Through the fire

I was having dinner with a sweet friend the other night. She is one of those people that when you are around her, Jesus becomes the topic of conversation. Maybe it is because she has gone through a lot in the last year or maybe she just loves Jesus in a way that is special. Either way, we were having dinner and we started talking about Jesus and what has been happening at our church. We both feel super blessed to be a part of the community of believers that exemplify God's grace and love, especially when we go through trials, like many of my brothers and sisters are going through right now with sickness, joblessness, financial woes, and broken relationships. We also understand that trials come, not only from seeing what was happening with our church, but also from our own lives and the trials we each have faced in the recent years.
I heard somewhere that if our lives were easy, we would never need to grow. I truly believe that, just reflecting on the fact that I have grown more in the last three years because of a hard time than when I was going through easy times. We can't be refine if we don't go through the fires of life. As we continued talking, this thought came to mind, the fact that we are refined by fire, there was another story in the Bible about fire. However, this fire was an actual fire that was meant to destroy and not refine, a means of death and not of life. It is the fire that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were thrown into by Nebuchadnezzar for their refusal to worship him. However, these three men were not destroy, but rather saved from it and are revealed to be in the fire with a fourth person, the preincarnate version of Jesus, about 700 some years before He entered the world. I sat for a second and made this connection: We will never go through the fire alone. Just like the three men in Daniel, someone is in the fire with us, not allowing it to consume us, but used for the Glory of God to make His name known. How sweet is it to know that we never take the road of trials alone, even when it feels that way.
We continued dinner and this same friend made the comment that I was wise. I don't know about that, I feel I have just been through a lot of fires that have taught me and changed me into something new. I am not wise, I just know this simple truth that most 3 year olds can sing: Jesus loves me, this I know. So next time I am in the fire, I will sing Jesus loves me and know He is there in the flames with me, teaching me until I am more than I was before. There will come a day when the fire is gone, but until that day, to sweet Jesus I will cling in the flames, in the rain, in the sunshine, and in the calm, until I am becoming more like the one who guards me from the fire. Praise God for the fires!

The Big C

So it has been a while since I let the cathartic power of writing be unleashed, but that has not stopped the messiness of life from being ever present. I just found other ways of dealing with the mess, like crying, screaming, driving, etc. But this is the the only way I can articulate what and how I am feeling with the mess.

Speaking of mess, I found out a few weeks ago, that my church has been rocked hard with cancer. And I mean ROCKED HARD!!! This isn't an isolated incident or a something I can brush off because it is affected someone I don't know. We had multiple women find out that cancer was a part of their journey. No, these cancers are invading my sweet sisters' bodies and causing too much mayhem! I know I live in a fallen world and that with the Fall of Adam and the entering of Sin into the world, sickness came, too. But seriously Cancer, WTF!! I know it is not politically correct or even helpful to say, but that is what I am feeling. Maybe it is because I already walked with Cancer in my life and lost a loved one along the way, but Cancer is one of those things that I wished didn't exist, right along with peas, stir-up pants, and heavy metal music.
However, it does exist and it destroys. It destroys bodies, future plans, day-to-day order, and relationships. That last one is the hardest, for a disease to destroy relationships, but it happens and that is the devastating part. Walking with Cancer, your relationships are put to the test. First, do you run or as a friend's daughter's onesie said, "Fight like a Girl". If the relationship is important, then I hope I would fight with everything I have in me. Then, after sticking it out, the relationship is strained with doing and saying the right thing, that it makes running easier. However, it is not what you say or do, you are there with them in the fight. And the best thing you can do is PRAY! Pray hard, pray deep, pray until the words stop coming, then pray more with your heart's words. Pray until you weep, until you laugh, until you can't go on, then pray more! And while I pray that God will heal my sisters' cancers, I pray more that He will be known through these trials, that these women will feel Him so close, they can't run anywhere but to His scarred hands for peace and rest.
So I decided to stay and fight, and I am praying for those with cancer, but those aren't only the relationships that can be destroyed. While walking through cancer previously, my relationship with my family became so strained, that it fracture some relationships beyond repair. It came from thinking that what someone was doing or saying was not helpful, or that the person didn't care, or just the emotional strain of cancer and saying things one didn't mean. I pray against that for my dear lovelies, that their relationships will be strengthened against Satan and his use of this trial to build a stronghold. Oh, how Satan loves to use our frailty to destroy more of us. I pray that God will reinforce bonds and that while my girls fight against this invader, we fight against Satan's attacks to destroy their support system.
So, with all that being said, I detest Cancer with the passion of a thousand whales. But I know that it happens and all that it brings with it. I pray that healing happens, but I pray more that God be glorified in the sadness and devastation of cancer. And I am ready to fight like a girl, are you?