Category: strength

Sep 11

How is your tent holding up?

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.”

Aug 28

How could God let this happen?

When you believe in God, it can be hard to come to terms with the fact that He has allowed adversity to come into your life or your loved one’s. Author David Biebel talks about this fact in his book If God Is So Good, Why Do I Hurt So Bad?

Biebel says there are two truths suffering people have to reconcile:
1. Sometimes life is agony
2. Our loving God is in control

Think about it.

If God knows everything, this diagnosis did not surprise Him.

If God sees everything, He saw the bad news coming.

If God has power over everything, He could have stopped it.

But He didn’t.

He didn’t stop you or your loved one from getting cancer–or MS or Alzheimer’s or heart disease or whatever other affliction you’ve encountered. He didn’t stop it from happening to you or your loved one or tons of other people and their loved ones.

But the reality is that God’s Word never promises that He will stop all bad things from happening to us. On the contrary, it assures us that He is prepared for each crisis and will intervene on our behalf.

The Message Bible paraphrases 2 Corinthians 4:8-9 this way: “We’ve been surrounded and battered by troubles, but we’re not demoralized; we’re not sure what to do, but we know that God knows what to do; we’ve been spiritually terrorized. But God hasn’t left our side; we’ve been thrown down, but we haven’t broken.” 

God is in control.

Errant cells aren’t.

Toxic medicine isn’t.

White-coated doctors aren’t.

Herbs and vitamins aren’t.

We aren’t.

The sooner we learn this truth, the easier our struggle against serious or chronic illness will be. It’s actually quite freeing once you get it right. You can relax knowing Someone else is in charge—Someone much more intelligent, powerful and vigilant than we are or could ever hope to be.

Be encouraged that this health crisis has not taken God by surprise. He is in control and will equip you with whatever you need. And best of all, He will never leave your side.

Romans 8:38-39 has a powerful promise: “And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow–not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below–indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

As Kathy Broccoli reminds us in the song below “My life is in your hands. My heart is in your keeping. I’m never without hope–not when my future is with You.”

Jul 31

Walking with Friends in the Dark

 

In those nerve-wracking few days between my diagnosis and my surgery, I announced to my husband, “We need a pastor—and I don’t mean you!”

I think he could tell by the distraught look on my face that I was serious, so he called our good friend David Dunn, pastor of a sister church in a nearby town.

In my mind’s eye I can still see the moment David and his wife Carolyn walked into our family room. David headed straight for Ralph and Carolyn moved toward me. Her extended arms enveloped me in a warm embrace as I lay my head on her shoulder and released my soul-aching sobs.

I can’t tell you how long the four of us stood there huddled with only wordless weeping. David and Carolyn did not try to cheer us up in their delightful Maine accents. They did not quote any of the hundreds of Bible verses they knew so well. Neither shared any wisdom garnered from living longer on this earth than either my husband or I had.

Instead…they felt our pain. Their embraces spoke volumes to us: we love you and we are here holding you up as long as you need us.

I count that as my first lesson in learning how to be a patient advocate and walk with a friend in the dark.

My friend Ken says the presence of a friend usually meant much more to him than the words of a friend when
he was facing a diagnosis of tongue cancer  many years ago.

His advice to friends and family of patients facing serious illness is to “just BE!”

“Be a friend,” he says, “Be a shoulder. Be a hugger. Be an asset.  Please just BE there and God will BE there. If you do this, you will BE the giver of the greatest gift a suffering friend needs—presence without fixing; love without agenda,” he adds.

 

 

Helen Keller walked in the dark from the age of 19 months when an illness struck her blind, deaf and dumb.
She later did learn to speak, but lived the rest of her nearly 88 years without benefit of sight or hearing. Still Helen prized friendship so much that she thought it preferable to be blind and have true friends, than be sighted and have none.

Won’t you pray today for God to send true friends into your life? Whether you are the patient or the caregiver, resist the urge to go it alone. You need a loyal friend who will love you regardless of your situation. Swallow your pride and allow people the privilege of walking with you in the dark.

And if you are the caregiver for someone facing a life trial, won’t you please pray to be the kind of friend who offers your presence as the most important gift? Don’t be concerned that you might not know what to say to your hurting friend or family member. Your actions will say much more than your words as Proverbs 17:7 makes clear:

A true friend loves regardless of the situation,
    and a real brother exists to share the tough times. (The Voice Bible)

Friends love through all kinds of weather,
and families stick together in all kinds of trouble. (The Message Bible paraphrase)

And never forget that God longs to walk with you in the dark and empower you for your journey.

You light a lamp for me.
The Lord, my God, lights up my darkness.
 In your strength I can crush an army;
with my God I can scale any wall.
Psalm 18:28-29 New Living Translation

Excerpted from Peace in the Face of Cancer, copyright 2017 by Lynn Eib
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View in your browser to be able to hear the music video below “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” by Matt Maher

Jul 03

So Many Unanswered Questions


Twenty-nine years ago if I had heeded this quote from the creator of Peanuts, I could have saved myself many sleepless nights.

I was pretty consumed back then with trying to figure out how a healthy-eating-and-exercising-mom in her thirties could get cancer. Especially colon cancer for crying out loud! Colonoscopies aren’t even recommended for the average person until age 50.

I never smoked. I wasn’t overweight and worked out regularly at the local Y. I ate a high-fiber, low-fat diet including all our homegrown pesticide-free vegetables. In my mind someone who leaves the skin on their mashed potatoes and who shakes wheat germ on everything should not get colon cancer! Besides my little girls needed their mommy and my husband already watched one wife die a slow, debilitating death.

How? Why? What if?

