September 30, 2014

Monday was a tough day… and I have to remind myself that it is okay to have those.  We should all remind ourselves

it is okay.

Before I had cancer I would say I was very insensitive to all that having sickness and deep trials meant for someone's life.  Partly because deep down I feared cancer stepping into my life.  I would have assumed that when someone who had cancer is at once cancer-free, life would then return to normal.  But now that I am that person, it is most certainly untrue that your life goes back to how it was.  Entering into life after cancer has been so far from normal for me.  It is more accurately described as completely different.

I have bad days.  
I struggle with fear.  
I read too deep into every ache or pain in my body.  
I wrestle with guilt over my healing.  
I still lose my patience.
I don't always seize every new moment and day with a big smile and joy-filled heart.
And I certainly feel guilt for feeling all of the above…

If I am healed, shouldn't I be living more freely every day, every single minute?  I must have learned nothing if I am still failing in the little things.  I should have it more together, right?

Then, when I turn to scripture I am not always instantly covered in peace.  Do not get me wrong, there are definitely times when the Word speaks loudly and directly to my heart piercing me to the core and powerfully over taking all that the world has thrown my way. But sometimes I find myself once again reading scripture and having to pull it apart, wrestle through it, think on it for hours, even days at a time, until finally I am able to piece it together in my heart.  And it is then that I am reminded once again
and again
and again
and again
that
I 
am
so
in 
need
of
Jesus…


I am flawed.  I have a daily need for Christ to make something of the mess that I am.

I hope no one would ever think I have it all together, neatly sorted out in my head….
Oh the daily, the moment by moment need to surrender, to choose, to trust.  I certainly do not always have it together….

But I know the One who does… the One who pieces me together… the One who works and only asks of me to trust.  I know Him.  And He doesn't expect perfection of me.

Only a tender heart.  Only a teachable spirit.  Only to be a willing vessel.  Only to be a pliable piece of clay.

He is okay with me meditating on and working through His word!  He wants me to search Him.  He desires that I go deeper with Him through my questions and doubts and sort it out alongside Him and His word.  And He delights in displaying His great strength in my weakness.  That is where we grow, Christ and me.  This is where my weary heart is strengthened.  This is where my hope is anchored.

I read recently a beautiful picture of how it "goes"….

I trust.  He works.

If I will ever grow, mature and profit by trial it must first be through my confession to not have it all together and my trust that He will work in me.  He will never stop.  I will never "arrive" in this life at a place of having it all together.  It is a process, His process in me.  I am his workmanship…. and I believe this is a process to being crafted from a piece of clay into a masterpiece, His masterpiece. To become what He intends for me to be and to be prepared for what He has for me, I must choose Him again and again in trial after trial.

I love this quoted from a recent sermon I heard,

"It is written by one who is seeking himself to profit by trial, and trembles lest it should pass by as the wind over the rock, leaving it as hard as ever; by one who would in every sorrow draw near to God that he may know Him more, and who is not unwilling to confess that as yet he knows but little."

-  Horatius Bonar

In Job 42: 5, Job says, "I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees thee."

I heard much of Christ before my suffering, but how true, that in the depths of suffering, pain and waiting I see Him all the more clear.  It is beautiful, what comes of being willing to confess our weakness and choosing to trust the Strong One.  To confess we know little and search Him out to know Him more.  Christ, our greatest gain, is most beautifully seen in the middle of the unknown,  His presence so near and more real than ever experienced before.  We may think we experience Him greatly in times of providence and prosperity only to find it is the time of adversity that we truly see Him as Job describes.  And that is what makes our suffering worth it all... worth each tear and pain and, even, worth our questioning... that we SEE Him.

So, friend, please do not ever see me as having it all together.  In fact, I have learned of myself post-cancer that if you are struggling I am more likely to sit beside you and join in your tears, bearing the weight myself of the pain you are enduring.  How real it is to me.  How raw for me to still think of it from my own experience.  I am totally wrecked at the news of someone else diagnosed.  I am brought to my knees in sorrow at hearing of someone losing a loved one.  I am compelled to cling to someone going in for a scan or another treatment (people might think I am crazy if I actually did)... as I felt on Monday sitting in the waiting room of the cancer center watching person upon person go in for a scan.  And I will definitely agree with you in saying that it is tough to suffer.  That it stinks.  I will not deny how hard it is.  I will pray for you and I will most definitely hurt with you.

Yet I choose to trust.  I choose to believe what is waiting for us is better.  more.  complete.  

We can't wrap our minds around it, yet we are granted opportunities to glance at His face on this side and see for ourselves the beauty of trusting fully in Christ.

So, please, understand the girl I once was.  A girl intimidated by the Bible Know-it-all's and the ones who seemingly had it all together.  I could never see Christ past seeing their goodness and all my feelings of inadequacy.  Still, Christ continued to stir my heart to want to know Him more.  And although I certainly know still but little, I am choosing to press on to know Him more... to know more His strength in my weakness, His grace in my struggling, His love in my brokenness.

I have bad days.  Hard days.  Struggles.  But in all things I will choose to seek Christ.  I will choose to cling to Him.  To search Him.  I will choose to trust fully in Him.

I love this line from a beautiful song,

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus blood and righteousness
I dare not trust the sweetest frame
But wholly trust in Jesus name

When darkness seems to hide His face
I rest on His unchanging grace
In every high and stormy gale
My anchor holds within the veil

The "veil" was the entrance to the Holy of Holies where God's presence was found in the Tabernacle that the Israelites built as God's dwelling place among His people.  At Christ's death the veil was torn showing that there was nothing separating us from the presence of God any longer.  The Holy Spirit given to us, ever present, always with us, bringing comfort and guiding us every day.

An anchor is defined as a device used to connect a vessel to the bed of a body of water to prevent the craft from drifting due to wind or current.

Hebrews 6:19 says, "This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil."

Where other anchors sink downward to the depths before it secures a vessel, our anchor connects it's vessel upward to the Lord.  What a neat picture of where our hope can lie in the midst of the storm and the hard days.  It holds surely and securely to our hope… to Christ.

We are anchored to Christ… His very presence.  And this anchor withstands the winds and currents of life.  Our hope is not in the "here and now" but in all that awaits us!  I am leaning on this promise today... that He is not finished crafting me.  In the storms of life I remain anchored in Him.  Secure.  Steadfast.  Faithful.  Loving.  Jesus.

"For from Him and through Him and for Him are all things.  To Him be glory forever.  Amen."

Romans 11:36