Tag: faith

Isaiah 58:11 NLT

“The Lord will guide you continually, giving you water when you are dry and restoring your strength.”

Abraham found himself being led away from his home to a land he did not know.

The Hebrews were led to Egypt where they were eventually enslaved.

The Hebrew nation was then led to the Red Sea where they feared impending death until God miraculously parted the waters for them.

They were then led to Mount Sinai where they would personally encounter the living God. But they were terrified when in His presence and became disobedient: choosing a golden calf to worship that they could control instead of the omniscient, omnipresent Holy God.

They were next led to the wilderness where they would “wander” for 40 years in order to learn to trust and depend on the Lord before being allowed to enter the land promised to them.

Elijah was led into the wilderness after publicly declaring a three-year drought in front of the evil King Ahab and, his even more evil queen, Jezebel. He was told by God to stay by a temporary brook in Cherith. Cherith means “a cutting away”: here, Elijah was “cut off” from all things self-sufficient in order to be prepared for further use by God. Here he learned absolute dependency on God.

After being baptized, Jesus was led to the wilderness where He fasted for 40 days and then was tempted by Satan.

Everything in Jesus’s ministry LED Him to the cross.

We, too, are often led places we did not plan to go. We are often trucking along through life when something happens that turns us off the planned path. Sometimes it is a quick detour that provides an opportunity to see or experience things we never would have if that event had not happened and, for that, we are grateful. We might even say “this way is MUCH better.”

Sometimes it is a longer detour that makes us late for our destination. It is an inconvenience without entertainment. We aren’t pleased, but we still get to where we had been going. This detour could be because of something or someone else on the road or maybe we made a mistake and missed our exit. Natural consequences are real after all. We may veer off our path but can make it to the destination anyway.

Sometimes, something happens and we end up going in a different direction toward a place we did not plan on going at all. Many times we do not like this: THIS was not the plan after all. We can reject the new plan and fight like h*&^ to get back on track to where WE want to be or we can settle in and accept this new place to make it home.

And sometimes, something happens that simply hard stops us and we have no idea which way we will end up facing when it is all done. It’s scary and overwhelming. It’s not always without a sense of hope; that where we end up might not be bad…but we do know it will be different.

It can happen in a blink of an eye with one phone call: you have breast cancer.

Proverbs16:9

“In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.”

On January 17th I had a routine mammogram scheduled. I was “late” in having it by about 3-6 months from my previous (and normal) one. I have a physical annually where a breast exam is routinely done which had been the previous March- again, normal.

As the Lord saw fit, He brought a young woman into our lives, home, and hearts a year prior. Her mother had passed away from a very late diagnosis and fully developed metastatic breast cancer. She moved in with us after her passing.

As the anniversary date of her death approached, I felt convicted to quit dragging my feet and go get that darn mammogram. I felt it would dishonor her if I did not go get it done.

So there I am in my “glory”; feeling good about doing the right thing.

A few days later, I get a phone call where I was told I needed a second mammogram; a 3-D one. Let me just say, in that moment, that was all I heard them say. The last mammogram I had required a second one as well, so to have this happen again simply annoyed me and I tuned out to whatever else was said and rescheduled it.

Yes, a paper even came in the mail to say what the original mammogram showed and my Primary Care office even called me to make sure I was doing a follow up. I still paid no attention to the details and went on with my life without telling anyone else of this “annoyance” but my husband.

My 3-D mammogram was scheduled for February 6. On February 3, I went to a hotel near Lake Michigan in order to spend some much needed time alone with the Lord before having a lunch date the next day with a friend who lived in that area.

My time away with Jesus is something I am trying to schedule in every few months in order to nourish my relationship with Him and to be nourished by Him so I can effectively do the compassionate ministries I am involved in: one cannot pour from an empty cup and my cup had been getting less full thanks to life challenges.

My husband is used to my “time away” needs and is fully supportive of my role in ministry so off I went while he was in Atlanta for his job.

