This morning, in the very early morning light, I squinted at the flowers that lined the apron of the yard just before the sidewalk.
I pass this house every day during my run at dawn, and every day recently, I’ve been cheered by masses of daffodils. On this day, though, I looked more closely. And then I stopped, utterly befuddling my dog. Blooming between all the nearly spent daffodils were hundreds of lilies of the valley. On this day. I smiled at the graciousness of God. Just as my mind had been replaying a long-ago memory of this day, God answered with a long-ago anthem.
Earth day. The day so many years ago when my cancer journey began with a worried phone call from my doctor. It all began on Earth Day.
That call catapulted me into surgery, diagnosis, and chemo, and then it was midsummer as I lay there, without hair, without white blood cells, without a way to escape what was happening in the bed next to me. I was the very young mother of a toddler son, fighting desperately to defeat cancer and reclaim the promise of a future. Just a few feet away, in the bed next to mine, the mother of two school-aged children was breaking the news to her loved ones that she would not live to see another summer. It was 1990. There were no iPhones, nor even iPods. My head screamed in pain as the opportunistic infection had its way, so the television tortured me instead of offering diversion and distraction. I couldn’t hold a book to read. I was a prisoner of neutropenia and the chance proximity to the most sorrowful conversations I could have imagined.
A new friend came by, a woman with whom I’d been paired when I asked a cancer support network to please find me someone who’d survived my disease and my treatment, and (let’s just shoot for the moon here), who’d gotten pregnant afterward. She came bearing a Walkman and a mix tape of Amy Grant’s songs. She knew. She knew that I needed songs of lament and of praise to minister to my frightened and sorrowful soul. I spent the next five days listening on endless repeat.
“Consider the lilies of the field, Solomon dressed in royal robes has not the worth of them, Consider the lilies of the field, He takes after each and every need, Leave all your cares behind, Seek him and you will find, Your father loves you so,” from the song “Jehovah” by Amy Grant.
And so, I did. Over and over again, I envisioned those lilies. In my mind, they were sweet, tender, white and fragrant. Years later, I would stumble upon the Song of Solomon and recognize them there — the lily of the valley among the brambles, his love song to his daughter. Tentatively at first, but with fervor later, I let myself believe that he would indeed take after each and every need. A cradle Catholic, I had a serious conversion experience in a hospital bed on 9 West, when I was 24. Forever more, that song, in particular, was my anthem. Two years later, when our son was born, we named him Matthew, for the precious verses from Matthew 6 that brought hope and healing to our darkest days.
Three times in these verses, ur Lord tells us not to be anxious. I wish I could tell you that I conquered fear once and for all in the summer of 1990. I did not. My prayers for children were answered with astonishing generosity. (I have nine.) All these years later, I learned that several teenagers at once and several 20-somethings at the same time meant countless opportunities to worry. Life constantly tempts me with anxiety.
The Lord is quite firm: worry is futile. It does not add anything of value to our lives. Worry doesn’t prevent bad things from happening. It doesn’t save us from the seemingly capricious acts of fate that rock our worlds. It doesn’t make us wiser or more capable. It certainly doesn’t make us holier.
Worry tempts us to play God. Like the pagans of Jesus’ day — like those of little faith here and now — we who worry are tormented by the notion that we are at the mercy of a merciless fate. Nothing could be further from the truth. We are tenderly held in the capable hands of a benevolent God. What’s more, He knows exactly what we need. He knows better than we do.
God asks us to exchange our anxiety for trusting obedience. He wants us to seek nothing but his kingdom and, if we do, he promises that all that we need will be added unto us. Every last need. So, I ask you to sing with me — songs of lament to be sure, but also songs of clear-eyed faith, the anthems of hope that ultimately triumph over fear and sorrow.
Foss, whose website is takeupandread.org, writes from Connecticut.
