Nov 13
Illness helps you sort out who your real friends are. Often people you never realized cared for you step up and provide incredible support. And then there are those on whom you counted but they fail to come through for you. 
My friend Kristie expected to get some words of healing and blessing when she went to talk to her pastor shortly after a diagnosis of breast cancer sent her reeling just before her 40th birthday.
She didn’t get either.
“There was no comfort from him,” Kristie recalls more than 25 years later. “He told me ‘You deserved this. You’ve done something wrong, something bad and this is God’s way of showing you that.’ He was adamant about it. ”
Obviously, Kristie went looking for encouragement in other places after that conversation!
Sadly, I have talked to many people over the years who thought—or at least wondered if—their diagnosis was indeed a punishment from God. Usually there was something they did—or failed to do—and the thought the diagnosis might be God’s response to that wrongdoing.
While I have no doubt that illness can get our attention and even spur folks on to change their wayward ways, I don’t believe God is in the business of zapping people with serious illness to get them to shape up. If doing something wrong or “bad” led to cancer, everyone in the world would be needing to make an appointment with an oncologist!
Even in Jesus’ time people were tempted to always equate sickness with sin. Jesus disciples once asked him: “Why was this man born blind? Was it because of his own sins or his parents?”
Jesus’ reply was clear: “It was not because of his sins or his parents’ sins…This happened so the power of God could be seen in him.” (John 9:2,3)
So I remind you today, neither you or your loved one is facing a serious illness because you weren’t good enough. And you don’t need to do something special to earn or deserve healing from God. Don’t try to bargain with Him by being an especially good person, hoping He will reach down and heal. There’s nothing you can do to make God love you any more—or any less—than He already does. He proved that a long time ago:
This is real love. It is not that we loved God,
but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. 1 John 4:10
This is the way pastor-author Max Lucado describes it in his book In the Grip of Grace:
“You wonder how long my love will last? Find your answer on a splintered cross, on a craggy hill.
That’s me you see up there, your maker, your God, nail-stabbed and bleeding.
Covered in spit and sin-soaked. “That’s your sin I’m feeling. That’s your death I’m dying.
That’s your resurrection I’m living. That’s how much I love you.”
So if you’re still searching for an answer to the “why” question regarding your or your loved one’s illness… maybe, just maybe, it has happened so that the power of an incredibly loving God can be seen in you.
Be sure to open this blog in your browser so you don’t miss the beautiful song below by Chris Tomlin.
Oct 30
I know many of you have suspected this about me for quite some time. Certainly my husband has. But now it’s confirmed in black-and-white.
I have a screw loose.
In the interest of full disclosure, I must tell you that this is not an x-ray of my loose screw. There wasn’t time to get a copy of my x-ray for this blog, so I did what any resourceful writer does…googled “loose screw” and voilà!
My loose screw is in my left wrist, which I broke a year ago requiring surgery and the implantation of a stainless steel T-shaped plate and four screws for the distal radius break. And my screw is not as loose as this floating one–it’s just wriggled up a little too high, causing a lot of pain.
Actually by the time you’re reading this, I probably won’t have a loose screw anymore. Surgery to remove all the hardware is scheduled for the morning of Oct. 30. Therapy with a certified hand therapist begins a few days later and continues twice weekly for six weeks. Did I mention that I ALREADY did twice-weekly therapy for more than five months and daily wrist exercises for 11 months?!
If I’m being honest, I must tell you that I wish I could turn back the clock to Oct. 23, 2018, and not miss a step on our deck. And not fall forward onto the concrete. And not have a nerve injury which without medication causes terrible, burning pain. And certainly not have a screw loose.
How about you? Do you wish you could turn back the clock?
To the time before you heard the diagnosis. To the day before the accident. To the happier years of your marriage. To the moment when your loved one was still by your side. To the…fill in the blank.
The psalmist, too, longed for the good ol’ days.
“My heart is breaking as I remember how it used to be: I walked among the crowds of worshippers leading a great procession to the house of God, singing for joy and giving thanks amid the sound of a great celebration!” Psalm 42:4
I’m sure you recall things you or your loved one used to do which aren’t possible anymore–or at least not done as easily. It’s difficult not to be disheartened when life seems to knock us down…or loosen our screws.
