Compartments

This post is #38 in a year-long series ... Through this series of posts I plan to share our family's experiences during our 17-year-old daughter's year-long battle with brain cancer, which began in February of 2008. My desire is to process through the events of that year from the perspective that a decade of time has brought ... for myself, really. But if you'd like to follow along, you're welcome to join me.

Photo credit: a killing word on Visualhunt / CC BY-NC-ND

When I was a little girl, my most prized possession was a tackle box full of plastic farm animals. Yes, that's what I said, a tackle box ... not full of fishing equipment, but full of plastic farm animals. As a matter of fact, I loved this tackle box so much I always kept it by my bedroom door so that if there was ever a fire in my house, I could grab it on my way out the door. (My mother is probably laughing as she reads this.) It was a big green tackle box, and after you opened the lid, you could grab the top tray, lift it up, and suddenly you had three levels of little compartments. I thought that was quite a feat of engineering. And in those little compartments, I kept all my plastic farm animals. I had compartments for horses, compartments for pigs, compartments for cows, compartments for sheep, compartments for chickens ... separated, of course, by mamas and babies, spotted cows and solid-color cows, brown horses and black horses, etc. And down in the bottom part of the tackle box, I kept all my little plastic fence pieces. I would spend hours playing with those little animals, and then meticulously put each one back into its place.

I don't remember how old I was when I finally stopped playing with my tackle box of animals ... but I've never lost my affinity for compartments. I love roll-top desks with all their little cubbyholes and drawers, and the Container Store is one of my favorite places to shop.

I like for everything in my life to be in its place. And up until February of 2008, my tackle box was in perfect order. All the little pieces were exactly where I wanted them to be...in nice, neat compartments where they belonged. And then Hannah's cancer diagnosis came along, turned my tackle box upside down, and shook everything out. And even now, ten years later, I'm still picking my little plastic animals up off the floor.  Most days I seem to have it pretty well together, and then there are days I feel like those little pieces are slipping out of my hands again.  I'm so thankful that my Heavenly Father is with me to help me pick everything up and put it back where it is supposed to go.  And I can tell that He's not putting all the pieces back in the same little compartments...and I think that's a good thing.

"And He who was seated on the throne said, "Behold, I am making all things new..." Revelation 21:5