Shaken

Tonight I'm feeling a little shaken.

I have been purposing in my heart to make some changes. To run toward the Lord, to cling to Him, not to seek comfort in the things of this world, or my stinky onion layers. I have been desiring life and joy...determined, focused, excited about the Lies and Truth Bible Study...ready for a new year, a new adventure...excited to see what the Lord has in store for our family and Sufficient Grace Ministries in 2011. I've been having a grand time, getting my groove on with the Just Dance 2 game on our Wii. Dancing until I am out of breath, dripping with sweat, and laughing hysterically at myself. Good stuff.

The thing is, we are not in charge. We never know what is waiting around the corner. We may think we are going to get our dance on and wallow in a season of joy, reaping a harvest of the fruit that comes from sowing our tears during the seasons of sorrow.

We think we are ready for one thing.

And, something entirely different punches us square in the face shattering our plans.

I have shared before that watching my mother suffer and die from cancer was a struggle unlike any other in my life. It changed me...for the rest of my time on this Earth. Although I have leaned on the Lord, and felt His comfort and strength. I miss her daily...yet even in my missing, His grace is sufficient for me. I dream my dreams of longing for her...some ending bitterly. I experience her days of suffering like the flashes of a veteran returning from war. And...still His grace is sufficient for me.

Paul speaks in Corinthians of his thorn in the flesh. It was something that wasn't taken from him...something he struggled with all his days on this earth. Many of us have thorns in the flesh...illness, pain, sorrow, grief, loneliness, depression, physical and/or mental disabilities. We have imperfections, flaws, quirks. Call them what you want.

This afternoon, I heard that one of my dearest friends who has been battling cancer was taken to the hospital. She has endured radiation, chemotherapy, all sorts of procedures and medicines, and other forms of torture to fight the cancer in her lungs and brain and perhaps other places in her body over the past couple years.

This woman taught me how to be a wife, with her sweet, snarky way of telling me how it is. With her straight-talking ways, she drilled into my young, selfish, raised-in-a-household-where-women-were-in-authority mind the importance of honoring my husband and caring for my home...and training up Godly young men. She walked with me through the deaths of my twin daughters, Faith and Grace...and later my son, Thomas. She sat beside us as her husband delivered Thomas' eulogy under the blue sky with big, fluffy white clouds while the sun shone on our grief-stricken faces. One of a handful of people whose eyes looked upon our Thomas, she saw and appreciated his beauty. Her house was always the best place to have parties...the best food and fellowship. Her special gift has been making her home a haven for all who entered. She can make the best apple pie on God's green earth. She prays fiercely for everyone in her life...no doubt her prayers helped keep my marriage together through the toughest years. She loves and "gets" teenagers...and they love her right back. When in good health, she visited and encouraged, and genuinely loved those in prison as she helped deliver the gospel to them. Her words are part of the story...our story...shared in the Dreams of You Memory Book. Dinah and I are always saying..."The most beautiful gifts in this life emerge from some of the most difficult suffering. It's in the hard stuff that beauty is born." Saying it is much different than walking it.

She is my second mom. And, like my first mom...cancer has stolen much from her. She has toughed it out...much like she toughed out everything else this life has dealt her so far...with a perfect blend of grit and grace. I love her dearly.

And...tonight, she is laying in a hospital bed.

The outcome is uncertain, for now, as far as the condition of her physical body and mind. She has survived much more than doctors expected. And, we serve a God who makes all things possible.

I am trying not to look with my eyes....

Trying not to remember the flashes of the moments I watched cancer steal my own mother's mind and body...

Praying for my beautiful friend, Dinah, and her beautiful family.

Trusting that the same God who carried my mother and I through those days...will carry Dinah and her family in these days. Knowing that He is faithful.

When my mother was in the hospice center, Dinah sent me these verses:
Even to your old age, I am He,
And even to gray hairs I will carry you!
I have made, and I will bear;
Even I will carry, and will deliver you.
~ Isaiah 46:4

Verses I whispered to my mother as she longed for reassurance of His promises in the last moments of her life...

Tonight, I am shaken...

But my God is steadfast and sure. He is not moved...

But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;  persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed... ~ 2 Corinth. 4:7-9

Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal. ~ 2 Corinthians 4:16-20


When my world is shaking, heaven stands...when my heart is breaking, I never leave Your hands...
~JJ Heller




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