Category: faith

Mar 14

Do You Need More Sunshine?

Do you start feeling a little funky in the fall? And by the time winter arrives are you downright depressed? Does your energy level disappear during the dark and you feel sluggish sans sun? Perhaps, you like me, have Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), a type of depression related to changing seasons.

Now I must be honest and tell you no physician actually has diagnosed me with this malady, but I’m fairly certain I have it. I don’t know if it’s because I grew up a California girl living an hour from the beach, but I LOVE the sun (yes, I used to lather myself with cocoa butter to get a better tan!) I do know that having a family history of SAD is a risk factor for relatives being diagnosed and I  remember my mother often remarking: “If I didn’t know better, I would worship the sun!”

I start feeling anxious in the fall because I know what season is coming next. As others are enjoying carving pumpkins and autumn leaves, I’m thinking: “I don’t know if I can get through another winter!”

Although SAD is more common in younger people, mine has gotten worse with age. I actually understand now why all those OLD people move to Florida for the winter and become “snowbirds!” 

According to the Mayo Clinic, SAD symptoms include: loss of interest in once enjoyable activities, problems sleeping, changes in appetite/weight, feeling sluggish, difficult concentrating, lack of energy and at its worst, feeling hopeless, guilty and even suicidal. (Read more at https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/seasonal-affective-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20364651)

Thankfully mine is a milder version and I’m able to slog through these darker months. But I  definitely rejoiced the day after the Winter Solstice (Dec. 21) because I knew I had made it through the year’s shortest day (5 hours and 23 minutes less sunlight than the Summer Solstice). And because the next day would have 1 MORE SECOND OF SUNSHINE! And then every day after that would have a a little more light! I even texted my good friend Pat, another SAD sufferer, and congratulated her for making it through the shortest day, although she admittedly was busy lighting 20 candles in her living room trying to light up her life!

Obviously I’m not a doctor (although I do love pretending I am and diagnosing myself and others), so if you think you might have SAD, you should seek professional advice. But one of the things that really helps me is “light therapy.” I don’t actually have one of those fancy, electric “phototherapy” lights, but I try expose myself to as much sunshine as possible. If the sun is out and it’s not too freezing, I walk outside for my dose of Vitamin D. If we go to a restaurant for lunch, I choose a seat by the window where the sun is in my face.

And in the mornings, I position myself at the dining room table near an eastern-facing picture window and let the rays pour on me as I read my Bible and drink my tea. I don’t bow my head or close my eyes to pray–I talk out loud to my Heavenly Father with my face lifted to the warm light.

And sometimes He gives me a special message from His Word, like the verse I read one recent dreary winter morning:

“How happy are this who have learned how to praise You; those who journey through life by the light of Your face.” (Psalm 89:15, The Voice Bible)

Yes, LORD, that’s how I want to journey through life–and especially through my dark days.  I want my greatest source of direction and comfort  and peace to be the light of Your face.

Will you join me in praising God and walking through your dark days–whether they be literal or figurative–by the light of His face? Will you commit to putting yourself in places where His light can touch you? Worshipping Him with a nearby congregation. Reading His Word with an open heart and mind. Singing or listening to praise music. And asking Christ-followers to pray for and with you.

And if your dark days are incredibly bleak because you or someone you love is facing a medically incurable illness, please remember the Isaiah 9:2 promise of the coming Messiah: “The people who walk in darkness will see a great light–a light that will shine on all who live in the land where death casts its shadow.”

Jesus is that light for the world. You can find His light, whoever you are, wherever you are and whatever darkness you face. The song below is my prayer of blessing for you today.

(If the music video doesn’t load, use this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEqclQGD7rs)

Mar 07

Helping Kids Cope with Cancer and Celebrating One Boy’s CURE

 

One of our church’s pastors, Matt, and his wife Carrie have been living in the shadow of cancer since December 2009, when their oldest child, Ian, was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia at the age of 3 ½ .

Matt vividly recalls the moment the doctor gave them the diagnosis. 

“Acute leukemia were not the words we expected to hear,” Matt says. “In my mind, I equated that (diagnosis) with death and I thought I was going to lose my son.”

Later that night after the frightened couple put Ian and younger brother Nathan, then 1 ½ , to bed they joined hands and “told God we fully gave Ian to Him,” Carrie recalls.

