from an article originally posted August 6, 2014...

I awoke early, early this morning. Eyes wide open, I tried to attempt to fall back into the slumber I had been enjoying. Dreams have returned to my sleeping moments, and I so love a great dream. I started to think through my retreat talks and my mind took off. Then, all at once, I heard the blessing of the crackle of a pull-up walking to my side of the bed. I looked upon the sweet face of my youngest and simply said, I was hoping you would come. She smiled up at my face and crawled to her spot between Jason and me. I smothered her face with kisses and hoped she would stay awake with me at 4am. Sadly, or not sadly, she reentered a contented sleep beside me—arms tightly gripping my neck and one leg draped over me. Soon her grasp loosened and she fell back into deep sleep with my guy deeply breathing and enjoying sleep beside me. Both of them sleeping soundly, I decided to make my way downstairs.

You see, today I once again meet my kind faced oncologist. I want to keep secrets from him. I don’t want to tell him my quiet worries for fear that he will change up my already impossible regime of chemo. Stomaching the pills feels already impossible, and a stronger option hurts to consider.

So I found my way to the coffee pot and attempted a pot of coffee. And I came to my screen and started to write about what God has shown me through this story of mine. The writing reminded me that his goodness is present when goodness isn’t felt. It was good to read, be quieted, to listen. To hear and remember of goodness restored my heart. Jason preached last week that our hope is not in a good diagnosis or hope for a cure, but in Jesus. Our hope is hidden in Jesus and the coming of peace, and our present peace found in Jesus.

Some days it’s a fight to return to that peace. Some days it takes waking at the dark hours and cracking open the goodness of God in his word. To see the story that is being shaped as good. Not awful. So today I will brave the 4th floor appointment. I will have a new infusion for my stripped and weak bones, and I will look upon the sad face of my oncologist when I share my quiet secrets of cancers new corners in my body. I will tell him the story isn’t bad. It’s God’s story growing in me.

Today in the quiet of my appointments I will be praying for the ladies that will hear from that story in the coming months. It is my great privilege to share that goodness with ladies that are walking the hard in their own stories. We all are, aren’t we? We all need reminding of goodness whether it’s at dark thirty, over taco Tuesday, or at a retreat. We all need to hear the hard in our story is not a mistake, but that turning from Jesus in it would be our only error. And even then his love is too big to pay much attention to our running. His pursuit too fierce and love too giant to keep us at any real distance from his abiding grace and love.

So rest or run—neither are too far for the reach of Jesus. He loves you today. He loves me today. He is already in that room I dread so much. He is there. There is nothing to fear.