In The Valley of Baca Journal #16

October 30, 2018: For some reason I don’t understand entirely, until the wee hours of this morning, I hadn’t been able to ask the Lord to heal me.  But in the dark and quiet of this morning, the prayer bubbled up from deep inside, “O Jesus, please heal me—heal me please!”  All through this day the prayer kept repeating, quietly, urgently—“Please—heal me!”

October 31, 2018: I learned today the results of some genetic testing I had done that I have a “broken gene” and that it may lie at cause of this cancer.

November 9, 2018: I had a surgical repair done 3 days ago of a suture line from my previous surgery—a “wound dehiscence” they called it. I have been feeling quite well ever since and am thankful to God for that.

November 11, 2018: This verse speaks to me today—He will quiet you with His love…” (Zephaniah 3:17) My inner spirit has felt so peaceful and hopeful all the way through this ordeal (once the initial shock had passed)—it has to be from the Lord. I feel confident that I am in the center of His will as I pass through this Valley of Baca.

November 13,2018: “Surely God is my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord, the Lord, is my strength and my song; He has become my salvation.” (Isaiah 12:2)

November 14,2018: As I am passing through this Valley of Weeping, and making it a “place of springs—of pools of blessings,” I am thinking about how the depth of my trust in the Lord has increased—how my hope in Him has grown—not only for this life, but to think beyond this life—to consider with more seriousness than ever, my hope for the next phase of life—beyond the grave. These are some of the “pools of blessing” in the Valley.

Another pool of blessing has been experiencing the love of so many friends, and of my family, as they have reached out to me and prayed for me.

November 15,2018: “Your God has commanded your strength; O God, display Your might and strengthen what You have wrought for us!” (Ps. 68:28)

Many friends have complimented me on my “strength” as I am going through this trial, but I know that it is God Who has strengthened me, and strengthened my faith, for on my own I would surely have succumbed to fear and sadness and hopelessness.  I am totally dependent on Him for the strength to face this cancer and for the faith He is building in my heart.

“And as your days are, so will your strength, your rest and security be.” ~Deut. 33:25

November 17,2018: “How great You are, O Sovereign Lord! There is no one like You and there is no God but You!”  ~2 Samuel 7:22

The sky was clear this morning while still dark just before dawn, and I stepped outside briefly to look at the stars—they always take my thoughts right to God—how amazing He is that He could create this immense and immeasurably vast and complex universe by speaking it into existence!  I am ever in awe!

And then to think—that He loves me! That He came to earth as a man to give His own human life to pay the ransom for me—for anyone who will believe—so that we can be with Him forever!

“The Lord will be your everlasting Light and your God will be your glory.  ~Isaiah 60:19

In the Valley of Baca #8

 

June 24, 2018: This second and third week after chemo #2 have been fairly easy to tolerate. Drinking lots of water seems to be key to feeling better.

This passage from Psalms speaks to me today: “Those who trust in, lean on, and confidently hope in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved but abides and stands fast forever. As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about His people from this time forth and forever.”  (Psalm 125:1-2)

The images are of mountains and this promise is two-fold: Those who trust in the Lord are like a mountain—Mount Zion in Jerusalem—where God’s temple was built. The temple was a place to worship God, with the Holy of Holies in the innermost part where the Spirit of God actually dwelt. We who trust and lean on and hope in Him are like that, with the Holy of Holies in our innermost being—and this is forever!

The second part of the promise assures us of God’s protection. He surrounds His people with His presence forever —for all of life’s entirety, including this life, death and the next life. There is no safer place to be.

June 27, 2018: As I am sitting in the recliner at the Infusion Center, receiving my third chemo infusion, I read these words from Isaiah 57: “I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will lead him and restore comfort to him and to his mourners, creating the praise of the lips. Peace, peace to him who is far and to him who is near, says the Lord, and I will heal him.” –Isaiah 57:18,19

How beautiful and precious God’s promises are! And how kind He is to bring them to our awareness and speak them into our hearts when we need them so! Time after time the Spirit is highlighting promises of healing to me.