Any unanswered questions keeping you awake at night?

If you’re trying to figure out exactly why you or your loved one is facing a trial right now, I’m afraid you won’t get any explanations from me. I don’t believe we can make sense of another person’s suffering—only our own. People often want to try anyway and they’ll preach and tell you why it all happened, but they’re not God and they don’t really know. It might make them feel better to think they have it all figured out, but I doubt it will do much for you.

And if you are the loved one of someone facing really difficult circumstances, please don’t tell them “everything happens for a reason.” Such a comment minimizes the sufferer’s feelings and implies that there’s a good, rational justification for what has occurred. I won’t be uttering that phrase to my daughter’s friends who have a 5-year-old  with  spina bifida and  a 7-year-old with an aggressive brain tumor. Instead I will pray that these dear parents, who love their sons and their Lord will run with their sleep-interrupting questions to the One who knows them best and loves them most.

I waited a long time for the Eternal;
He finally knelt down to hear me.
He listened to my weak and whispered cry. Psalm 40:1 The Voice Bible

Hear me, O God, when I cry;
listen to my prayer.
You are the One I will call when pushed to the edge,
when my heart is faint.
Shoulder me to the rock above me. Psalm 60:1-2 The Voice Bible

I’ll never know the answers to your questions or all of mine, but something I read in a book by C.S. Lewis has helped me to be more at peace with not knowing.

It’s found in a scene from The Horse and His Boy, part of Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia series. These classic children’s books (loved by adults, too) are set in the magical land of Narnia, which is ruled by a powerful lion named Aslan (who represents Jesus). At one point Aslan explains to a rich runaway girl named Aravis why some of the awful things that happened to her had to occur. She then asks Aslan what will happen to her stepmother’s slave, who was punished for falling asleep after Aravis had drugged her.

“Will any more harm come to her by what I did?”

“Child,” said the Lion, “I am telling you your story, not hers. No-one is told any story but their own.”[1]

 

Are you trying to understand your story? Take your questions to your Heavenly Father, who will either give you the answers you need…or the peace to live with the questions.

[1]C. S. Lewis, Horse and His Boy (New York: Harper Collins, 2005), 202.

Excerpted from Peace in the Face of Cancer. Copyright 2017 by Lynn Eib.
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Be sure to open this blog in your browser to hear the music video below “Hold Me Jesus” by Rich Mullins.

Jun 19

Are You Slamming the Door in God’s Face?

Over the years this quote from author Norman Cousins became a sort of rallying cry for my cancer support group members who were facing especially difficult circumstances. These are the kind of folks who realize shock and disbelief—although understandable reactions to a diagnosis—can’t really do anything to change the situation. So they decide to take the bull by the horns and refuse to give in to any statistics on a piece of paper or doomsday predictions from a doctor’s lips.

So just in case you or your loved one has been given some not-so-great cure odds or perhaps even no odds for a cure, I encourage you to quit fighting against the diagnosis and instead try and fight the verdict. Even if you or your loved one has great survival odds or your trial is something other than cancer, I think you’ll be blessed by today’s story of a patient defying the odds.

My German-born friend Jutta (pronounced YOU-tuh) was diagnosed with Stage 3 pancreatic cancer at the age of 38. It’s an understatement to say that cancer of the pancreas is not a “good” kind of cancer and it’s especially scary when your children are only 6 and 10. But that was the situation in which Jutta found herself in July 2003.

She felt fine and hadn’t even considered that the jaundice she was experiencing might mean she was seriously ill. The day after exploratory surgery discovered a malignant pancreatic tumor already spread to the lymph nodes, Jutta’s surgeon came into her hospital room and told her: “You better get your act together. You have cancer and you’ve only got two years.”

Jutta was shocked not only at the diagnosis, but at the less-than-compassionate way the news was delivered.

“It took me at least a month to get over that,” she says. Eventually she decided the doctor’s prediction was only that—a prediction—and she would not live believing it had to come true. Good thing—it is almost 16 years later and Jutta (far right in the photo) has never had a recurrence and remains cancer-free. 

As she reflects on her cancer journey, she says, “You don’t stop living just because you hear the word cancer. That’s the worst thing you can do. Even if my cancer had been stage 4, I would have still set goals and gone for them. I believe that somebody who sets goals lives longer.”

Jutta says she still has a goal of being “an encouragement to other people.” (You can bet I tell every new pancreatic patient I know about her!)

You need to know and believe that cancer–or any illness–is not an automatic death sentence. Doctors do their best at predicting cure rates and odds of survival, but these predictions are just educated guesses. I’m very glad that my oncologist does not regularly dole out predictions about how long patients have to live. He feels those predictions become self-fulfilling prophecies in many patients’ minds. I know zillions of people who have lived longer—some many times longer—than doctors or medical science predicted.

Predictions are just that. They do not have the last word. Please remember today that your and your loved one’s times are in God’s hands and He ­doesn’t need “good odds” to heal.

In the words of the late pastor/author Charles L. Allen:

 “When you say a situation or person is hopeless, you are slamming the door in the face of God.”[1]

Lord, Please help us all from slamming the door in Your face; from refusing to believe that you are the God of the unexpected, the improbable and even the impossible. Thank You that You don’t need good odds to do mighty works and that no statistic or white coat has the final word over our lives. Thank you that You have power over everything—over every errant cell in our bodies, over every discouraging word on our lips and over every hopeless thought in our minds. We open the door to You and the healing touch You want to bring to our lives. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

[1] All Things are Possible through Prayer, pg. 51, Charles L. Allen, Revell, 2003.

Be sure to view this in your browser to hear the music video below “All Things Possible” by Mark Schultz