Category: trust

Feb 11

How do you feel about interruptions?

“Mommy is going to go pee and I’m closing the bathroom door!” I remember announcing to my three very active daughters–then ages 3, 5, and 7. “I do NOT want to be disturbed unless someone is bleeding or the house is on fire!”

Those four minutes of peace were wonderful.

I think most of us have times we really dislike interruptions. If we’re sleeping, we usually don’t  want to be disturbed by loud noise. If we’re watching an exciting movie, we probably don’t appreciate being interrupted with a bunch of questions. If we’re trying to play a quick round of online Boggle with our friend Gigi, we hate to be disturbed by our husband making a smoothie in his very loud Ninja blender (hypothetically speaking, of course).

I’ve been thinking more about “interruptions” ever since I was sitting at my favorite local coffee shop and watching a woman at the nearest table. She got up, walked four tables away, and said to the guest: “Can I ask you a question?”

The second woman responded “of course” and a conversation ensued about finding a certain building in town. The two ladies ended up chatting quite a while.

I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but the reporter in me had a lot of questions.

I especially wondered why the woman interrupted the person who was obviously working as she typed on her laptop, while I was much nearer and not engaged in any work.

No satisfactory answer came to mind until I got up to clear my dishes and noticed the working woman’s table sign:

I smiled and decided to interrupt her and ask about the sign.

“I stole the idea from someone else,” acknowledged Beth, pastor of a local church. “I’m a planner and don’t really like interruptions, so this is good for me.” (We exchanged contact info, I gave her a couple of my books and now she wants me to speak to some of her church folk. )

Planning is basically my middle name, so I  am not a happy camper when “interruptions” upset my plans.

I remember almost 35 years ago when God allowed cancer to “disturb” my world. I eventually became so disturbed by the thought of people fighting cancer without knowing Jesus or at least without sensing His care that I founded a cancer prayer support group. And I continued to be so disturbed that patients and caregivers needed understandable truth in their minds and real hope in their hearts that I literally could not sleep until my thoughts spilled into books.

Have you or your loved one experienced any interruptions which sidetracked your plans?

They don’t have to be as seismic as a life-threatening diagnosis; interruptions can be anything or anyone that stops us from what we were doing.

But big or small, these intrusive events can be “holy interruptions” when we allow God to capture our attention, speak to us and draw us to Himself. It’s how we seek God in the midst of them –and even let Him shine through us–that make them sacred.

As the lyrics of the song below remind us:

“Where did you see God today? Was it in an unexpected place? …
Time to open up our eyes and see for ourselves the holy interruption up ahead.”

I don’t think I’ll make an actual sign encouraging interruptions when I’m eating out, but I am entertaining the idea of adding “watch for holy interruptions” to my daily to-do list. How about you?

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Open in your browser to hear the song  “Holy Interruption,” a simple, short tune with profound words by Jeff Lowery.

Nov 12

“I just felt really called into loving people with cancer”

When Tom Wilkinson* was diagnosed in 2008 with stage 4 head and neck cancer, he never imagined that God soon would use him to encourage his oldest daughter on her own cancer journey.

“He’s my hero,” says Joanna Dennstaedt, second in a family of six born to Tom and Dee Wilkinson.  “He was the voice of reason and wisdom for me through it all.”

Joanna–“Jo” to her friends–was devastated in 2014 to get the diagnosis of stage 3 melanoma at the age of 34. Her four children were only 7, 5, 3, and 15 months. Two surgeries, including a complete groin lymph node dissection knocked her off her feet before she even started chemo.

The scheduled treatment was a year-long, weekly immunotherapy drug called Interferon, which had such tough side effects patients were normally hospitalized for the infusions and few could tolerate it for 12 months.

“I made it almost 10 months before it was killing me,” Jo recalls. “My liver was shot, my thyroid was shot and I started panicking.

“I was probably rock bottom and I kept thinking ‘I’m not going to get to raise my kids”,” she adds.

Me speaking at the 2024 Radiant Hope banquet

About that time she met a woman named Ivelisse Page who through her nonprofit Believe Big https://www.believebig.org/ helped Jo find a naturopathic doctor and get complementary treatments to help heal her body. She also gave her a copy of my book 50 Days of Hope.

And then one day a beautiful “sunshine” package showed up from an anonymous person in another state, who had been reading Jo’s blog.  The enclosed note explained that the sender and her co-workers “put this box together and prayed for you.”

That’s when Jo knew.

