it for inspiration. She painted my sentence. I love it so much I can’t even tell you. It will be in my house forever and above my kitchen table is the perfect spot for it.
When our small group gathered to watch the Super Bowl, I brought cake and another lovely friend brought cake. It just seemed right and fitting and good.
I looked at it often as my husband was recovering. The flowers pictured beneath the painting were bought by my husband as a Valentine’s gift for “his girls” along with apple fritters on the morning before he ended up in the hospital. When he was home and able to come sit at our table, we had long talks, we ate key lime pie, eclairs and turtle cheesecake (all delivered by a friend) and we laughed.
As our community, our family, gathered around us, supported us and brought food, conversation and comfort — cake and laughter abounded.
So, yeah, we’ve been having cake and laughter. God knew what we would walk through and I believe that he handed me this sentence as a gift and guiding light.
March forth, dear friends.
“Be comforted, dear soul! There is always light behind the clouds.” ~Louisa May Alcott
EXTRA THREADS {books I’ve picked up over the last several weeks}:
- Dear Mr. Knightley by Katherine Reay
- Summers At Castle Auburn by Sharon Shinn {I listened to the audio book of this story to help me sleep at night. It’s a favorite read of mine and I read it every year. The audio version was just perfect.}
- The Inheritance by Louisa May Alcott {her first novel, written when she was seventeen}
- The Songs of Jesus: A Year of Daily Devotions in the Psalms by Timothy Keller {a comfort to my husband and also to me.}