I had chemo again today, attended by two of my flesh and blood angels—just one more example of God’s tangible grace to me here on earth.
My first angel drove me there and sat with me through most of my infusion. Our time together was delicious and Jimmy would have cracked up at how many words we used up in just two short hours.
My second angel of the day, bless her sweet heart, picked me up, though in all honesty, the trip home was a blur, as the premeds they gave me knocked me for a loop. I walked into the house, up the stairs, and went straight to bed.
I awoke three hours later and remembered that she had brought me a gift. It was a precious stuffed elephant, the significance of which she had explained to me months before.
The symbolism is rich and lovely.
𝐉𝐞𝐧 𝐇𝐚𝐭𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐫 describes it this way:
“A few months ago, my girl Nicole Nordeman sent me a picture and a story. It’s about female elephants.
See, in the wild, when a mama elephant is giving birth, all the other female elephants in the herd back around her in formation. They close ranks so that the delivering mama cannot be seen in the middle. They stomp, and kick up dirt and soil to throw attackers off the scent.
They surround the mama and incoming baby protectively, sending a clear signal to predators that if they want to attack their friend while she is vulnerable, they’ll have to get through 40 tons of female aggression first.
When the baby elephant is delivered, the sister elephants do two things: they kick sand or dirt over the newborn to protect its fragile skin from the sun, and then they all start trumpeting, a female celebration of new life, of sisterhood, of something beautiful being born in a harsh, wild world despite enemies and attackers and predators and odds.
Scientists tell us this: They normally take this formation in only two cases – under attack by predators like lions, or during the birth of a new elephant.
This is what we do, girls. When our sisters are vulnerable, when they are giving birth to new life, new ideas, new ministries, new spaces, when they are under attack, when they need their people to surround them so they can create, deliver, heal, recover…we get in formation. We close ranks and literally have each others’ backs. You want to mess with our sis?
COME THROUGH US FIRST.
And when delivery comes, when new life makes its entrance, when healing finally begins, when the night has passed and our sister is ready to rise back up, we sound our trumpets because we saw it through together. We celebrate! We cheer! We raise our glasses and give thanks.
If you are closing ranks around a vulnerable sister, or if your girls have you surrounded while you are tender, this is how we do it.
There is no community like a community of women.”
To my angels, my elephants, my sisters, my Elizabeths, my secret keepers, my joy bringers, and all the wonderful women I have met through this page, thank you.
Thank you for stepping in and picking up the pieces. Thank you for giving me the courage to step into my calling. Thank you for being living, breathing portraits of the redemption God works when we leave it up to Him. 𝐇𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐨, 𝐬𝐨 𝐠𝐨𝐨𝐝.
So are you. And I love you.