Celebrating Anniversaries

Anniversaries are great. They are opportunities to celebrate – special occasions or great people. But sometimes an anniversary comes and it causes you to be sad. For instance, this week marks two years since my husband’s brother passed away. This was a very sad and untimely event in our family’s history. It was so sudden and followed so soon after my husband’s father had passed away that it was almost unbearable. His health was even affected because of the stress and a fear that he too would die prematurely.

So here we are two years after that very sad time. And we have a good life. God has been very kind to place us in “green pastures” and has “restored [the] soul” and health of my husband in many ways. But at times like these, on these anniversaries, we are all taken back in memory to that hardest of times and it both saddens and encourages us. The memory still hurts but at the same time, we see God’s amazing faithfulness and care.

My husband is preaching this Sunday so he’s preparing his message in the midst of grieving.  Even after two years, he still picks up the phone to call his Dad and brother. Tough times. I’ve been praying for him. To add to his disquiet, there was a fifth anniversary celebration of the church he helped plant and led in New York for four years, but we didn’t know about it until after the fact.  No one’s fault.  Church planting is a busy business and it’s easy to overlook things.  We’re not discouraged by that.  It’s a different church now and it was never “ours” to begin with.  It is and has always been “God’s church”.  But their anniversary coinciding this week hits a chord and is just one more thing occupying my husband’s thoughts.  Though he did his best, he’ll always focus more on his shortfalls than on how God used him there.

My prayer is that even though his heart is heavy and his thoughts are occupied, God would fill his gaze and give him grace to not only preach a message that affects the hearers but one that ministers to his own soul.  I know God wants to meet him powerfully this week.

If you think about it, you can pray for him too.

Hope in the midst of bad news

Wow.  The last couple of weeks have been an exhausting time in the Stewart household.  Several of us (including me) have been sick with a virus.  In the midst of this, we were given some bad news about extended family members.  It’s definitely been a time of deeper desperation for God.  

We found out about two weeks ago that my niece (my brother’s daughter who my parents raised) has breast cancer.  It was a shock that came out of left field.  Her original diagnosis that it was stage 3 didn’t bode well.  Thankfully she has since been downgraded to stage 2A, whatever that means, and it appears that it is only in one breast not both.  This is a 28 year old woman with 4 children.  Very sad news.  But God is faithfully using it to draw her to Himself in a way that I’m convinced couldn’t be accomplished in any other way.  

Add to that the news that came only days later that my brother (my niece’s father) has colon cancer.  We still don’t have conclusive results of the tests they performed from his surgery and subsequent biopsies but we are hopeful.  He is probably facing chemo and isn’t looking forward to that.  Only God can cause these kinds of things, with this timing (not a coincidence), and work them all together for His good.

The hardest part has been watching my parents deal with it all. This is the first time in their life that they haven’t been physically able to be with one of their children or grandchildren to support them in their time of need.  But God has something in it for them in the way of trusting Him more deeply.  Though they weren’t able to be physically present, their prayers and support by phone were vital.  It’s been rewarding seeing their faith so strong during this time.  But hard nonetheless.  

As for me, I’m trusting fully in God’s ability to use all this to draw us closer as a family and, more importantly, draw us closer to Him – the Giver of Life.  No matter what comes, I know He is faithful.  My brother is still a young man (48) so this diagnosis threw him.  My prayer for him is that his faith is built up through this process.  Up till now, though he’s faced many hardships, he’s never faced anything like this where he’s completely helpless.  This place of desperation, I’ve found, though difficult, is the very place God likes us to be.  In our weakness is when we find His complete strength.

I’m not in my brother’s shoes so I don’t pretend to know what he’s going through.  But the things God has brought me through have given me the confidence that if he will allow Him to be his all in all, he’ll experience a peace like no other.

As for my niece, this seems to be bringing her out of a cloud and back to a right foundation.  Her life has been pretty messed up these last few years.  My prayer for her is that she find God again and experience true faith in Him – the kind of bedrock faith that gives you strength in these times.

In all of this, I’ve been grateful for the perspective God’s given me.  Because of His faithfulness, I can fully trust in Him to do a good work here, not just in my loved ones but in my own heart as well.  His constant assurance that He is WITH us in this has been amazing.  I’m blessed to have strong faith.  I know it doesn’t come from me but has been GIVEN to me as a byproduct of seeing God’s faithfulness in my life over and over again.

A friend of ours, Dave Harvey, gave a message a few years ago about “looking back and looking up” to see God’s past and present faithfulness in our lives.  It is something I’ve dwelled on much recently and it’s kept me grateful for how well I’ve been taught. People can flounder in times like these but I feel, for the most part, rock solid.  I pray that somehow my brother and niece will experience some of this rock solid kind of faith as they walk through these life and death issues.  It’s not only comforting, it’s life-giving.

They both have a rough road ahead of them.  I covet your prayers that they will find grace and peace in the midst of it.

One more thing – we have a dear friend in Phoenix who will not be with us much longer.  He’s like a grandpa to us.  He’s the father of one of our best friends and we’ve spent many holidays enjoying stories about his very colorful life.  He’s in the last days of struggle with cancer.  We are sad to see him losing his battle with this disease but we know exactly where he is going and that we’ll see him again one day.  What a great hope we have!  We love you PawPaw and will miss you here but know you’ll keep it lively up there till we arrive.

Fear and a lot of prayer.

I had an unusual experience over the last couple of days.  Though I’m not easily frightened, I experienced fear yesterday to the point that I needed to call my husband and have him help me.  All of this came from an unexpected source.  Here’s what happened: We have some friends in New York who were close to delivering their first baby.  Actually, this couple was the first couple my husband married and for that and many other reasons, they are very special to us.  So a couple of nights ago, I got the overwhelming sense that they were in labor and I began to pray for them.  Since I couldn’t get in touch with them (because they actually WERE in labor), I contacted some friends (thanks Tim!!) to confirm the fact.  Being their first, I knew to expect a long wait so I was patient.  

