deeper things - stones, acorns, pine cones

Radiation day 18 of 35

Chemo made for quite a difficult weekend. Trust me. I dropped another 5 pounds, and now my job is to put some weight back.

When I was at the Ted Kooser workshop a few weeks ago, he mentioned to me a great idea. He told me that when he went through radiation, each day, he would pick up an interesting stone on his walk, and put it on his kitchen windowsill. It allowed him a visual of his progress, and at the end of his treatment, he put the stones in a pretty glass jar.

I thought that was just the kind of thing I would love to do, except for two problems:
1. My energy level is such that a walk from the bedroom to the living room wears me down.
2. Ted lives in the country where stones are more interesting.

But with nothing but time on my hands, I pondered a replacement for the stones and hit on just the thing. We have oak and pine trees in our yard. So, each day of radiation, I have been picking up one acorn to put on my bedroom windowsill, and each day when I do BOTH chemo and radiation, I pick up a pine cone. I have 14 acorns and 4 pine cones gathered on the window sill, and it is a growing collection. The Oak is prolific enough and the squirrels have let me take my daily quota. The collection is just past half way on its march across the window.

Here's why I like what I am doing. I SEE I am getting there. And the acorns and pine cones are representing for me the seeds of new life which will, prayerfully, be born of this trial. I will get a jar and treasure them when this is over.

"I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. " John 12:24

I pray the right things in me are dying, and the right things in me are springing forth with new life.