 June 28, 2018:

“Cultivate your relationship with Jesus,” encouraged my Dad, the farmer, who thought and spoke in agricultural terms when referring to both the physical and spiritual realms.  I’m thinking a lot about this in my time of need: We knew what it meant to “cultivate,” for we had cultivated the corn crop each summer. Operating a tractor with a “cultivator” on the back, I had spent many hours going up and down the rows of young corn, trying carefully to keep the sharp v-shaped blades between the rows of corn and not dislodging the tender young corn plants themselves.

Spiritually speaking, cultivating my relationship with Jesus meant not only growing my relationship with Him by faithfully keeping a daily quiet time with Him, but also hoeing out the spiritual weeds, the fleshly tendencies that warred against my spirit. I am grateful that I followed Dad’s advice from an early age.

Similarly, the old Chinese proverb which advises “Dig your well before you are thirsty” is advice I am appreciating as I am on this journey of cancer and its treatment. I take this as a spiritual meaning, as having walked in the way of faith for over half a century, I have dug my “well” and am now drinking from it in my time of need.

It is the way of our culture to look for peace and comfort in a bottle of booze, or some other form of self-medication such as marijuana provides, or the more extreme opioid crisis demonstrates. The best any of these can offer is temporary relief, and has to be constantly renewed to dull the inner pain or achieve the relief desired.

But the well of peace and comfort, of hope and confidence that knowing the Lord gives is completely different. My advice to anyone is to search for God now—He promises to let you find Him when you search for Him with all your heart—and when you come to Him in the way He has chosen (through His Son, Jesus Christ).  Then, when you have found Him, cultivate your relationship with Him daily. Learn to know His voice for He is constantly speaking. When your time of difficulty comes—and it surely will come—you will have dug your well of faith already from which you can drink and your thirst will be quenched with peace and hope.

July 1, 2018: I’m currently in what I’m calling my “downer days” during the first week after an infusion—lethargy and achiness. I’ll be feeling better in a few days. Surgery is on the schedule for this month.

July 3, 2018: I’m emerging from my “chemo fog” today, 7 days after infusion, feeling the aches and pains subsiding, with more energy and desire to be active. I have to guard myself to keep from overdoing once I start to feel better from the infusion. I’m so thankful I can get to this place physically considering what my body is undergoing. So thankful I’m not having to endure the potential nausea and vomiting that so many endure—a real blessing!

In the Valley of Baca Journal #5

May 22, 2018: “You will guard him and keep him in perfect and constant peace whose mind (both its inclination and its character) is stayed on You, because he commits himself to You, leans on You and hopes confidently in You.

“So trust in the Lord (commit yourself to Him, lean on Him, hope confidently in Him) forever, for the LORD God is an everlasting Rock (the Rock of Ages).”

~ Isaiah 26:3

All the prayers of so many friends and family for me to have peace are being answered as I stay my mind on Him.

 

May 24, 2018: I find this thought deeply comforting: “There is no circumstance, no trouble, no testing, that can touch me until first of all, it has gone past God and past Christ, right through to me. If it has come that far, it has come with great purpose.”~ Joni Erickson Tada, Joni and Ken, An Untold Love Story

God promises He is working in this situation concerning my disease, my treatment and healing, and He is working it together for good—for me, for my family and for His Kingdom (Romans 8:28). Joni Tada adds: “The fact is, if God brings you to it, He will bring you through it.” I’m looking forward to all that He is doing and wanting to accomplish through me.

“I trust in You, LORD; I say, ‘You are my God.’ My times are in Your hands.” ~Psalm 31:14-15

In the Valley of Baca

 

 

I have recently received the startling news that I have cancer. I’m joining the ranks of so many who have walked this way before me, but I never expected to be going this way myself. I have started keeping a journal of thoughts in case they might help someone else who finds themselves on a similar life journey.