But if we keep reading in Psalm 42, we see how the unknown author (perhaps King David) responds to his personal weariness.
“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!”
Author Chris Tiegreen says in his devotional Worship the King: “How you handle your pain says a lot about what you think of God. It indicates whether you trust Him or not, even in your deepest despair. It says that you may not understand your circumstances, but you know who governs them.”
“When life hurts, give it to God,” Tiegreen adds. “Trust Him with it. When you’re crushed, your faith honors Him in ways that your faith at other times cannot.”
This weekend we literally turn our clocks back one hour as Daylight Savings Time ends (unless, of course, you’re really smart and live in Arizona or Hawaii). It’s a good time to remind ourselves to quit looking back on what was or what might have been. Instead, let’s look forward to our hope in a God who “encourages the discouraged.” (2 Corinthians 7:6)
P.S. Typing is pretty painful so if you don’t see a blog in two weeks, you’ll know why!
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Oct 16
So how are you feeling today? Happy? Frustrated? Overwhelmed?
Popular psychology tells us that feelings are “neither right nor wrong.” But I want to tell you that feelings do not necessarily mirror the facts.
I witnessed this firsthand a few years ago when my husband and I headed out with my boss, Dr. Marc Hirsh, and his wife, Elizabeth for our annual Labor Day weekend cruise on their thirty-two-foot Bayliner. The weather looked rather foul, but Elizabeth had checked with her brother who lives right on the Gunpowder River leading into the Chesapeake Bay, and he assured us the weather reports didn’t look that bad despite a hurricane that was heading northward up the coast. (We later learned he had accidentally listened to the wrong forecast!)
So we took off anyway, knowing that Marc and Elizabeth were seasoned boaters—although the whitecaps on the usually calm river should have been our first clue it wasn’t a good idea.
We had a short two-hour cruise ahead of us, but it wasn’t long before the white caps turned into three-foot waves. The wind whipped up, and then the thunder, lightning, and rain came. At first we all laughed and enjoyed the warm rain soaking us as the boat pounded through the waves. But then I stopped laughing and my stomach started rebelling. Elizabeth handed me a supply of Ziploc bags, which I started filling.
The waves were now five feet high and crashing clear over the top of the boat’s windshield, drenching us. It was nearly impossible for Marc to see out the rain-splattered windshield, and my husband and Elizabeth were trying to read the navigational charts and look for the numbered buoys, which would keep us in the correct channel away from large shipping vessels, shallow water, and crab pots. We were too far out to turn back toward home, yet not sure we could make it to our planned destination.
And then it got really bad.
Marc announced that according to the boat’s compass we were headed in exactly the wrong direction: south when we should have been heading north.
We all were sure we hadn’t turned around—Elizabeth was especially positive we still were pointing in the right direction. She was convinced she would have noticed if the boat had made an about-face. From past experience I knew she usually was right whenever the two of them had a boating disagreement.
The three of us looked at Marc, waiting to see what he would do. (Well, I didn’t look long because I was busy praying there were enough Ziploc bags.)
After a long pause, Marc posed his now-famous question: “Should I trust my wife . . . or the magnetic poles of the earth?”
It wouldn’t have surprised me if he’d gone with Elizabeth’s feelings because she was so adamant about them, but his scientific brain won out and Marc turned the boat 180 degrees.
Within a few moments, we sighted buoys, which confirmed that we, indeed, had been going in the wrong direction despite all of us “feeling” otherwise.
The storm raging around us had distorted reality and our feelings had fallen fickle.
The same thing can happen in the storms of life. We can feel as if we’re unable to cope or that we have no hope. These are the times we need a compass—something that always will steer us in the right direction. A magnetic compass always will point you to the North Pole, and God’s Word always will point you to His unchanging truths and promises.
Isaiah 40:8 “The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God stands forever.”
Like Marc as he captained our boat that stormy trip, it’s your choice whether or not to trust the magnetic poles of the earth.
The grass does wither. Flowers do fade. Troubles will disrupt lives. But God’s Word stands forever. Open up a Bible and let God speak the truth your anxious heart needs to hear.
Sep 25
Have the trials of life caused you to doubt God? Are you wondering why He hasn’t shown up in answer to your fervent prayers?
“Doubt rises up to obscure His presence and disillusionment settles into despair,” writes Dr. James Dobson in When God Doesn’t Make Sense. 