“We prayed for our marriage to be able to withstand the stress that was about to come upon us,” she adds.

Ian underwent six phases of aggressive chemotherapy over more than three years and was in and out of the hospital for treatment and its debilitating side effects.

I recently asked Carrie and Matt how they helped their young family, which now includes a daughter, Quinn, see God at work in the midst of this trial.

“We openly discussed our fears and when we felt alone and even distant from God,” Carrie explains. “We also served in our ‘cancer community’ by showing God’s love in practical ways to others who were suffering, too.”

A couple of years ago, Ian and his family loaded up their van to go out to eat and celebrate his third cancer-free anniversary. Carrie recalls:  “I noticed Ian sitting there with his eyes closed and hands folded. I wasn’t sure if he was praying, so I asked him if he was OK.”

“Yes,” was the young survivor’s reply. “I was just thanking God that I’m still cancer-free.”

On February 27, 2018–five years after Ian finished treatment– doctors officially pronounced the 11-year-old CURED! He and his extended family joyfully celebrated with a Disney cruise vacation.

 

Every year nearly 16,000 children in the U.S. are diagnosed with cancer and worldwide about a quarter of a million kids get that bad news. That’s a new child diagnosed with cancer every three minutes.

Statistics are not compiled for how many parents of minor children get cancer, but about 3.2 million of the U.S. adults diagnosed annually are ages 21-55 and therefore likely to still have kids at home. And that’s not even counting all of those cancer patients with young grandchildren.

However you add it up, there are a millions of families facing cancer with children.

So how can you best help the children in your life?  Fred Rogers has been quoted as saying: “Anyone who does anything to help a child in his life is a hero to me.”  So here are my recommendations written in an A- B-C style in honor of my hero, Mister Rogers:

  • Allow your feelings to be seen—even the sad ones. Obviously, it’s our job to help our children with their feelings, not vice versa, but if you want them to see how God is walking with you, you’ll need to share your struggles at times. It’s OK for children to know that sometimes we are afraid or angry or worried because then we can show them how a Christ-follower seeks God’s help with those feelings.
  • Be age-appropriately honest. Don’t tell all the statistics, but do use the word “cancer.” If you don’t, it may seem as if the word is too scary to even utter. It isn’t. Take away some of its supposed power by naming it as simply another illness. Sometimes when we don’t tell children the difficult truth, they imagine something even worse.
  • Create ways kids can give of themselves. Let them make cards or little gifts for the one facing cancer. Encourage them to pray specifically for that person every day. If the child is the one with cancer, follow Ian’s family’s lead and minister to others going through hard times. It’s so much easier to get our minds off our own troubles when we reach out to others.
  • Don’t make promises you can’t keep. We never told our girls “Mommy will be fine” because there was no such guarantee. We did promise them that the doctors would do everything they could to make me well, I would do everything to get well and that we expected I would become well.
  • Empower them by praying for them and with them—as in out loud and not just at mealtimes. Show them how to trust God even when we don’t like our situation. Don’t promise them that the one with cancer will be healed, but promise them that the One who created that person loves him/her with an everlasting love and will never leave them.

Facing cancer with children can be a wonderful first-hand lesson of the supernatural power of God in our lives. Help guide them to the path of peace as the Lord guides you there, too. The positive impact of this journey can be seen for generations to come.

Our children will serve Him;
future generations will hear the story of how the Lord rescued us.
They will tell the generations to come
of the righteousness of the Lord,
of what He has done. Psalm 22:30-31 The Voice Bible

Adapted from a chapter in Peace in the Face of Cancer, copyright 2017 by Lynn Eib.

(For parents with cancer, I recommend When a Parent Has Cancer: A Guide to Caring for Your Children by Dr. Wendy Harpham. For parents of children facing cancer, I recommend Chase Away Cancer: A Powerful Story of Finding Light in a Dark Diagnosis by Ellie Poole Ewoldt.)

If the music video doesn’t appear, use this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uy2EtG3UkL8

 

 

Feb 21

Given No Hope–Alive and Well 50 Years Later

 

“There is something you must always remember.
You are braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”
Christopher Robin to Winnie‑the‑Pooh in Pooh’s Most Grand Adventure

I love these words of encouragement from one best friend to another. They were the sentiment of a life-changing pep talk given to me in high school by my dear friend Cecil, who is the first person I knew who survived cancer.

