From the archives...
With Caravan Sonnet turning 11 years old this past year, it is amazing to look back and see all of the things that have taken place during that time. This year, I am re-sharing some of my favorite posts from the 2014 year... it is hard to believe that it is ten years ago. 10 years... a decade...
This post, show up in hope (originally posted in August 2014) has hit me deeply this month... although the circumstances are different- my health is stable and I am healed... I am in a very difficult and private waiting season for several specific areas in life... this post has encouraged me and I pray it will encourage you also today.
Original Post- posted August 4, 2014
Eight and a half years ago I was the recipient of a miracle from the
Lord in the form of healing from what I was told was an incurable disease. After
struggling for years in physical pain and begging the Lord for mercy when the
medical community gave no hope the Lord performed a miracle. Family and friends
cheered joyously as they witnessed their prayers answered. Doctors shook their
heads in amazement when the healing happened muttering, “it must be something
higher that healed you”. People responded with encouragement over my faith and proclaimed the Lord's power. It is a story of joyous victory and of good triumphing
over evil. It is a story that rings with hope in a God who still performs
miracles and of a God who is triumphant over illnesses after “the experts” have
given up hope. It is a story that people love to hear, and one that I have
loved to share over the years. It is a story that makes me well up with tears
at the goodness of the Lord and stand in awe of what He did eight and a half years ago.
But the truth is that I am living a much different story today. I have shared some of it here on the blog but there are many parts that have remained in private. To be truthful the life that
I live now shattered midst ordinary days five years ago when my ex-fiancé
walked out of our relationship a mere five months before we were to be married with no warning. Since then in these past five years my life has crumbled bit by bit by one circumstance to another to finally being diagnosed with Cancer, Advanced Late Stage Lyme disease, an environmental illness and
several other diagnosis'. The combination of the diseases’ listed has
severely affected my life and began one of the most difficult fights of my
life. But while my life shattered my faith in my precious Lord, who is the God of HOPE, has not.
The recovery is long and instead of a planned out future, I am left with
more questions than answers. My aching longings for the future of being married
and being a mom has been placed on hold and instead of my dreams I am left with
questions of life, value, and the God that I so desperately adore. In my little mind it is not the story that shouts the triumph of a
powerful God as I expected the same ending of miraculous healing of eight and a half years
ago. It is not a story that we love to hear, but in this broken world it is a
story that many people live.
We all need to hear the stories of miraculous conquering and
healing to spur us on in hope. These are the stories that scream to us from the
pages of the Bible and the stories that we are quick to reference when bad news
comes to a loved one. But there is a much quieter and powerful storyhat is
also found deep in the pages of scripture. It is a story of showing up with
hope in the ordinary days lived among the miraculous and victories. It is the
story of living with anticipation that the Lord is still at work when we most
feel He is absent. It is a story that drives us closer to the heart of God as we cry out to Him. I have learned to fall in love with the God who I know does miracles. I have also fallen passionately in love with this same God who has the power to do miracles and sometimes says wait.
"He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow." There are beautiful examples of this in the Bible. One of those is the story of the women who bled for
twelve years from Luke chapter eight. It is a beautiful story of a woman who
must have spent everything that she owned on doctors who had not been able to
help her and yet she still showed up to meet Jesus. With no promise that Jesus
would do anything she pushes her way through the “crowds that almost crushed
Him” and reaches out her hand in desperation and the hope that Jesus could not
only heal but that He would show up.
Friends, if you are struggling through the dark night of
suffering I urge you to hold fast to the story of the woman who was ill and
find hope in the story of the Israelites. Just like that woman, we see in the
book of Exodus that the Israelites held on to the hope that God was still at
work. As they limped out from under the hard yoke of slavery they carried their
tambourines through the long trek of the desert believing that there would
still be a song yet to sing. They didn’t know when the song would come, but
like the woman they pushed through and held onto hope that God would show up.
Despite the fact they had no assurances or promises of what their future would
look like, they walked with their tambourines. They were fully prepared for the celebration that they did not yet have a
time frame for. The celebration that only lay hidden in their hearts as they
walked mile after mile in the desert. The same hope of celebration that the
woman who bled for twelve years was also expecting as she reached out her hand
for Jesus’ cloak.
Dear friends, what about you? Are you ready to show up in Hope? I
have friends who are scattered around the world serving AIDS victims in Africa, fighting for the freedoms of those in the Middle East and some holding crying orphans in the heart of Haiti. Maybe you are like them and
can venture to far off countries to rescue those that the world has abandoned.
Or maybe you can quietly and powerfully write your story by showing up, and
learning like I am to take one day at a time, find beauty in the ordinary, and minister to those that the
world has forgotten. Either way we
can all come to the cross and take His love into our worlds- no matter how big
or small that might seem. Either way we can show up and rejoice that He is going to answer as we step out in
faith and cry out to Him. All we need to do is be ready to rejoice, reach out
for His garments, carry our tambourines, and show up in Hope.