A word slithered in and wrapped around my chest just before Mother's Day weekend.  Some of you know it too well.

Cancer.

My heart twisted into a knot along with my aching back. Rain poured outside as I sat inside with my tears. It wasn't fear or despair; it was reality.  A deep sadness.  My beautiful mom was waiting for hip surgery, not a lumpectomy! 

As I caught my breath Sarah Clarkson's words in her new book This Beautiful Truth: How God's Goodness Breaks into Our Darkness, spoke to my soul. She says:

How can we believe what beauty speaks to us in the darkness of mental illness and cancer and abuse and death? Because beauty calls to us with the voice of God.

Like the yellow tulips from a faithful friend, this book was my heart's companion, weaving in truth and shining light when I needed it most!

Isn't that how God works?   Gracing us with the next beaming dot that connects us to His goodness.

This Beautiful Truth affirms the unsung heroes who walk bravely through whatever may come with the confidence that something—someone—greater is at work. 

I’ve watched and sometimes wondered at my mom’s boldness as she draws together the elements of beauty to celebrate every occasion, honor each new season and facilitate memories without ceasing!

It was partly COVID life and partly the news of my mom's diagnoses that prompted me to leave up the sweet Mother's Day decorations my family made for a few weeks longer.

It seems those who know the deepest darkness are the ones who fight back with the brightest light.

My mom's childhood was broken by divorce, yet she fought with the powerful weapon of beauty, designing and sewing her own clothing as a teenager, and continuing to nurture beauty inside every home with decor, and outside every home with her flower gardens.

Clarkson says:

To be a homemaker is a defiant act because it is work entirely opposed to the forces of evil.

It was haunting images and unwelcome pictures that plagued Clarkson's childhood with darkness and shame—holding her in a prison of worthlessness in her youth.

Advice and answers from well-meaning Christians felt distant, unfinished or cliche as she battled OCD. After sitting under the teaching of a well-known theologian in her adult years she noted the class was "so full of knowledge, there was no more room for love." Clarkson brought her questions but was crushed with dogma. She longed for meaning in the complexity of her mental illness so she continued to steep in rich stories told through books, art, and music. She found this:

For the power in beauty is not in brute strength but in the greater vision it offers, a vision to transform and redeem our suffering.

As she continued to search it wasn’t theology but rather theophany, a visible manifestation to humankind of God, that answered her soul's questions. Clarkson didn’t encounter angels or a burning bush, she encountered the steady comfort in her own mother's arms and the inspiration and companionship in her elegant aunt. She experienced unending love! A love she didn’t feel worthy of in her early thirties, as she fell in love with Thomas, an Anglican priest with green eyes and dark hair. Miraculously she laid bare the broken pieces of her story only to find them held together in the sacred circle of marriage and children! She describes this kind of redemption:

Where suffering has made God abstract and distant to us, where brokenness leaves us with unanswerable questions, beauty allows us to taste and see God's presence as he breaks in the circles of our inmost grief to remake the broken world.

Like Clarkson, my mom's brokenness in her childhood didn’t define her. She went on to raise six children in a thriving marriage.

Her faith made room for God's redemption for generations to come! Clarkson puts it beautifully:

Sainthood grows, like a baby hidden in the womb, in the space we make for God's goodness to fill and transform our darkness; it begins when we refuse, Job-like, to curse God, and instead prepare for his arrival amidst our anguish.

My mom's tenacious spirit will not just weather this cancer diagnosis but will blossom with the fragrance of Christ as she tends to her family and lovely garden through this unexpected season. Clarkson commends this hidden way:

Sainthood is so often a thing of quiet souls at faithful work in difficult, ordinary lives.

Last week our apple tree blossomed beside our Mayday tree as heavy rain and even snow came. I was frustrated by the timing. Why couldn’t we enjoy at least one sunny day before potential damage to these beautiful flowers?

Why couldn’t my mom get the hip surgery she’s been desperately needing before dealing with breast cancer?

But as I look up from writing today I see how both trees weathered the snow. Each branch held the weight of unexpected snow and yet hung on to beauty. I take the apple blossoms less for granted knowing what they survived.

What is your story of survival?

Clarkson says:

Beauty bears God's life to us, but it always calls us, in turn, to bear the life of God to the rest of the broken world.

Perhaps this is part of God's goodness. Each struggle, each trial deepening and strengthening the roots of our faith so that we can extend hope to others.

On Sunday my dad, our pastor, shared through online church about my mom's cancer and how they are relying on the Holy Spirit to walk them through this season. My dad's words of hope and vision have mentored me all these years and I felt a stirring once again in my heart as another story of faith unfolds in our family.

I’m on the edge of my seat, curious to see what God will do next. Perhaps the lump will miraculously dissolve before surgery next week—because yes we are praying this in faith! Or maybe our family's roots will grow deeper as we share in the journey of surgery, radiation and medication to fight cancer alongside our mom…

Either way—or some other way—I’m unapologetically chasing beauty!

Sarah Clarkson assures us in This Beautiful Truth, through the intricacy of her own story, that the goodness of God is here and now!

I’m drinking in His goodness.

I’m embracing all He is offering in this season.

This is how my mom lives and this is beautiful truth!