We met in a speech class in the fall of 1968. I was a junior and he was a sophomore at Victor Valley High, where he was without a doubt the best orator. When he chose me to be his debate partner, I was thrilled. I didn’t know that the year before he had been diagnosed with fibrosarcoma (a rare cancer of the soft tissue), only that he always had a large Band-Aid on his forehead and that its self-described “flesh” color did not match his black skin. 

I’m not sure if either one of us ever used the “C” word. In the sixties, cancer was something adults whispered about and doctors tried to keep from patients’ knowledge.

“Why do you always wear a Band-Aid?” I naively asked him one day.

“Because I’m very embarrassed about my scars” was his quiet reply.

The scars were the result of multiple surgeries—beginning when he was fifteen—to try to cut away the cancer and extend his life.

“The fibrosarcoma was eating through my skull,” Cecil explained as we chatted on the phone about this chapter.

Back then chemotherapy was in its infancy, and radiation therapy couldn’t possibly be safely aimed at a patient’s head, so his doctors simply sliced away, waited for the cancer to grow back, and then cut it out again.

By the fall of 1968, doctors were so pessimistic about Cecil’s future, they recommended he drop out of high school. “Once it hits the optic nerve, it will go right to the brain. Go home and don’t even worry about school anymore,” they advised.

But Cecil had other plans.

“Not only am I going to go back to school, I’m going to graduate,” he told them. “And not only am I going to graduate, I’m going to go to college. And not only am I going to go to college, I’m going to go to the best college!” he defiantly added.

His equally strong-willed mother approved, saying, “If you want to go back to school, it’s fine with me. I don’t want you to just lie down and die.”

So Cecil went to school, ran track, and played basketball and football, wearing a customized helmet to protect his forehead as he darted downfield with the ball. (Bet that wouldn’t be allowed these days!) Just about every Saturday for the next two years, we were together at a speech meet or a debate competition, eventually becoming the first students from our school to make it to the speech state championships.

But in the summer of 1970, right after I graduated, Cecil’s cancer came back, and more surgery ensued. The hole in Cecil’s forehead was getting rather large, so doctors stitched his left forearm to his forehead for six weeks in an attempt to graft skin there. However, in the fall of 1970, the relentless cancer returned.

Surgeons wanted to operate again and now sew his right arm to his head, but his mother refused. She moved him to another hospital, ignoring the doctor’s warning that if she did he’d be “dead in two weeks.”

Physicians at the new hospital did the same kind of surgery, without stitching his arm to his head. At Cecil’s first recheck, they were pleasantly surprised the cancer had not returned. Three months later, they were shocked to find no sign of it. Three more cancer-free months later, they were speechless.

“We can’t take any credit for this, because we didn’t do anything different from the other doctors,” they told the then-eighteen-year-old Cecil. “The fibrosarcoma was like a runaway freight train on a dry, straight track, and it just stopped. In medicine we call it a spontaneous remission.”

Cecil finished high school, serving as student body president, and went on to graduate with honors from Harvard University, where he played football, ran track, and coached the debate team. As I write, he is a sixty-three-year-old longtime university law professor with many accolades and former students across the country who say his teaching expertise and friendship changed their lives.

“Despite all the dark predictions, I’m alive and doing just fine,” he says. “I believe to this day that God healed me despite all the gloom and doom. And it has never come back because He had other plans for me.”

I’m so grateful that meeting Cecil was part of God’s plan for my life. Before we participated in our first debate meet, I was scared and not at all confident in my speaking and writing abilities. I felt insecure because I was the youngest in my class (I graduated at sixteen) and because my father’s job had forced me to twice move midyear to new high schools. But Cecil shared words very similar to Christopher Robin’s with me, and I took them to heart. And as they say, the rest is history.

When we face the trials of life. including cancer, we discover the incredible strength of the human spirit as we do things we never thought we could. But I hope you also are discovering that the greatness of God is the reason you are braver, stronger, and smarter than you realized.

Find a mirror, look straight into it, and tell yourself: “I am braver than I believe. I am stronger than I seem. I am smarter than I think. God is much greater than I can imagine.”

And then share those words today with someone else who needs to hear them. You never know how God may use them to change a life.

(If the music video doesn’t automatically load, please use this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cb4o4lN0c_E&list=RDCb4o4lN0c_E&t=23 )

Feb 14

Can ANYTHING else go wrong???

