Category Archives: Suffering

Can we fail?

Posted on by

This week my friend got some shocking news. Cancer has invaded several of her major organs, and short of God’s intervention, her prognosis is terminal.

Thankfully she’s a Christian and believes wholeheartedly that either way, live or die, cancer or healing, her faith in God will carry her through. And I hope it will.

Today I prayed for her out of Psalm 27: “The Lord is my light… I will fear no one… I will not be afraid… I will trust God… marvel at his goodness… ask for his guidance… triumph over my enemies… sing and praise Him.” I prayed these things would be true for her as the future unfolds and that her trust in God won’t weaken.

Apparently there’s a chance Christians can lose their faith. I don’t mean lose salvation, just their hope in the Lord. After a terminal cancer diagnosis, it’s easy to become downcast, weak or defeated. If that weren’t a possibility, Jesus himself wouldn’t have demonstrated how to pray against it.

In Luke 22, we see him detailing last minute instructions to his dearest friends, the 12 disciples. They’ve finished sharing the Passover meal and within minutes Jesus will leave the room and walk to Gethsemane where he’ll begin suffering intensely for you, for me, and for these 12.

His time on earth is running out, and surely there’s urgency in his voice, no doubt making the men uncomfortable. He tells them that shortly a friend will betray him, after which he’ll be intensely tortured, then forced to sacrifice his own body and blood.

Certainly the men, sitting in the glow of gentle lamp light with full bellies, don’t want to hear this. They quickly change the subject, but Jesus, possibly on the edge of irritation, needs their full attention and does his own subject-changing. “Satan has asked to sift each of you like wheat.” (v. 31, NLT)

And suddenly they’re hanging on his every word thinking, “You mean our names came up in a conversation between you and Satan?” This would alarm any of us. But it’s Jesus’ next statement that should have concerned them most. “I have pleaded in prayer for you, Simon, that your faith should not fail.”

We learn by following the story that despite Jesus having already prayed for Peter, he does fail, causing heartache for Jesus and anguish for Peter. How many of the others failed, too? How many lost hope in Jesus and behaved accordingly?  How many of us? What about my friend?

To know Jesus is praying strong faith into us today increases our determination to hang onto him tighter, no matter what’s going on around us… even if it’s terminal cancer.

I’m going to pray for my friend the same way Jesus prayed for his, that her faith won’t fail, from now until the very end.

“Teach me, Lord, what you want me to do, and lead me along a safe path. I know that I will live to see the Lord’s goodness in this present life.” (Psalm 27:11,13)

Transported Back

Posted on by

I don’t know what prompted me to do it, but tonight I clicked on my email file entitled “Nate”. The day after we received his fatal cancer diagnosis, I started saving messages in this then-new folder. One of the first entries is the long letter I sent to my closest friends letting them know our dreadful news.

Following that are pages and pages of letters, literally hundreds of emails containing endless offers to help, promises of prayer, expressions of love, encouraging hymn-words and powerful Scriptures. Tonight I read one after the other for several hours until I was weak with gratitude.

I’m not sure what prompted me to delve into those emails. Maybe it’s that I’ve been missing Nate a great deal today, and possibly it’s because the non-stop activity of the last several weeks has quieted. As I plunked down in my flowered lazy-boy on a tiring 90 degree day without air conditioning, I was preparing for a prayer time when my thoughts turned to Nate.

Back then, as we took our first steps into the world of pancreatic cancer, we were uninformed and unproven. The pain escalated (both emotionally and physically), and the emails describe countless offers of (and eventually acceptance of) charity. Love-gifts are often difficult to accept, but gradually we understood that charity is simply another word for love. Even as I read the emails tonight, love radiated from the screen, and I was overcome with the thoughtfulness of others.

Reading was difficult, but I couldn’t stop, despite the tears. Overwhelmingly, the singular message to our family 20 months ago and to me tonight was of unfailing love, love from friends and relatives, and from God.

When a writer would say, “I have no words,” or “Words are inadequate,” they would often follow that with God’s words instead, a supremely comforting alternative. Isaiah 41:10 (below) was repeatedly mentioned.

Many corresponders reminded us we were all part of the same family, the family of God. How good it was to be steadily and repeatedly told of the bond we shared in Christ, because that assured us the emailers were now willing to share in carrying our burdens, too.

When I finally stopped reading, I felt like I’d been given a short course in “What to Do in a crisis.” Along with lots of love, emailers dispensed wisdom, encouragement, strength and hope in a hopeless set of circumstances. None of us knows exactly what to do when tragedy strikes, but these people all did something, and I’m so grateful.

Today I really missed Nate. Although it’s been a long time since I’ve gone back to those last 42 days with him, tonight it was the right thing to do.

“Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” (Isaiah 41:10)

A Perfect Match

Posted on by

I love the beach 365 days a year but especially on a day like today: 75 degrees, a light breeze, whitecaps and blasting sunshine.

While working from an old but comfy beach chair, God brought a distant memory to mind. Mom and I were walking together on the same stretch of sand, looking up at the dunes topped with greenery. It was a day like today except that it was 1955. The sky was then (just like today) a perfect example of “sky-blue.”

Without realizing it, Mom and I were thinking the same thing. “People say blue and green don’t go together,” she said. “But look what happens when God does it.”

If I’d known how to properly use the word “Amen” as a 10 year old, I would have. As it was, Mom planted one of those valuable line-on-line nuggets of wisdom in my young heart, and God’s Spirit caused it to take root. In the years since then, those roots have nourished an important idea:

God can do what people can’t.

It’s easy to apply that logic when mother and child are enjoying the scenery, but does it pertain to the monster-size crises of adulthood?

 

Examples abound:

  • An addict surrenders to a “higher power” and learns his name is Jesus, committing to sobriety and spreading that good news.
  • An abandoned child comes to Christ and grows up to lead a ministry dedicated to rescuing children from abuse.
  • An imprisoned criminal becomes a Christian, and hatred morphs into love.

These are real-life examples of people I know. In each case God combined two “colors” that wouldn’t rationally “go together,” and the results were spectacular:

  • Addiction/sobriety
  • Abandonment/rescue
  • Criminal behavior/loving actions.

So, what about the challenge of widowhood? The trouble-list is long: loneliness, fear, separation, sadness, and unwelcome change. What unlikely “color combinations” might God make available?

As we look at our list, we already know:

  • Loneliness/companionship
  • Fear/safety
  • Separation/togetherness
  • Sadness/joy
  • Change/assistance

The trick is to open ourselves to these out-of-the-ordinary combos, to actively look for them. Before our husbands died, loneliness wasn’t a problem; we had their companionship. If we were afraid, they protected us. We were together, and it was joyful. But now our men are gone and can no longer be these things for us.

And so we look to God. And what we see is his gentle, steady bringing of the things we miss. He provides the positive counter-balance to every negative, meets our needs and brings a “green” to enhance every “blue”.

The alternative is to refuse his help, which leaves us stuck in the misery of loneliness, fear, separation and sadness. That would be like Mom and me walking home from the beach with our eyes on the asphalt.

“My God shall supply all your need…” (Philippians 4:19)