Seriously

P has been the director of a high school ministry for the last twelve years. We started dating around the time he started working with this ministry. Some of my favorite memories of our dating years and early marriage are of times we spent with all of the kids we have had come through our ministry. It’s been a huge blessing in our lives and we’ve had the opportunity to become close to so many kids and in turn, their families.

There are some girls who I led Bible studies for that I have stayed close to over the years. We’ve kept in touch as they’ve gone off to college, made their way into the real world and for some of them, gotten married and had babies. It is a huge gift to get to see what they are doing with their lives.

One of these girls is A.J. The first time I met A.J. was on a ski trip during her sophomore year in high school. She was everything I am not, a rough and tumble tomboy who dislocated her elbow on the second day and still wanted to keep snowboarding. We bonded as I took her to the infirmary, which was my primary job as chaperone on the ski trip since I prefer to look at the mountains and not so much ski down them. She had spent summers doing Outward Bound programs and using leaves for toilet paper and I just did not get the appeal. But we shared a love of eating at Luby’s cafeteria and started going to dinner together once a week to get ourselves a Luann platter.

Over the course of that trip and the next 3 years of having her in my Bible study, I completely grew to adore A.J. and her family. They welcomed P and I into their home and lives with open arms. A.J. is the youngest of three girls and her family is just hysterical. They are the kind of family you sit with at the dinner table and just want to soak up all the love and laughter.

In fact, one of my favorite memories of them is sitting down to dinner with them and her mom looking around the table and saying very discreetly “FHB” and the girls just laughed. P and I were intrigued, what is FHB? Well, apparently it’s their code for “Family Hold Back” which means make sure you serve yourself a small portion and let the guests eat as much as they want. It cracked us up because we were sitting at a table overflowing with food.

A.J.’s dad is a surgeon and after we had Caroline, he made the comment that he had stitched up plenty of kids on his dining room table, so if she ever had an accident we should call him before we headed to the E.R. I filed that information away and then one day when Caroline was about 10 months hold, I was cutting fruit for her on her tray using a sharp knife (fabulous parenting skills) and she grabbed it and sliced her finger. I went into complete panic mode convinced that I had just severed her finger. I called A.J.’s mom to find out where her dad was because we had just cut Caroline’s finger (she later told me that I was so hysterical that what it sounded like I was saying was that we had been holding Caroline down and cutting her finger with a knife) and we probably needed stitches. Of course it didn’t help that P was telling me that there might be nerve damage.

She found her husband and he told us to come directly to his office. He looked at Caroline’s finger, sprayed some antiseptic on it and taped it closed with surgical tape. So much for severed fingers. He was so understanding and took his time looking at it like he was performing brain surgery and as a mama I was so grateful. We all left the office together as he went to perform gall bladder surgery on someone who was actually in need of a surgeon and not just a bandaid.

So, I tell y’all all of this so that you will understand that I have felt like I’ve been punched in the stomach. A.J. showed up at our door a few nights ago in complete tears and she isn’t a girl who cries at most things. She wasn’t even in the house before she said “We just found out this evening that my mom has pancreatic cancer. It’s already spread to her liver. There is nothing the doctors can do and she has 3 weeks to 6 months left.”

All of the air was sucked out of the room.

Words are completely inadequate.

We hugged, we cried, we prayed.

I can’t quit thinking about her family. Her mom was having some stomach pain for the last 2 or 3 weeks and the doctors did one last test just on a whim. That’s when they found the cancer. It blows my mind that you can spend 3 weeks hoping that you don’t have a stomach ulcer and instead find out that you may only have 3 weeks left to live. The doctors have told her there are no odds to beat because no one beats this.

I know that none of us are guaranteed another day. Life is fragile and it’s our job to do what God has for us to do while we’re here. I don’t know why some people get 98 years, some 56 years, some 9 years and some 2 months. It’s not in the realm of human understanding because this life on earth is all we really know and we hold on to it tightly even though in Psalms we read that “each man’s life is but a breath”.

