I've been blogging to share our family's joy over the birth of Matthew and Nathan. I've been blogging to share my own joy in the face of all the sadness reported in this world. I've been blogging to prove to myself that LIFE IS GOOD.
The boys went down for their nap this morning and I started my new little routine: check my email, check my facebook, check my blogger dashboard. On facebook today I read that my former colleagues are grieving: one of their students passed away after his second two-year battle with cancer. My heart is sad for the family, as well as my friends who grieve. I never taught this student, but I know he touched many lives fighting valiantly.
I checked my blogger dashboard next, where I can read any updates of blogs that I follow. I only follow a few, but I learned today that an old friend has been fighting for the lives of his leading ladies: both his mother and his wife have been fighting breast cancer in just the last two years.
My dear friend A's mother is also fighting breast cancer as I write - for the second time in her life. My own father has beaten prostate cancer. My husband only knew his grandmother for 8 years because she passed away after her own fight against cancer.
That's not to mention the non-cancer issues so many others face right now. We have dear friends in their twenties who are battling Crohn's disease and melanoma. A fellow multiples-mom lost one of her babies in utero three weeks ago and is bravely facing three more difficult months of pregnancy in order to give birth to baby R.
I didn't even mention my husband's near-death experience last month, when he had emergency surgery to correct a bowel obstruction just 4 hours from bursting and becoming septic.
Why do I list all of the troubles my friends and family are facing? I don't usually sit and think about all the negative things in my life. In fact, I try to do just the opposite: to be optimistic. So when I found Winston Chruchill's quote this morning, I knew that was the one. He's right; it does not seem to do much good being anything else. But ignoring it won't make it go away, either.
We need to remember that we serve a loving and compassionate God, who heals all of our diseases and infirmities, who takes our sorrows as far as the east is from the west, who turns our joy into dancing. We don't always understand His ways, but we still must trust that He will watch over us, take care of us, and give us burdens no heavier than we can bear.
Because when we least expect it, He makes life very, very good.
Matthew and Mom, Grandma, Great-Grandma, Nathan with Great-Great-Grandma on her 95th birthday.
1 comment:
We are going through our own valleys this year...and I am choosing to believe this is God's way of teaching us about His faithfulness. The Bible says that God is faithful. And faithfulness is one of those qualities that you either are, or you aren't. You can't be mostly faithful, kind of faithful or usually faithful. It's an all or nothing word.
So in the midst of this desert...that is what I am holding on to. Because He IS good...in every situation. Even when I can't feel His hand...He's working.
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