Usually, when I’ve had a personal spiritual retreat like this I have some kind of a plan: what to read or focus on. This time seemed different. I packed differently bringing multiple journals with me as well as my Bible and devotionals. The journals (especially multiple) were not my “norm”.

My dearest sister friend gave birth to her precious 4th baby boy the night before after having a rather stressful last few weeks of her pregnancy. He came a little earlier than her others had and our stress leading up to his arrival had been significant. With her other boys, “my darling boys” I call them, I conveniently was working when they were born and could quick visit her/them rather soon upon their entry into this world outside of her womb. This sweet one, however, was different. I wanted to see him badly but I knew in my heart that I needed to wait on visiting and get going to be on time with my date with Jesus.

That is a significant detail.

It had become a “pride thing” to be able to say I was one of the “first to meet her sons” and here I was choosing to not do that and would accept that I would instead see him in a few days.

I KNEW I needed to get going, but I was not sure why I had that urgency.

I got to the hotel, figured out a dinner plan, and turned on some music. Again, my “normal” would be worship music, but for whatever reason music without lyrics was what I craved: an instrumental hymns station was chosen.

I began to read through journals to see what I had written, where the Lord had carried me from or through as I was  distracted by a significant need in the life of my other best friend. I was definitely seeking peace as I tried to intercede for her and her sweet family.

In my reading and praying one particular passage stood out to me like a beacon.

Isaiah 43: 1-3

“But now this is what the Lord says- he who created you, Jacob, he who formed you, Israel; “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name and you are mind. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your savior.”

Well.

What on earth was that about?

I wrote it down in a few places and pondered over it. I saw it in correlation of what had been and was happening in my friends lives. I claimed it on their behalf with thankfulness.

And yet.

I suspected there was more to it than that.

I am a caregiver. I am a person who ministers to others first and hardly looks after myself. In fact, my new discipline of scheduled “time away” with the Lord is in response to my poor self care. It is easier for me to take care of others than to do more than the surface things in care for myself.

Let’s be honest: how often do YOU pray for yourself or ask others to pray for you when there is not a crisis? We often see the need in others as superior to our own, don’t we?

The truth of our faith is this: Jesus died for ME too. Jesus died for YOU too. He did not just call others His beloved; He called ME His beloved. He loves YOU as much as He loves the hurting person in your life that has a situation breaking your heart. He loves me that much too.

But we do not often live that way.

It is easier to encourage someone else than to be encouraged myself.

Here I am in the hotel room…feeling a strange peace with zero resolution or revelation. I confessed to the Lord that I was sorry I accept MORE from Him than Him. That I desire His gifts and not that He is the Gifter.

I opt to take a bath (another out of the normal thing for me to do).

As I was preparing the water, I stood in front the mirror. You know how those hotel mirrors can be: UNFORGIVING.

Enter in the self-loathing.

As I stood there, for whatever reason, I touched the top part of my left breast (not my right). I felt the lump in that moment.

Suddenly, the memory of what the technician had told me on the phone when we rescheduled my mammogram rushed to the front of my mind: we need to reevaluate the LEFT breast. I could see the paper with the initial mammogram result that had been mailed to me in my mind: a “mass” in the left breast.

I looked into the mirror and made eye contact with myself.

That Scripture came back to me~

DO NOT FEAR

WHEN you pass through the waters

WHEN you pass through the rivers

WHEN you walk through the fire

This was not an IF situation. This was a WHEN. And the WHEN was NOW. And the “you” was ME.

As I stared into the mirror at my reflection, I said to the Lord, “This is really going to happen isn’t it? I’m going to have cancer.”

What a strange reality to settle over a person prior to the biopsy even happening, yet it was there. A certainty.

I opted to not say anything to anyone. I took a bath with those instrumental hymns soothing me. I went to bed and slept extremely well in the Lord’s embrace.

The wind had just been knocked out of me.

In the morning, I knew it was time to tell my husband.