 Journal Entry #1

April 26, 2018

The Valley of Baca (The Valley of Weeping)

When will the tears stop falling? It’s been a week since I got the news—cancer—metastatic cancer no less! I am blind-sided by this news. All future plans come to a screeching halt as I try to process and get my mind around this. And not only am I stunned—my husband, my daughters and close family are all reeling. What does this mean for me…for my family?

Psalm 84:6—“Passing through the Valley of Baca (the Valley of Weeping), they make it a place of springs; the early rain also fills the pools with blessings. They go from strength to strength…”

Beneath all this, this tumultuous storm, there is the calm—the peace that passes understanding—the peace that Jesus gives. A century ago George MacDonald wrote, “Out of strange strife Thy peace is strangely wrought.” Strange strife indeed—and His peace keeping me from fear.  As more and more family and friends are learning of these latest developments, the love and prayers are buoying me up as on a wave. So many praying for me—so much love!

C.S. Lewis stated, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts to us in our pain…”  I am hearing the shouting, and I am passing through the Valley of Weeping now. It will prove to be a place of blessings, of springs that would be otherwise never known. And the beautiful promise: “They go from strength to strength…”  Yes, I will go from strength to strength.

In Front of the Mirror

I stood in front of the mirror, turning sideways to see my profile. Was there any sign of the baby growing yet? No…not yet. This was my fourth pregnancy, two of which I had lost early on in their development. Now, after a time of waiting, I was expecting again, but there were danger signs that I might lose this one also. So I was seeking reassurance in the mirror—if only I could tell that the baby was growing…

“Do not fret or have any anxiety about anything,

but in every circumstance and in everything,

by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving,

continue to make your wants known to God…”

(Philippians 4:6)

Yes, I had been praying about this. The Lord had given me His words as a promise, “Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him.” And I had been resting and waiting. But at that moment in front of the mirror, I was not intentionally praying when these words from John 14:27 burst into my mind:

“Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid…”

I knew right away that this was the Voice of the Lord, for I had learned to recognize His Voice. His words spoke peace to me. And I was so comforted.

“And God’s peace which transcends all understanding

shall garrison and mount guard

over your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:7)

His peace rolled into the center of my being and took up residence, even though I continued to have dubious symptoms for another month that I might still lose this baby. It was about one month later that I first felt her move, this precious little one—more reassurance.

I‘ve learned that things don’t always work out the way we want them to. I was to deliver one more live baby but then lose two more in the years to come. But I’ve also learned that I can trust the Voice of Jesus and the peace that He gives—He will go through this with me, whatever it is, whatever the outcome, and in the end He promises He’ll make it all right.

I heard God speak to me that day in front of the mirror. And now it is 37 years later, and this daughter of mine is a mother herself, expecting her second baby. She also trusts and prays about her babies.

I can trust Him. You can trust Him. You can trust His peace. Pray about everything, and don’t forget to be thankful. For us, for our children, for our children’s children and on and on forever, God and His Truth remain the same—for us, for them.

“…His Truth endures to all generations.” (Psalm 100:5)

Frozen

I stood frozen in my place behind the curtain in the twenty-bed women’s ward of the hospital where I worked as a nurse. I had entered a patient’s unit to prepare it for her when she returned from surgery. On the other side of the curtain, a blind woman lay on her bed listening to a local Christian radio station. She and her husband managed a home for orphan children and she was in the hospital for surgery to attempt to alleviate her blindness.

As I worked, I heard her switch off the radio and say out loud, “What do they mean when they say that we need to be born again? I just don’t understand! Can’t someone tell me?”

That’s when I froze. I knew what it meant to be “born again”—it had happened to me seven years earlier when I asked the Lord to come into my heart. In that pivotal moment I began a relationship with Jesus Christ that would become the basis for the rest of my life. A part of me wanted to talk to her and share my experience with her—I knew it was what God wanted me to do, but I couldn’t move. My stomach twisted into a knot as I cringed in my timidity.

