Oh how I have so many opportunities to learn so much during this cancer journey. If I could put all that’s my head and heart each day on paper, I could fill volumes! I’m truly so grateful for and humbled by all that He is graciously teaching or patiently reteaching me. I pray that they are lessons that prove valuable in your life and walk with the Lord as well! And if you’re reading this and don’t know Him yet personally as your Heavenly Father, your Lord and Savior (from what? you ask...let me tell you!), it is my prayer that you know would know Him a little more, have a clearer view of who He is and be drawn a little closer to the lavish love He has for you!
So much I could write, how to narrow it down...making choices is NOT my strong suit. I just want to pick everything! Like with fun, activities, hobbies, and even my cereal (growing up I’d mix them all together in my bowl!🤪). A couple things stand out to me from this week that carry a common thread. We have family reading in our home where we’ll cozy up together and I’ll read through a book aloud. With school, sports, church and everyone’s busy schedules, it’s sometimes hard to find time when we’re all together for it so on the long car ride up to and back from Tahoe, I took advantage of our many hours of together time to finish up The Hiding Placeby Corrie TenBoom. It chronicles the story of her Christian family hiding Jews in their home in Holland from the Nazis during WWII, their eventual arrest and then her & her sister’s horrific experience in Ravensbruck, a concentration camp. She describes in great detail the unbelievable horrors of life there from the humiliation, cruelty, inhumane living conditions, meager rations...stuff that makes your eyes pop and stomach turn in disbelief. Yet through it all, her sister, Betsie, maintained a peace that passes understanding (Phil. 4:6), joy in every circumstance , an attitude of gratitude (even for their flea-investing sleeping quarters!) communicated constantly in prayer and praise to God (2 Thessalonians 5:18). As my dear friend, Pattie Brown (recently diagnosed with a rare eye cancer), reminded me to do, Betsie faithfully kept her spiritual blinders on to keep looking to Jesus and seeing life through His eyes. The foundation of her faith was rock-solid despite the storm that raged around her. She saw everything as an opportunity to bring glory to her all-worthy God and to tell others about Him so that they too could glorify Him and experience that same untouchable peace and joy as they did!
How God uses trials, big or small, to help us put our blinders on and keep our focus on Him, our Rock and our Redeemer!
When we hit the proverbial “Rock bottom”, it’s a solid, immovable foundation to stand on and build our lives upon!
One of the many ways God uses trials for good in our lives is to “knock props from under our hearts so that we rely utterly on Him (John Piper),” the Rock of our salvation.
““Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you? Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built.”
Luke 6:46-48
“You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.” Isaiah 26:3-4
“For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken. On God rests my salvation and my glory; my mighty rock, my refuge is God. Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us. Selah”
Psalm 62:5-8
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