From an article originally posted January 27, 2014…

The evening hours are always the most difficult. My heart breaks, my fears come, and certainly the lies persist. My failures feel as though they are placed under a spotlight, and grace is difficult to come by in the dark. It was so good to share my heart in this place, to cry big, hard tears, and to invite Jesus into my broken heart to walk me towards grace. I wrote, I prayed and I went through old emails and watched films that brought me hope and encouragement. I want to share those videos with you here. They lifted my face, gave me gratitude for today, and helped me to see the living today as a grace, even in the uncertainty of tomorrow. Despair is such a liar, cancer a breeder of fear, but grace, real grace is living in the joy that is before me today.

This music video was also sent to me, and I had not watched it. It’s beautiful and it encouraged my tears along. It spoke my heart of my struggles through loving well. Struggles fighting my own felt selfishness each day. My hope, my deep hope to move past those fears, struggles, and live from the place of love and grace that has been lavished upon me. From that place, from that beautiful overflow, meet my nearest neighbors with grace and beauty. And in my failures, my failures great and small, I would be met with the ability to be humble and apologize and repent, seek undeserved forgiveness. It’s the beautiful cycle of living in this life, the struggles of self.

Today, a dear friend of mine is flying to be by the side of her beloved mother. She is praying for the grace to be with her as she flies away home to heaven to her first love. I sent her this song, and I pray she makes it to the side of her dear mother. Cancer has invaded uninvited places in her beautiful body, and the heartbreak of losing a beloved mother is deeply felt. I cannot take away the pain of loss my friend must travel through, but I can show up and walk beside her in her grief. This story scares me, as her mama found her cancer soon after I found mine. The beautiful, ugly of the life we live in suffering and the beautiful ability to walk near to the broken hearted. To remind our loves of truth in the midst of their crushing hard.