“Why am I not doing this for others?” she asked herself. “I knew I needed to get outside of Jo.”

And the vision for Radiant Hope was birthed–months after Jo’s dad encouraged her not to “waste” her cancer and instead believe God could use “all the good and the hard.”

God confirmed Jo’s idea while at the cancer center one day He spoke to her heart: “You’re not here for you; you’re here for Me.”

“I just felt really called into loving people with cancer,” Jo explains.

And that she has.

In the nine years since the nonprofit https://www.radianthope.com/ was established in Mechanicsburg, PA, it has:

  • Served more than 7,000 people in 387 Pennsylvania counties
  • Given away 5,000+ “HOPE” boxes, which include a copy of 50 Days of Hope
  • Handed out 2,000+ water bottles at cancer treatment centers
  • Provided respite care, scholarships, holiday gifts, one-on-one mentoring, celebrations, family photos and a cancer support group

“I never really wanted to start a nonprofit,” Jo admits. “I didn’t take a single business class in college, so I was wondering what was God calling me into?”

But now she realizes that “cancer has prepared me well to serve others.”

“Radiant Hope started out of my healing journey,” Jo explains. “All I did was say ‘yes’ and God did all the rest.”

“Cancer itself is not a gift, but there are so many little gifts that come out of it along the way,” Jo says. “I thought when my Dad had cancer that it was going to be the worst thing ever, but instead we could walk through my cancer journey together.

“Now I walk with others and encourage them just like he did for me.”

*(If you missed Tom’s story, read my last blog on 10-29.)
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Open in your browser to hear “Wings”  (based on Psalm 91) by Lauren Daigle.

Sep 24

“If I had known…”

Izzy (R), cousin Abby (center) and sister Callyn (L)

On Labor Day weekend after a fun-filled family day of kayaking, paddle boarding and picnicking at a nearby state park, our oldest granddaughter started complaining about stomach pain. Just a few days shy of her 12th birthday, Izzy couldn’t sleep that Saturday night and kept waking her parents seeking pain-relief.

No fever, no other symptoms. Did she “drink” too much lake water as she lay on the paddle board and the refreshing waves splashed her face? Had she eaten something at our BBQ that didn’t agree with her?

On Sunday morning she threw up and pleaded to go to urgent care where mom Bethany quickly took her (I know vomit is the proper word, but it gives me the heebie-jeebies).

Nothing showed during the exam at urgent care, but the doc recommended they go to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia urgent care center in nearby King of Prussia to get an ultrasound and rule out appendicitis.

A few long hours later, Izzy was scheduled for admittance at CHOP so she could have her appendix removed in the morning.

“I was very nervous because I never had surgery before,” Izzy admits. “Everyone kept saying it would be OK, but I didn’t know that for sure and I was worried.”

And then what happened next really surprised her.

Post-surgery FaceTime

“My room was really cool and they wrote on a whiteboard ‘WELCOME IZZY!’,” she recalls. “There was a snack room and the nurses gave me chocolate ice cream. And there was a playroom and my Daddy and I played Rummikub, and if you took a paperback book to read, you could keep it!

“My Daddy stayed until I fell asleep and then Mommy came back,” Izzy adds. “The nurses were really nice and they checked on me all night.”

Shortly after her successful one-hour laparoscopic surgery, we FaceTimed with Izzy and she made this observation: “If I had known how great it was going to be, I never would have been afraid.”

That comment started me thinking about fear of the unknown, which led to pondering my eventual journey to Heaven (which, for all of us gets closer every day!) I turned 71 yesterday and if I’m truly honest, I have some apprehension, some concern…dare I say, a little  fear about some of the unknowns?

What will my earthly passing be like? How does it feel to be transported out of this body? What will Heaven REALLY be like?

“I imagine our first glimpse of Heaven will cause us to…gasp in amazement and delight,” writes Randy Alcorn in his book Heaven. “That first gasp will likely be followed by many more as we continually encounter new sights in that endlessly wonderful place.”

Maybe there will be a white board inscribed ‘WELCOME LYNN!” And I’m sure there will be really good snacks and really nice people.

Alcorn goes on to describe our first moments in Heaven like this:
“Now you see someone coming toward you. It’s Jesus, with a big smile on His face. You fall to your knees in worship. He pulls you up and embraces you. At last you are with the person you were made for, in the place you were made to be.”

And like my wise granddaughter, I imagine I will say “If I had known how great this was  going to be, I never would have been afraid!”

