Joy

Do you believe in coincidence? I don’t. I believe every good and perfect gift comes from God. One such came last week.

Tuesday is the day I’m at church volunteering and then supervising in our Redemption Groups in the evening. Tuesday was the day the storm passed and the sun came out. I was out getting my dinner at the Trader Joe’s right next door to the church and I said, “God I’m so joyful. What is this? Am I just happy that I survived the first round of chemo? Is it just a physical response to coming out of the fog?

Before our groups start all the leaders meet together and eat dinner; we chat about the week etc. A couple of our guy leaders asked me simple questions that lead to sweet messages from my Father. One said, “Where are you finding joy? Are people telling you to put on a clown face and jump around?” I said no there are too many people in my life that know that the fears and unknowns of cancer are real and they don’t encourage me to slap a Bible verse on my thoughts and feelings to find joy. I told him I found joy in the fact that this life is not the end. That whatever happens in this life is not ultimate. I have the hope of heaven.

Later in the evening God reminded me of how I was asking him about that very thing earlier in the day. He gently whispered,  “you don’t have to have an explanation—-you can have unexplainable joy; just receive it from me. You don’t have to earn it.” I’m an analyzer who wants to know the why of everything. I tend to shun grace. Having the gift of joy on Tuesday was pure grace.

The other questions from another sweet brother were about my kids and husband. How are they? I realized I didn’t have a very good answer. “They’re Ok”, “Wanting to fix it”, “Not knowing what to do”, etc. Marc and I are doing it together, etc. One of the things we talk about as Redemption Group leaders is asking questions that get beneath the surface (these guys were doing this for me!). What do people want, believe, hope in.

Thinking this way is new for Marc and I. We have not been talking this way with our adult kids regarding my cancer. One of the hindrances is that it is hard to look at cancer; it can mean death; it is serious; it is hard to see someone you love suffer. They are dear children. God’s gracious gifts to me. I know this affects them too and that God has some very precious things to whisper to them as well as we travel this road together. That is why I can risk asking.

Much of what God has been working in me these last couple of months is about receiving and believing. He has saved us by his own mercy, not by anything that we’ve done.

“But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior,
so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” Titus 3:4-7

Hallelujah, what a Savior,

jane