How do you know when the fight with cancer is over? We will want to celebrate the end of this chapter, but when is that? After chemo? After surgery? When immunotherapy treatments are done? After 5 years of remission? It’s hard to say exactly when it will end, but there was a definite point in time when it all began for us. Today is a significant day in our journey: one year ago today we received the news that changed our lives. One year ago, we experienced the realization of a fear we’d been reluctant to even voice to each other. One year ago, we held each other on the shore of Lake Hollingsworth and cried until we couldn’t breathe. One year ago, we wondered how to tell our daughters what cancer is, and that mommy has it. One year ago, our lives came to a screeching halt. One year ago, our Savior bent down, picked us up, and held us closer than ever before.
It’s important that we take opportunities to pause periodically, look back over a season and take stock of where we’ve been and how far we’ve come. Anniversaries are those markers for us and as we look back over the past year, it is overwhelming to see how God has cared for us! Our devotions have never been richer, our prayers never deeper, and our time together never more precious. So many of you have been used by God to bless us! I was struck by this the other day, as I drove the van you all blessed us with to the store to buy diapers for Finley. I realized she is almost a year old, and this was the first time we’ve had to buy diapers because of your generosity and thoughtfulness (and we may never have to buy wipes)! I cannot even begin to adequately express our gratitude to you all who have faithfully lifted us up to God in prayer, and who have given sacrificially to support our family and ministry. For many of you, this faithful support extends back much further than the past year, and we are so humbled and encouraged to have such an amazing network of God’s people behind us!
One thing that is common among those who experience health crises is that you never trust your body again. Not that Kara lives with constant worry, but after your own body has once betrayed you, you can no longer easily dismiss something that feels off as insignificant. Generally speaking, we trust our bodies. Our legs carry us from here to there without much thought. The strength of our hands and arms is sufficient to accomplish our daily tasks, and our internal systems hum along faithfully with no conscious effort or awareness on our part. But anyone who is old will tell you: ultimately our bodies will fail us all. Our mortal frame is not immune to the corruption of sin. In our physical prime we do much in our own strength, and look to God for help only with things beyond our limitations. But in reality, we are foolish to trust in the strength of man! Our bodies can fail us at any moment, and we need God’s strength to get through every task, every day, whether we feel that need or not. God is always faithful and He will never fail us. He wants us to do ALL things in His strength and to give Him the glory!
The past year has been hard, but it has been good. We have witnessed God’s goodness and presence, His loving watchcare, healing and provision, and we testify that He has done it all. To God be the glory, great things He has done!
I want to share with you something I read in my devotions a few months ago by the “prince of preachers,” Charles Haddon Spurgeon. This particular reading was a great encouragement to us, and powerfully describes our experience thus far. Rather than try to summarize it and diminish his writing in the process, I will share it here in full with the hope that it will be a similar blessing to you:
February 12 (Morning)
“For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ.”
—2 Corinthians 1:5
There is a blessed proportion. The Ruler of Providence bears a pair of scales—in this side He puts His people’s trials, and in that He puts their consolations. When the scale of trial is nearly empty, you will always find the scale of consolation in nearly the same condition; and when the scale of trials is full, you will find the scale of consolation just as heavy. When the black clouds gather most, the light is the more brightly revealed to us. When the night lowers and the tempest is coming on, the Heavenly Captain is always closest to His crew. It is a blessed thing, that when we are most cast down, then it is that we are most lifted up by the consolations of the Spirit. One reason is, because trials make more room for consolation. Great hearts can only be made by great troubles. The spade of trouble digs the reservoir of comfort deeper, and makes more room for consolation. God comes into our heart—He finds it full—He begins to break our comforts and to make it empty; then there is more room for grace. The humbler a man lies, the more comfort he will always have, because he will be more fitted to receive it. Another reason why we are often most happy in our troubles, is this—then we have the closest dealings with God. When the barn is full, man can live without God: when the purse is bursting with gold, we try to do without so much prayer. But once take our gourds away, and we want our God; once cleanse the idols out of the house, then we are compelled to honour Jehovah. “Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord.” There is no cry so good as that which comes from the bottom of the mountains; no prayer half so hearty as that which comes up from the depths of the soul, through deep trials and afflictions. Hence they bring us to God, and we are happier; for nearness to God is happiness. Come, troubled believer, fret not over your heavy troubles, for they are the heralds of weighty mercies.
-C.H. Spurgeon, “Morning and Evening”