 

If I believed in a “technology curse” (which I don’t), I would be convinced someone had put one on me! Allow me to recap the past few months of my life with technology:

  • My cell phone Apple ID was all screwed up sending me dozens of error messages everyday. And after many, many hours of phone conversations with Apple customer service (“I’ve never seen anything like this!”) and callbacks from supervisors and senior technicians (“I don’t know why that didn’t fix it.”), I had to reset my phone to factory default twice. That did not solve the problem, so my youngest daughter spent five hours on the phone with Apple as they completely wiped out my phone (“We think we should be able to get the data back.”)
  • The phone wipeout solved the Apple ID problem, but I lost all my messages, voicemails and about 50 contacts, the latter of which had to be recovered from a corrupted backup I had to install on an old iPhone and then manually enter into my clean phone (another three-hour total process!)
  • Meanwhile problems with my website and WordPress blog which began last September continued. Blogs no longer posted to Facebook and I had to manually go through several steps each week to make it happen. My WordPress would seem to be working fine and then after about two hours of writing, I could no longer save anything. That meant no more adding anything or changing anything–even if the blog wasn’t done. Sometimes I could add a photo from the library and sometimes not. Once in a while I could insert a YouTube music video, but not usually.
  • During these “cursed” months, I attempted to fix the mounting problems: engaged a second webmaster to try and solve the issues; got help from a tech at my publisher; switched to a larger, faster server; upgraded my internet speed; and replaced my aging PC with my first Mac.

I sat down last Monday ready to write because I was SURE all my efforts (and prayers!) had solved my problems, but instead things went from bad to worse. An error message appeared informing me that my website “could not be found.” And sure enough, it was true–my website and my admin login page to reach it were gone–vanished into cyberspace.

Fighting back tears, I contacted my new server and discovered they had taken down the site because when my files were transferred from my old server, 100+ infected pages were discovered. Customer service assured me that my website was not really gone, but had to be cleaned up.

Twelve hours and $200 later, my new security company had “disinfected” my site and it was up and running. Since then I’ve spent another 8-10 hours implementing most of the recommended security measures (not quite done yet). As of this writing, WordPress seems to be working fine although I still cannot post to Facebook.

And did I mention that the same day my website “disappeared,” my husband came down with the flu replete with a horrible, hacking cough? While I struggled all week to follow instructions written in technical jargon way above my pay grade, I couldn’t get a sympathy hug, a de-stressing neck massage or even talk to him because any vocalizing brought on a new coughing fit. (My dearest friends for the past week have been Lysol spray and Clorox disinfecting wipes!)

And why in the world am I telling you all this? Partly because I thought it might be good therapy for me and cheaper than actual counseling 🙂 but mainly because I want to say that: GOD IS GOOD.

Most of the time people utter that phrase when things have gone well–a good CT scan, improved blood counts, successful surgery, disappearance of side effects. We tend to say “God is good” when our prayer has been answered the way we hoped it would.

But that’s not the message of scripture. The Bible says that God is good ALL the time.

Psalm 145:8,9 The LORD is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love. The LORD is good to all; He has compassion on all He has made.

Psalm 119:68 You are good and do only good; teach me your decrees.

Psalm 34:8 Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in Him.

We tend to think God is good when disaster has been averted or circumstances improve, but God is good even when disaster strikes and circumstances do not get better. All of God’s attributes–including His goodness–are present all the time.

  • He is good when your phone has to be wiped out.
  • He is good when your blog doesn’t work.
  • He is good when your website disappears.
  • He is good when your husband has the flu just when you really need him.
  • He is good when the cancer recurs.
  • He is good when the pain doesn’t stop.
  • He is good when…you fill in the blank based on your day (week, month or year!)

The Old Testament prophet Habakkuk understood this truth:

Even though the fig trees have no blossoms,
    and there are no grapes on the vines;
even though the olive crop fails,
    and the fields lie empty and barren;
even though the flocks die in the fields,
    and the cattle barns are empty,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord!
    I will be joyful in the God of my salvation!
The Sovereign Lord is my strength!
Habakkuk 3:17-19a

We see the goodness of God when we remember that He loved us so much He allowed His only Son’s prayers to go unanswered (Luke 22:42) in order to save our souls and make sure this trial-filled life is not all there is for us. And until that day we are set free from all our struggles (I’m positive there is no technology in Heaven), He gives us strength through His Holy Spirit to face each day.

