In this video, I read the introduction to chapter 9 of Loving Your Friend through Cancer. The chapter is titled “Mind: Questions Your Friend is Asking.” To learn more about how to support a friend as she wrestles through the difficult questions cancer brings, check out the book here.
ShareGuest appearance ~ The Heart of the Author Podcast
I had a great time as a guest on Vickie Henderson‘s podcast, The Heart of the Author. We chatted about my feelings of isolation during my cancer battle, how my friends supported me and how others can do the same for their friends, and how my faith sustained me during the hard times. Listen here or head over to her podcast site to learn more and subscribe!
I also shared a guest post on her blog about three ways to support a friend with cancer well. You can read it here!
For more information, check out my book, Loving Your Friend through Cancer.
ShareGod’s Got You in His Grip {No Matter What Monday}
Last week, my kids and I walked through an unfamiliar city on our way to a concert. As I started to cross a wide street, my daughter hesitated and looked around anxiously. She didn’t want to follow me as confidently I stepped off the curb.
“Mom? Are you sure we should be crossing here?”
“Sweetheart, am I holding your hand?”
“Yes.”
“Then you can relax. You can let me take care of keeping you safe.”
My daughter didn’t look down the street and see the road blocks that kept that block car-free. She didn’t have the life experience to know that a concert venue plus large crowds plus police blockades equals safety crossing the street. She became anxious because she forgot that the one who holds her hand cares for her more than she can imagine.
Each week, I send out these Monday devotionals to my email subscribers. I sign my emails with “In His grip.” It’s an intentional reminder of a truth that brings me great comfort—I’m in God’s hands. He’s holding on to me, and I’m safe and secure in Christ.
In John 10:27-29, Jesus said: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.”
Those who belong to Christ can never be snatched from His hand. We can count on this promise because our heavenly Father is greater than all. If He’s holding us, we can trust that He won’t let go. There is nothing that can loosen His grip. One of my favorite songs, “In Christ Alone,” puts it this way: “No power of hell, no scheme of man, can ever pluck me from His hand.”
You will face trouble and suffering in this world. But if you are in Christ, nothing you face can ever separate you from God’s loving hold on you (Romans 8:38-39). He’s got you, and He won’t let go.
No matter what you face this week, God’s got you in His grip.
ShareWhen You Don’t Have Any Answers {Guest post at (in)courage}
Facebook is a terrible way to learn a friend has died.
A heavy feeling settled in my chest as my newsfeed swarmed with strangers writing messages to Julie about shared memories.
When I saw the first “RIP,” I crumpled into a mess of tears.
Julie and I met in the radiation waiting room at MD Anderson Cancer Center. In May 2011, I reported to Waiting Room J each weekday at my assigned time. It didn’t take long to recognize the familiar faces of those with similar appointment times.
Julie struck up a conversation with me during my second week of radiation. She was about my age and recognized me from the 9th floor Sarcoma Center waiting room. (Cancer demands a lot of time in waiting rooms.) Although she was clearly in pain from the growing tumor in her leg, her smile was brilliant, shining from a face adorned with a spunky, color-streaked wig.
We bonded quickly over the chemotherapy regimen we’d both endured and the experience of being moms with cancer. We shared our life stories and cancer stories, and I learned that while chemo caused my tumor to shrink like a snowball in a frying pan, Julie’s tumor grew steadily and ominously.
We celebrated the end of Julie’s radiation, and she stood proudly beside me as I rang the bell at the end of mine. We planned to see each other when I returned to Houston six weeks later for surgery. But by then, Julie was gone.
I never found out exactly how she died. When you make friends in a radiation waiting room you don’t know each other’s people. I never met her friends or family. I had no one to grieve with, no one to share common memories with, no one to answer my questions about her final days. Did she suffer? Did she die in the hospital? Did she have enough warning to say good-bye to her son? I’ll never know.
I shared this piece over at (in)courage . . . a beautiful community of women seeking connection with each other as they follow Christ. I’d love for you to head over there to read the rest of the piece about my struggle to trust God in an answer-less place.
While you’re there, check out their site and subscribe to their daily emails–they are such an encouragement to me!
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