Feb 09
May I be honest and share two things?…First, this short post is mainly for me. And second, the song at the end is the best part of it.
I’m writing for myself because unwelcome events have left a trail of sadness in my heart.
Perhaps you can relate.
I’m mourning two years of a brutal pandemic, countless natural disasters, unending political bickering, and the painful fracturing of the body of Christ. Toss in my personal, unresolved pain issues; turmoil in our local church; dear friends with life-threatening diagnoses –plus other discouraging scenarios–and the result has become my recipe for sorrow.
Image by joseph_Berardi from Pixabay
I think I need a good cry.
I’m serious.
Sadness builds up in our lives and for the most part, we–men in particular–don’t allow ourselves to really feel the emotion. Instead we keep busy. We eat. We work. We complain. We watch TV. We scroll through Facebook. We even belittle ourselves for feeling/acting the way we do.
But we rarely shed tears. I’m talking about the cathartic kind of weeping where afterwards we feel strangely lighter–as if we’ve cast off something heavy. Which of course we really have.
It’s the kind of cry where we acknowledge we can’t fix all the mess in the world, in our country, in the church, in our friends, and in us. But we know and trust in a God who can. It’s a surrendering wail to our Heavenly Father who is at work restoring and renewing this world and us–even if we can’t always see it in everyday life.
So that’s all I’m writing for today because I want to take time to listen to the song “Tears” and do just what it says: “Let ’em fall like healing rain.”
Maybe you, my weary friend, will too.
“Let ’em fall right down your face; hit the ground in a pool of grace…Watch the old become new. Let the fear fade away. Feel His arms around you.”
Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad?
I will put my hope in God!
I will praise Him again–my Savior and my God!
Psalm 42:11
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Be sure to open in your browser to hear the beautiful music video “Tears” by Matt Hammitt.
Jan 26
So, this month is my 50th birthday! I know that surprises some of you who thought perhaps I was pushing 70.
Well, actually both are true…
Me at the beach December ’70
It was January 1972, my sophomore year of college at THE Ohio State University (some of you are cheering and others are booing—I love you all). My best friend Jackie and I lived in a one-bedroom apartment on the “bad” end of High Street. (Noisy bar outside, pesky cockroaches inside.)
Returning from Christmas break, I noticed every night Jackie would lie in her bed reading the Bible. I found this rather irritating because it seemed as if she was “more religious” than me. After all, I was raised in the church and believed in God!
So, I figured I would show her that I, too, was “holy.” I got out a little paperback New Testament my Grandma Burns had given me to take to college. Each night I opened it and out of the corner of my eye watched Jackie across the bedroom to make sure I read longer than she did. (What? Me competitive?)
One Tuesday, a friend of Jackie’s stopped by to give her info she’d requested about a Campus Crusade for Christ meeting.
Jackie with her dog Pokey in ’72
Jackie was eager to attend, but figured I wouldn’t be—probably the fact that I enjoyed arguing about the validity of the Bible was a good clue.
“You don’t want to go, right?” Jackie asked.
The honest answer would have been: “Absolutely not!” But once again my competitive nature asserted itself and I replied, “Of course, I want to go!”
The meeting that night began with students singing upbeat songs I’d never heard. They seemed excited and I remember thinking: They have something I don’t.
Later in the meeting, after dividing into smaller groups, a pretty blonde shared a blue booklet with me. At one point she asked: “Who’s on the throne of your life?”
As a newspaper reporter I loved to ask questions, but this seemed like a dumb one.
“I am—who else would be?” I responded.
The girl patiently explained that when we put Jesus on the throne of our life, everything changes as His Holy Spirit supernaturally provides the power to live a God-pleasing life. Then she asked me if I wanted to pray and surrender the leadership of my life to Him.
To this day, I’m still amazed that my 18-year-old, know-it-all self said “yes,” but I did. And she was right…everything changed. I experienced God’s peace, joy and purpose in an incredible way.
To quote E. Stanley Jones, “When I met Christ, I felt that I had swallowed sunshine.”
(And now you know why I celebrate two birthdays: one a physical birth and one a spiritual rebirth. And why I’m forever grateful for my dear friend Jackie.)
Half a century later, I still feel Christ’s light in me. But honestly, I still sometimes get back on the throne. I want things my way and in my timing.
Have you swallowed sunshine, my friend? If so, I remind you–as I daily do myself–to keep Jesus on the throne no matter what weariness this world throws at us.
