June 1st was the 7-month anniversary of my bone marrow transplant. Halleluiah! Last week with my oncologist’s permission, we took our three kiddos and two golden retrievers to the beach for a long weekend. I am still under many precautions, including zero sun on my skin, so you could find me dressed in jeans, double hoodie sweatshirts, and a scarf while Kate and our nine-year-olds donned sunblock, beach hats, and bathing suits. Those balls of energy body surfed the waves, built sand castles, played cards and had Jedi Star Wars fights on the beach all day.
Our time was deeply healing for me. Physically, yes, but also in parts much deeper that needed tending to. I found myself standing in specific places around our house where just ten months ago I had stood in darkness and said goodbye, in case the leukemia treatments failed. But this trip, I spilled several tears on balconies and in the kids' bunk bedroom where I gratefully got the chance to say hello again. The soundtrack throughout the entire experience was a new song by Bruce Springsteen titled “Hello Sunshine.” It felt so timely in my life.
Each morning at breakfast we saw the dolphins bob up and down fifty yards offshore. We saw a few sunrises, jumped a lot of waves, and in the evenings watched some family movies with ice cream and popcorn snuggled on the couch with comforters my grandmother made fifty years ago. With each passing day, some deep part of me healed. There is more life to be lived for me with my family.
Alongside this healing and restoration, we were walking through some heaviness as well; throughout the week we were in touch with my mom from the hospital. She had some irregular heartbeats and shortness of breath and after an overnight stay, the doctors installed a pacemaker in her heart. We were all concerned and she was a little anxious, as fluid in her lungs continues to cause discomfort. We keep ‘Baubci” in our prayers daily.
Mom’s issues had me thinking about matters of the heart the entire week. One of my regular adventures with the kids at the beach is to hunt for seashells during low tide. And most particularly, we search for heart-shaped shells. Heartshapers! Sometimes the kids will bring me a shell for evaluation, and I have to play the judge. My ruling is either ‘yes, it is’ or ‘no, sorry, that’s a stretcher!’ A stretcher, of course, is a shell that kinda sorta could look like a heart if you squint and tilt your head just right. We don’t collect stretchers in our family. In fact, every summer we line up all our heartshaper shells on the outside table and we purge the collection for any that have turned into stretchers since they were last evaluated. It’s a rigid process keeping our heartshaper collection in tip-top shape.
I am convinced that the Lord puts heartshapers in our lives in many ways, not just on the beach when we are hunting them. And true to form, the Lord was generous last weekend. My seven-year-old and youngest, Jordan, is my ace heartshaper finder. We often hold hands as we scour the beach hunting our prize. One evening at dinner, with her meal half eaten, she stopped and held up a popcorn shrimp and said, “Hey dad, a heartshaper shrimp.” My immediate thought was, this could be a stretcher, but to my surprise she had a legit heartshaper! I smiled and she took it down, popped it into her mouth and grinned at me ear to ear.
The next day Kate unveiled a beautiful piece of abstract art that Kate had commissioned our niece, Erika, to paint for the beach house. Kate hung it on the wall and it was perfect! I stood back and looked at it from across the room smiling with satisfaction, when suddenly, my eye focused on a small area in the right center of the painting. Was that a heartshaper in the painting? I happened to have one of the morning's shells in my pocket so I pulled it out, and put it up to the artwork, and sure enough, it was an exact match. We all got closer and couldn’t believe our eyes.
Later I was napping on the upstairs couch where I get a perfect view of the ocean through a sliding glass door. It is my favorite spot in the house because I can see our clan’s layout on the beach and I can watch them play all day long from the air conditioning. As I scanned the entire frame of the sliding screen, I noticed that there was a slight tear and hole in the screen. Something in need of fixing to put on the list, I thought. But as I looked closer, much to my surprise, the hole was in the shape of a heart. No kidding. My rational mind immediately protested and suggested this had to be a stretcher. So, I got up and took a picture of the hole with my phone. Later that day, Kate confirmed it, it was a heartshaper indeed!
I find that the more I have eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart that stays open, the more heartshapers I see all over my life; small, sweet kisses and hugs from the Lord reminding me of how ever-present He is in our lives. All we have to do is pay attention. You don’t have to be at the beach to notice them! So, I ask you, how many heartshapers have you noticed this week? Pay attention. They are there, I promise.