A.J.’s mama knows that she’s going to Heaven and is a strong woman. She is surrounded by family and friends who love her dearly. In fact, A.J. told P last fall that she went hunting in a remote location with her dad and every night he’d use the satellite phone to call her mama. She asked him, “Daddy, why are you calling mom every night? It’s outrageously expensive”. And he looked at her and said “I just love her so much”.

If y’all feel led, any prayers would be much appreciated. Not only that God’s will would be done, but for the whole family. They are all hurting so much right now.

**edited to add that A.J’s mom passed away in April 2007. She fought the good fight.

Some circumstances this week have made me take a hard, honest look at myself. You know, one of those times you look way down deep into the crevices where you keep things hidden because honestly, it can be a little ugly down there and sometimes it’s easier to ignore.

My cold, hard realization is that I am putting a huge amount of trust in myself. I am counting on my abilities, my charm, my intellect, and my resources (I’m not saying that I have an overabundance of any of these things, which makes it that much sadder that they are what I’m trying to rely on) to help me get through certain situations instead of trusting God. I have sat and thought about circumstances and thought about how I should handle things and have totally discounted what God may have to say about the matter.

I mean really, He’s just the creator of the universe and He only knows things like how many hairs are on my head and how many stars are in the sky, so how could He possibly know about my huge problems here on earth? That kind of mentality should make y’all feel just a little bit sorry for me, considering that I’ve been counting on my own intellect and if that doesn’t show how limited my thinking is, I don’t know what will.

Last Sunday as I sat in church, our pastor said something that really caused me to sit up and take a little soul inventory, “Don’t judge circumstances by what we see, but by what He says”. I’ve held on to it all week because what are any earthly problems compared to the unsurpassing sovereignty of what He says?

The other way I’ve heard this same thought expressed is that trusting in God is believing in His heart, when you can’t see His hand. It’s easy to believe in His goodness when all is right with my world, but what about when everything isn’t alright. What then?

I have to stop and remember that the God who led Moses, the God who protected Daniel in the lions’ den and the God who kept Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from burning alive is fully capable of handling my problems in the year 2006.

He’s still mighty, He’s still on the throne, and He’s still leading His people to the place He wants them to go even when the path looks scary and dark. He knows the way even when all I see is darkness and fear. He knows the way and when I quit looking to myself and am quietly on my knees before Him, He will show me.

I originally posted this on August 13, but am reposting to participate in Lauren’s at Created For His Glory tour of testimonies. To read more testimonies, go visit Lauren here.

I grew up in church, so I can’t remember the first time I heard the story of the Prodigal Son. It was just another Bible story like Noah and the ark, Joseph and the coat of many colors, or Moses and the parting of the Red Sea. I never gave it much thought.

As a teenager, I slowly turned away from the Christian foundation I had been given as a child. I had always been just on the fringe of being really popular because I didn’t drink and go to all the parties, and by my junior year I was sick of it. I jumped in with both feet and pretty quickly found myself dating one of the most popular boys in school, going to all the good parties (you know the ones that involved parents being out of town and kegs of beer), and rebelling from all I knew to be right.

My downward spiral continued throughout high school and well into college. I knew what was right, but I was so stubborn. As I became more and more unhappy with the choices I was making, I started looking for answers. Finally, one night during my senior year in college, I picked up No Wonder They Call Him the Savior by Max Lucado.

His account of the prodigal son rocked me to my core. I had never before understood how much God loved me, how much He wanted me and how His grace completely covered every mistake I had made.

The next week I started attending a Bible study called Breakaway led by a student named Gregg Matte (who is now the head pastor of First Baptist Church in Houston). I walked into the room feeling a little intimidated. A guy named Chris Tomlin (maybe y’all have heard of him) started leading worship and sang a song called Grace Flows Down. Y’all I cried like a baby, not just a few tears but a full on ugly cry.