But set apart Christ as Lord in your hearts and always be ready to give an answer
to anyone who asks about the hope you possess. 1 Peter 3:15
P.S. If you ever want to talk about who’s on the throne in your life, email me at cancerhope4u@gmail.com
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Make sure to open in your browser to hear one of my favorite songs, “Jesus We Enthrone You” by Don Moen.
Jan 12
I literally have known thousands of people diagnosed with cancer, but there has only ever been one whose diagnosis made me smile.
I think you’ll understand why after reading this story of how God touched two hearts to bring hope to hundreds of hurting people.
I met Karen Wineholt in 1983 at a meeting for breastfeeding moms when she was pregnant with her first child and I was nursing my third. She and her husband Jerry began attending the church my husband pastored and soon he had the joy of baptizing them. The four of us laughed together at marriage retreats, cried together when life took difficult turns, and together shared God’s love with our community.
And we even shared Karen’s 30th birthday when they visited me in the hospital following my colon cancer surgery in 1990. By the time Karen got a cancer diagnosis in 2013, we already had been friends for 30 years–joking that we had enough embarrassing stories to easily “blackmail” one another.
Now we shared an oncologist, too.
Karen’s stage 1B tumor was found on a routine mammogram and considered highly curable with surgery, radiation and hormone pills. I tried not to be excited about her diagnosis, but I wanted to retire from my job offering emotional and spiritual support in Dr. Marc Hirsh’s office so that my husband and I could move closer to our daughters and grandchildren. I kept praying God would show me when I could leave. When I heard Karen’s “bad” news, I knew God was preparing her to continue my treasured ministry.
Now I also knew enough not to tell her how happy I was about her diagnosis. Finally, more than a year later, I couldn’t contain my excitement and invited her to lunch.
Karen remembers me saying: “I believe God could be calling you to be a patient advocate and if I’m right, He will tell you, too.”
Little did I know that the year before, while sitting in her car before radiation therapy, that exact thought “just popped” into her head.
“Because I knew you were retiring, I thought ‘maybe I could replace Lynn,’ ” Karen recalls. “And then just as quickly another thought popped in: ‘there’s no way you’re qualified’.”
But I knew Karen well enough to recognize she did have what it took to be a patient advocate. And besides, God would supply whatever she lacked–just as He had done for me for 20 years.
The rest is history.
Marc offered her a job when I retired in the spring of 2015 and she worked for him until his own cancer diagnosis forced the closing of his practice in 2020.
“I really enjoyed helping people walk through their diagnosis, loving them, and showing them the Lord,” Karen recalls. “Meeting people in their deepest, darkest times and celebrating their victories as well.
LifeHopeandTruth.com
“I thought when I lost my job that I was done being a patient advocate, but I’m not,” explains Karen, who has voluntarily continued leading the cancer and grief prayer support groups I started, as well as co-leading a new cancer support group for women.
I cannot begin to tell you what a joy it has been to watch my dear friend pour love on and encouragement into friends whom I also love.
In recent years Karen and I discovered something about one another that despite more than three decades of friendship we never knew: Out of more than 31,000 Bible verses, we have the same favorite.
Ephesians 3:20: Glory to God, who is able to do far beyond all that we could ask or imagine
by his power at work within us…
And now you know why one patient’s cancer diagnosis made me smile. I hope her story makes you smile too.
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Be sure to open your browser to hear the song “Sovereign” by Chris Tomlin, which describes God’s amazing power to work everything for His good.
Dec 29
He likes sweet. I like salty.
He thrives on change. I seek routine.
He favors the East Coast. I prefer the West.
He is impulsive. I have to plan to be spontaneous.
But we do agree on this: We’re still very much in love.
Forty-eight years ago on this date we said “I do,” and like most starry-eyed twenty-somethings had no inkling what we were really signing up for. More than three decades of pastoral ministry, a serious cancer scare, three daughters, seven grandkids, a bunch of moves, and a too-long pandemic later, we now are smart enough to know how uncertain the future really is. And thankfully, we’ve learned to laugh about (most of the time!) and appreciate how opposite we are.
“attract-1” by daynoir is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Ever notice how often opposites do attract? Not just in marriage, but in friendships too. Some of my closest female friends are very different from me. But there’s one I call when I want to laugh. Another I reach out to if I’m discouraged. Still another I call when I need prayer.
I once heard the husband-wife author team of Gordon and Gail MacDonald say that we all need people different from us “to help us hear the full counsel of God.” And when we are going through weary times, I believe, we especially need to hear others speak God’s hope, peace and truth to us.