Yes, God IS good all the time!

Jan 17

Isn’t There a Faster Way to Wait?

“Why does it take so long to get back my blood work?”

“I have to hang on the whole weekend for the test results?”

“What do you mean the doctor can’t see me until next week?”

“This waiting is killing me!”

Ever moaned any of these phrases? I sure have. I once made the mistake of scheduling a barium enema test on a Friday. I thought I would have ulcers by the time I finally got the results on Monday. I jumped every time the phone rang and worried every time it didn’t. black-and-white-woman-girl-sitting.jpg

The first few years after I finished chemo, I used to call and talk to the nurses prior to each of my follow-ups so I could get my tumor marker results before I went in for my appointment. I just couldn’t stand to wait.

When I have to wait, my mind begins to wander, the bad little voice of fear starts to pipe up, and I usually begin to think the worst.

A few months after I finished my chemo, I had a CT scan for some terrible abdominal pain I was experiencing. The technician asked me to wait twice while she conferred with another medical person and came back and took more pictures. Each time she came back in the little room and looked at me I became more and more convinced she looked sadder. I should have realized she probably felt sorry for me in my pitiful little blue paper gown, but instead I surmised I must be going to get terrible news.

Finally when she came back in for the third time—even though I knew she wasn’t allowed to say anything about the scan—I blurted out: “Please tell me what’s wrong. I know it must be really bad. Just tell me, I can’t stand this waiting anymore!”

She looked rather puzzled and reassured me that the only thing wrong was that the pictures were not quite clear enough so she had to take another set. I felt better for a moment and then decided she probably was paid to say that to everyone.

I went home and waited for the call from my family physician. When it came, my fear that a new tumor was obstructing my bowel was quickly put to rest. Instead I was told that I needed to take a laxative!

I am convinced that those of us who are planners, who like to be prepared and who relish being in control, make the worst “wait-ers” on the face of the earth. Waiting prevents us from planning, impedes us from being fully prepared, and thwarts our attempt to be absolutely in control of the present as well as the future.

Waiting is a common theme throughout the Bible—after God miraculously freed the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, they waited in the desert for forty years before He allowed them to enter the Promised Land. Jacob waited fourteen years to marry his beloved Rachel after he was tricked into virtual slave labor by his future father-in-law. The disciples of Jesus waited three very long, agonizing days for Him to rise from the dead.

Often when we wait we become discouraged and are tempted to give up. The Israelites whined and moaned during most of their forty years of waiting. Jacob was furious when he discovered that his father-in-law had tricked him into marrying Rachel’s older sister and he would have to work another seven years to marry Rachel. Following Jesus’ crucifixion, the disciples gave up right away and were already back fishing before His resurrection.

When you’re waiting, I have some advice for you. It’s the same advice I tell myself when things are taking too long. Don’t give up. Give in . . . to God.

Go ahead and put yourself at His mercy. That’s where you already are anyway. You might as well as admit it, because when you do then you can start to experience the transforming power that waiting can have on our character.

Don’t get confused. It’s not that the waiting itself changes us—otherwise we all would be pretty wonderful people. After all, everybody has to wait sometimes! But it’s how we respond to the waiting that can be transforming.

I love how author-pastor Rick Warren explains in The Purpose-Driven Life that godly characteristics—things like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control— are developed in our lives when we are put in situations in which we are tempted to respond exactly the opposite way.

Patience “is developed in circumstances in which we’re forced to wait and are tempted to be angry or have a short fuse,” Warren writes.

I put this principle into practice one day while I braked for yet another red light on my hurried lunch-hour errand trip. I looked straight at the light, smiled, and said out loud to myself: “I am not waiting for a traffic signal. I am being conformed into the image of Jesus!”

The declaration made me laugh out loud. But I’ll tell you; it was a wonderfully freeing moment. I didn’t squirm waiting for the light to change. I wasn’t frustrated that I wasn’t making good time. I just sat there and enjoyed the presence of God, which supernaturally settled over me.

Try it yourself.

I am not waiting for test results. I am learning to depend more on God.

I am not waiting for a doctor to call me back. I am learning to be patient as God is patient with me.

I am not waiting in cancer’s shadow; I am becoming more like Jesus.

There is no faster way to wait, but there is a better way.