I, like everyone else who knows them, couldn’t wait to see who their baby looked like.  And because they had decided to wait to find out the sex of their baby until delivery made it all the more exciting.  By the way, it’s a girl and they named her Carolina Rae. 

At some point after the delivery we received an email informing us of some complications during the delivery but which didn’t elaborate much.  I couldn’t shake the sense that something serious was up so I just kept praying.  

When I finally found out the nature of the difficulties, I guess that’s when I started having fearful thoughts about them.  I was still praying for them but there was this creeping sensation that the worst might happen and our friend would lose his wife (or his mother who was also desperately sick at the same time).  I ended up calling my husband and confessing my fear to him.  He faithfully told me some truth I needed to hear and helped me entrust them to the Lord, encouraging me to pray not just for them but for my own lack of faith.  I’ve been doing that and it has helped me to be more grounded in truth.  

It’s confusing what things can so easily uproot your faith a bit.  I consider myself to be a woman of faith, not often struggling with trusting God through difficulty or change (though I have had a couple of major battles here).  And it seems funny that I’m focusing on myself when all the light should be cast on this couple, whom I love, who are actually going through this battle.  I know they must have had to wage war with their own faith in the past couple of days.  Knowing them, they have pleased the Lord with their hearts and attitudes.  

The mom is now stabilized and she and the baby came home yesterday evening.   And though she has some serious recovering to do, she and her husband know that there are many people who love them as we do who have also been praying for them.  

One of the sweetest things I’ve heard through this is that where they originally named their daughter Carolina Rae, they’ve since changed her name to Carolina Grace as a testimony of God’s faithfulness to them through this trial.  

To Carolina:  We can’t wait to meet you precious one and tell you how special your mom and dad are.  Enjoy your new parents. They are a wonderful, godly couple who have waited patiently for your arrival so they could be a family and see the miracle of how God uniquely made you.

For me, this is yet another lesson in how weak I am and how desperate I am for God’s care.  I’m grateful He continues to rescue me from the various sins that entangle me on a daily basis.

Congratulations Claudio & Lulu on the birth of your baby girl!  We couldn’t be more excited for you.

Anxious but Aware

I think I’ve been out of touch with my heart.  This last week and into next week I’ve had medical tests scheduled.  These are a long time coming.  What with my husband’s health issues in broader focus for the last 2 years, I guess I’ve let myself go a bit.  I’ve had some episodes recently that lead me to believe I may have some health issues that need tending to.  My new doctor (a lovely man who is part of our new church) ordered a battery of tests including a CT Scan of my head to see if there are any new developments from my MRI scan 4 years ago that showed possible lesions on my brain.  He also ordered an EKG, a cardiac stress test with echo, some blood work, and a mammogram (I’m 43 and have never had one – bad me!).  So all the tests have been done except the mammogram which is scheduled for Tuesday of next week.  

I thought I was doing fine, just expecting everything to be normal, the doctor just wanting to rule out anything serious, but I find myself thinking about the “what ifs” more than I’m accustomed to.  I’m a pretty easy-going person, not rattled easily.  But the more I think about it, I have sensed a growing anxiety.  I need to be healthy.  What would my family do without me?  Whatever comes, this is a good wake-up call for me. I can certainly take better care of myself than I have.  I need better rest and need to eat better (I don’t eat enough actually – by all rights I should be skinny!).  I should take vitamins. I need to get more exercise. I know all the things I should be doing…I just need to do them.  And now’s the time.

More importantly, I need to cast my cares on the Lord.  He’s my strength when I’m weak and needy.  If I’m anxious, I must trust that He knows this and will give me the grace to wait patiently, knowing that whatever comes, His grace is sufficient.  It’s good to remind myself of this truth.  And it’s also good to acknowledge my need and doubt.  Because I reek with self-sufficiency, I can just go on about my day, perhaps aware of anxiety but successfully distracting myself from dealing with unbelief.  If I’m anxious at all, it represents that in some way I’m not fully trusting in God’s goodness.  But knowing what we’ve been through in the last several years, and God’s faithfulness through it all, I’m confronted with the fact that He has worked all things together for good.  Why should I doubt that He will work anything that may come from these tests to my good as well?  It is only my weakness and sinful unbelief that would cause anything besides trust in Him.  

So by His grace, I will put myself completely in His care, submitting to whatever His plans are for me. Even if that means I will go through a medical challenge of some sort doesn’t change the truth.  His grace IS sufficient. It has been in the past and it will be in the future.  The bottom line is, I don’t know if there’s anything to worry about anyway.  Scripture encourages me to not worry about tomorrow because today has enough worries of it’s own.  I need to do that.  I will do that.  But I know that I can’t apart from Him giving me the grace to do so.  I believe the best place for me right now is to allow my faith to be strengthened with the knowledge of His goodness, His sovereignty, and His perfect love.  After all, my greatest need has already been met.  If I have an eternal perspective, that changes everything in the present.

I’m sure I won’t do this perfectly, but I’ll let you know how it goes, and I’ll let you know how my tests turn out.  I’m probably perfectly normal.  All of my symptoms can be attributed to getting older.  My body is experiencing decay.  I need to be committed to doing all I can to slow down that process, but it will ultimately happen.  I’m fine with that.  God will help me keep focused on the things that are truly important.

If you think about it, pray that I remember truth.  When I doubt, I can forget that I have a place to run to that calms my fears.  I will throw myself on His mercy seat.  Therein is where my peace lies.