Author Chris Tiegreen says “one of the greatest things we can do for people in need of God is to be there–to be present, in the context of problems and pain, carrying the counsel and companionship of God wherever we can.”
I love that phrase: “the counsel and companionship of God.” That’s what my wonderful husband has offered me as he helps me see a situation from a different perspective or loves me when I’m not very lovable. It’s what my family and dearest friends continue to offer me in this crazy, messed-up world.
So what do you need today? Someone to be present in your weary life, giving you the counsel and companionship of God? If so, take heart that God will provide as He did for the Apostle Paul:
“But God, who encourages those who are discouraged,
encouraged us by the arrival of Titus.
His presence was a joy…” 2 Corinthians 7:6-7
Or do you need to be the presence in someone’s weary life, tendering God’s love to them?
Jesus explained this to His disciples in John 13:34.
“So I give you a new command:
Love each other deeply and fully.
Remember the ways that I have loved you,
and demonstrate your love for others in those same ways.” (The Voice Bible)
The presence–literally or figuratively–of another human being willing to be a conduit for God’s presence can change everything. I encourage you to pray that your weary heart will receive “the counsel and companionship of God” from someone who cares about you, or that you will offer those two gifts to a weary soul who really needs them.
(And please join me today in thanking God for my 48 years of love with my opposite.)
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Be sure to open in your browser to hear the music video “Weary Traveler” by Jordan St. Cyr
Dec 15
I thought it wouldn’t.
But it did.
It happened again.
Kenny G was belting out jazzy, holiday cheer. A burning candle wafted a delicious candy cane scent. I was by myself happily decorating our house for Christmas. I lifted a slightly torn, rectangular box out of the large plastic storage bin and chuckled to myself. This box has to be more than 60 years old!
Carefully wrapped inside was a slender, shiny, tree topper that graced my parents’ Christmas trees for decades. It wasn’t the original which came in the now-yellowed box, but a replacement topper my folks decided to store there after the first one broke. (I can just hear my Mom saying: Why throw away a perfectly good box?)
I lovingly placed the topper in my mom’s antique glass pitcher filled with some of my parents’ old ornaments, stepped back and approvingly surveyed my decorating.
And then it started. A lump in my throat. I swallowed hard, but it grew. I felt my eyes misting and then hot, tears began to sting as I tried to hold them back.
I miss my mom and my dad. I don’t want their ornaments…I want them!
I sat down on the couch and wept.
And that’s what grief does to us. It catches us when we’re not expecting it and won’t let go until we’ve allowed it to have its say.
Have you experienced grief sneaking up on you? A sound, a smell, a word, a photo. Something triggers a memory or thought and you come undone.
Maybe you’re grieving the loss of health or a job. Maybe it’s the first Dec. 25 a certain smiling face won’t be in your home. Or maybe it’s been 20 years, but you still yearn for one more holiday with them.
Or maybe the persons you’re missing haven’t passed away, but circumstances are separating you this year. It just doesn’t seem right you won’t be together. That’s grief you’re feeling, too.
Connie Milchling, author, speaker, ministry director
My friend Connie, whose husband Brad literally dropped dead of a heart attack in 2004 at age 47 recalls that she didn’t feel like celebrating Christmas just three months after his passing.
“I felt horrible because I did not want to celebrate Jesus’ birth because of Brad’s death,” admitted Connie.
But a good friend gave her some insight which helped ease that holiday pain.
“Do you know what Jesus is doing this Christmas season?” the friend asked Connie.
Connie shook her head “no.”
“He’s weeping…He’s weeping with you.”
Connie said that mental image of Jesus shedding tears for her helped to stop the worrying about all the unwanted holiday celebrations. Instead, she prayed: “Just for today, I need to see Jesus. Just for today, I need to seek Jesus. Just for today, I need to serve Jesus.”
Are you grieving something or someone this Christmas? Jesus–the whole Reason for the Season–is weeping with you. Remember He understands your sorrow (Isaiah 53:3) even if no one else on earth really does. Why not share in Connie’s prayer that today you will see Jesus…today you will seek Jesus…today you will serve Jesus.
“The LORD is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed.” Psalm 34:18
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Be sure to open in your browser to hear “Be Still My Soul” sung by Libera, a British acapella boys’ choir.
I’m a newspaper reporter-turned-author. And I’m a passionate encourager, but always a truth-teller. I worked for nearly two decades in a unique position as a patient advocate in my oncologist’s office and the Cancer Prayer Support Group I founded in 1991 is the country’s oldest such faith-based group.
