GOT LIFE?

                               

                                                                                                                                                   
We have received many wonderful notes from people this year full of love & encouragement.  Certain ones stick out in my memory because of some special message they had that seemed to go straight to my heart.

One such email arrived from our dear Canadian friend Carol who has been praying fervently & tracking closely with us through the blog & emails.  I was so touched & humbled to read that the Lord often wakes her in the middle of the night to pray for us....and she does.  She has raised the question more than once in her emails of ¨If God doesn´t seem to be answering the prayers we are making, is there another way we should be praying?¨ She is helping me to think more strategically about how to align my prayers with God´s heart.  And how can we possibly know what God´s heart is if we are not walking closely and listening intently to Him, not just telling him what we want for Jenna´s situation?

After reading the post THE TALK where we poured out our hearts about the difficult medical news  we had received about Jenna: that basically she is at the end of the road for traditional medicine and that there is no cure for her kind of cancer at this point (according to traditional medicine - you already know what we think about who has the last word!), Carol wrote reflectively about her prayers for us and some scriptures the Lord gave her to pray for us.  This is one of them:

¨I am the resurrection and the life.  He who believes in me will live, even though he dies, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.  Do you believe this?¨  Jn 11:25

I was pierced as ¨Do you believe this?¨ jumped out at me.  If I believe that Jesus Himself is Life and that He doesn´t see our lives as linearly as we do, nor does he see this earthly life with the same eyes as we do, what is Life?  Why, it´s Jesus Himself!  And what could be our truest & most fulfilling life but being with Him in a shared spiritual state for all eternity?  He is the One who resurrects!  This earthly life can seem long & involved to us but it is really so very temporary.  While this earthly life is NOT unimportant to Him, neither is it the point!  Real life is to come!

This gave me a new perspective on Jenna´s life.  While we tend to view a young person´s death (or potential death) as tragic, a life cut short, unfulfilled destiny or a waste, God does NOT have the same perspective.  Each of us will not live a moment more or less than what is ordained for us.  And that is a full life in God´s eyes.  How could we ever understand this?  We are so trapped by earthly eyes, mind and body that only our spirit can even begin to grasp by faith some of these heavenly concepts.

Ok, so I still don´t want Jenna to go and am fighting and believing for her life, ok?!  But my heart is more peaceful as I meditate on fundamental truths that are coming alive at this time for me.  My understanding of eternal is different, my understanding of life is different, my understanding of how much I don´t understand is different!  This journey is forcing our whole family to consider beliefs, values, truths and theology that we have perhaps taken for granted or never made very personal.  The heart-harvest in each one of us has been precious as we grapple with these things.

Some people don't want me to talk about death or even accept that it is a  possibility with Jenna.  I respect this as an expression of complete faith in healing and vision for the life that Jesus brings.  I accept it as an absolute refusal to accept human words that can be damaging & even a curse.  But I do feel the need to grapple with possibilities, face possible realities & come to the place of peace in these different scenarios...because I cannot claim that what I think is best is necessarily what God thinks is best.  His thoughts are far above mine.

Believing in Jesus is not a guarantee for healing.  Believing in Jesus doesn't mean that bad or painful things will not happen to you.  It does mean we live different, supernatural realities in the middle of a physical existence.  We have eternal tools at our grasp that others who may not believe in Him don´t have.  But we live in a messed up, sin-filled world that impacts all of us more than we know.  Thankfully, this world is NOT our home.  I don't plan to make it my home or Jenna's home.

Please accept my writings as my process, my pilgrimage, my feeble attempt to walk with the Savior.  A Savior I often don't understand but whom I love & believe incapable of doing anything that in the end does  not flow from a lovingkindness that we have little or no ability to define.

Today I am so thankful that, ¨He who believes in Me will live.¨ Really LIVE.

Photo by:  Stathis Stavrionis