No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him. 
1 Corinthians 2:9

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Please open in browser to hear the music video “I Can Only Imagine” ©Mercy Me.

Aug 27

Navigating the Storms of Life

Photos NOT from the fateful voyage!

Many years ago my husband  and I had plans with my then-boss, Dr. Marc Hirsh and his wife Elizabeth to cruise to a marina on Maryland’s eastern shore for our annual Labor Day weekend getaway on their 32-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 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!)

Even though Marc and Elizabeth were seasoned boaters,  the whitecaps on the usually calm river should have been our first clue it wasn’t a good idea to head out. 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 that 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, buoys were sighted 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. In those 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.

“The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God stands forever.”  Isaiah 40:8

Like Marc as he captained our boat that stormy trip, it’s your choice–and mine–whether or not to trust the magnetic poles of the earth. Life’s trials may distort reality, but there is a deeper spiritual reality that always an be trusted.

Excerpted from When God & Grief Meet. Copyright © 2009 by Lynn Eib. All rights reserved.
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May 21

All Shall Be Well

Like most of us, Kevin Cross’s life has been full of unexpected twists and turns–many of them wonderful, at least one terrifying. And as soon as I heard his “full-circle” story, I knew I wanted to share it.

The Cross home on the Tred Avon River

His life dream started very young.

“When I was little, I used to play at being a priest,” Kevin, 72, recalls. “I gave my sisters Necco (candy) wafers for communion!”

In college Kevin continued his dream of becoming a Jesuit priest…until he attended a Catholic retreat and met a young blonde named Barbara.

The two quickly fell in love and “that kind of ended that career choice!” Kevin says with a laugh.

They married in 1974 and after earning a Master’s in psychiatric social work, he worked in counseling and human resources for the next three decades.

Then came another unexpected turn when he and Barbara attended a retreat in 2003.

“When we got there, I found out it was a 3-day silent retreat, which didn’t sound that great,” Kevin recalls. “But afterwards as soon as I got back in the car, I started hearing in my head  ‘I want you to be a priest’.”

He wrestled with such a momentous change, but finally decided to go to seminary and become an Episcopal priest.

“Father Cross” has been his calling  ever since.

Volunteer chaplain at the National Cathedral

For the past 14 years he’s been rector at Church of the Holy Trinity, Oxford, MD, on the Eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay. (Known as “The Village Vicar” in this community of only 600.)

The most difficult path Kevin’s been forced to take began in 2019 when he insisted his family doctor do some cardiac screening because  he was 67 and “so many of my parishioners were having strokes and heart attacks.”

The coronary calcium scan which looks for plaque in the arteries scored him a perfect zero. But the x-ray images of his heart showed something else.

“You’ve got a spot on your right lung that looks suspicious,” the doctor reported and prescribed an antibiotic in hopes it was merely an infection.

But a few months later the answer came: “It’s grown and you need to have it out.”

Kevin’s right lower lobe lung was removed and the pathology identified melanoma, which meant it was stage 4. (The primary skin site never was found.)

“This whole thing was just a shocker,” Kevin acknowledges. “There were times when I was really frightened and petrified, but my faith is what really got me through–my faith, my family and my friends.”

He began a bi-weekly infusion of immunotherapy to boost his immune system, stopping six months shy of the recommended two years because of adverse kidney effects.

Especially comforting to Kevin have been the words of 14th century mystic Julian of Norwich, who withdrew into solitude for most of her life and wrote Revelations of Divine Love (the oldest surviving book in English by a woman). Her village was filled with poverty, famine and the bubonic plague, prompting suffering folks to come to her cell  for spiritual counsel. 

It was a vision in May 1373 when Julian said she heard Jesus speak the words for which she is most well-known:

“‘All shall be well’ became my mantra,” Kevin remembers. “I obviously wanted to be healed, but I knew if I wasn’t, all will be well.”

Scans every three months continue to show No Evidence of Disease for Kevin.

“It’s always on your mind that it could recur,” he explains. “I can forget about it for a while, but it helps me remember the finiteness of life and appreciate it more.”

Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.
—John 16:33

Yes, in Him, all shall be well.
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For more on the life of Julian of Norwich https://julianofnorwich.org/pages/who-is-julian-of-norwich For more of her quotes https://quotefancy.com/julian-of-norwich-quotes

Open in your browser to hear this short, beautiful arrangement of “All Shall Be Well” by an unnamed guitarist (originally composed by folk-singer Sydney Bertram Carter, best known for “Lord of the Dance”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8c3-GMOs10 )