“The greatest frustration is knowing that (God) created the entire universe by simply speaking it into existence, and He has all the power and all understanding. He could rescue. He could heal. He could save. But why won’t He do it?”
Feeling abandoned by God is especially terrible to experience after you earlier felt a closeness with Him.
“Satan then drops by for a little visit and whispers ‘He is not there! You are alone!’” Dr. Dobson adds.
I can’t begin to explain why your loved one passed away or why your child has cancer or why you or your loved one have received such a dismal diagnosis. I agree with you that it doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t seem right, and it certainly doesn’t feel like God cares.
Back in the summer of 1990 my husband was leaving the hospital where I was recuperating from colon cancer surgery and the car in front of him had a bumper sticker which read: 
“Is He really?” my husband muttered to himself that day.
The possibility of burying another wife had shaken his faith to its core and Ralph actually wondered how he ever was going to preach again.
But as he prayed and studied that week for his next sermon, he came to the conclusion that despite life’s really tough situations, we all are deeply loved by our Heavenly Father. And the way we can know that for certain, my husband concluded, is because God proved it once and for all two-thousand years ago when He sent His only Son to die on the cross for your sins and for mine.
My husband finished what was one of his most stirring sermons ever, by declaring that even if God never answered another single prayer on our behalf, He already has done enough. When God raised Jesus to life, He defeated our greatest enemy: Death…and that is enough.
So go ahead and ask God all your questions. 
But remember, God is not required to defend His actions (or seeming inactions) to you and you may never know in this lifetime the reasons for the suffering which has touched your life.
He asks only one thing of you—to trust Him even when it doesn’t make sense.
My husband and the bumper sticker were right–Jesus is enough.
(Be sure to open in your browser to listen to the music video below.)
Sep 11
I distinctly remember the last time my family and I went tent camping…and why we never did again after that experience.
It was the summer of 1983 and my pastor-husband convinced me that it would be fun for our daughters and me to join him on the youth group camping trip. So I packed up everything required for the overnight stay at a nearby state park and we borrowed two small tents.
Did I mention that our girls were 5, 3 and 15 months?
Fortunately, we got everyone to sleep–Ralph in one tent with our 3-year-old and me in the other with the baby and our oldest. But it wasn’t long before I heard my husband calling out to me from his nearby tent: “Stay really still–there’s a mother skunk and four babies heading toward your tent.”
I cautiously turned toward the tent wall and sure enough, there was a mommy skunk silhouette and four smaller shadows toddling behind. I held my breath as the critters walked so close their sides pressed against the canvas. Luckily, the skunk family kept moving without leaving behind any of their special brand of perfume and I literally could exhale.
I thought the night’s excitement was over until a couple hours later a thunderstorm erupted and my husband’s tent starting leaking –waking up Bethany. My tent fared better, but the three of us had to scoot in really tight so as not to touch the soggy canvas walls.
We survived the rest of the night undisturbed by weather or wildlife, but I vowed never to take three little kids tent camping again and I happily have kept that promise.
So how is your tent holding up? You know, that earthly dwelling we call our body.
“Unless you are in peak form and full of vigor, you have already experienced frustration with this earthly tent. If you haven’t yet, you will. It grows old and weary eventually, and then it dies,” writes author Chris Tiegreen.
I know many of you reading this are experiencing frustration with your earthly tent or your loved one’s. Maybe the storm already has hit and you’re wondering whether your tent is going to hold up. And perhaps you even can feel some “skunks” pressing up against as you dread the stench of more bad news.
And for some of you, the worst already has happened to someone you loved. Less than 24 hours ago, I got the news that another dear friend had taken her last earthly breath, just four years after receiving a cancer diagnosis.
I don’t know how any of us can face the storms and stink of this life without God’s great and precious promise: “For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” 2 Corinthians 5:1
These tents are definitely temporary dwellings and that’s why they rip, get dumped on and wear out. They are not our permanent residences.
“When hope in this life proves futile, when bodies ache and souls cry out, we can count on the glorious promise of resurrection,” Tiegreen adds. “There is an eternal house fitted just for us.”
I’m sure it will be the best Home ever and I doubt there will be any skunks!
Be sure to view this email in your browser to hear the music video below by Matt Redman, “One Day (When We All Get to Heaven.”
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.