In the months and years that followed, my memory of that moment haunted and tormented me. My weakness, my failure, gnawed on my conscience and continued to afflict me.

And what of that poor lady? Would God bring another into her life to answer her question where I had failed? In retrospect I long to believe that He did, because her heart was yearning to know something that He loves to reveal—Himself.

But I would never know, for the moment came and left. However, the Lord used that experience of my own failure to motivate me to long to be free of that spirit of fear that bound me.

It was a few years later when I actually encountered the Holy Spirit, surrendering to Him, and soon finding my heart beginning to thaw from the intensity of His warmth. I learned what it means to be filled with the Spirit and empowered by Him, making me able, with boldness from Him, to identify myself with Him to others.*

“God did not give us a spirit of timidity (of cowardice, of craven and cringing and fawning fear), but of power and of love and of calm and well-balanced mind and discipline and self control.” (II Timothy 1:7)

The Lord has had a lot of work to do on me through the years “unfreezing” me and delivering me from my many fears. But one by one those fears have been conquered as He brings His power and peace into my heart—power and peace that enable me to be lovingly obedient to Him, and finding a wonderful soothing quietness and calmness in my spirit that emanates from His presence.

What I have found in God is available to anyone who is willing to accept Jesus’ sacrifice for them and to yield their life to Him.  He will lead you deeper and deeper into relationship with Himself–if you are willing, if you will follow step by step where He leads you, if you will go in your heart with Him.
*See my earlier blog, “A Person to Know”

Perfect Peace

I was fearful as a child. My early years of growing up were during the Cold War in the 1950s and Americans were nervous about being bombed by Russia—the atom bomb! Consequently, warning clips would come on our black and white TV about what to do if there was suddenly an air raid. When we saw that bright flash of light, we were to take cover! And this would be demonstrated for us by watching children in school diving under their desks. Would a desk protect me? This to me was a very frightening thing. And, as an eight year old, I recall being struck with terror every time an airplane flew overhead. Upon hearing and/or seeing it, I would run inside the house, hoping there would be no bright flash of light, followed by an explosion…

And then there were the tornado warnings! One time we had a tornado drill where the teacher led us outside and we all laid down in the ditch. So many times, sitting at my desk in the one-room schoolhouse on a hot May day, having heard the teacher announce that there was a tornado warning (what we now call a “watch”), a knot would form in my stomach from the anxiety, and, nervously perspiring, I would frequently peer over my shoulder out the window to see if the dark clouds were taking funnel shape. Could we make it to the ditch in time?

When I was 19, our barns caught fire during a family picnic, and burned to the ground. In the first minutes of the fire, I, along with other family members, ran into the barns to free the calves and yearling cattle that were tied and penned inside. As my brother knocked down fences with his bare hands, and tore open the gates, I untied the younger calves and shoved them out the door. We managed to free and save most of them. When I heard someone call to get out, I ran from the back barn through to the front barn, pushing my way through a crowd of frightened animals as flaming hay was falling down around me from the loft above. As I pushed my way out, my brother was coming back through the cattle crowded at the door to get to me, and together we ran full speed toward the house. I turned as I reached safety, and saw the roof of the front barn explode in flames. And soon the ancient, tinder dry buildings were a pile of smoldering rubble with loss of animals and equipment.

The adrenalin surge served to empower those frantic minutes, but having seen the devastation of a fire out of control, I now had a new dread that disturbed my sleep for the rest of that summer in 1966—and into the years beyond.

It reared its ugly head again for me years later, in the months after the birth of my first baby. As I would put her to bed at night, and retire to my own bedroom, I was tormented as I tried to fall asleep. What if there was a fire? I worried about the fireplace–what if an ember sparked on the rug and the place burst into flame? Would I be able to get to her in time? Repeatedly I would get up out of bed to go and check the fireplace. This and other possible scenarios played through my anxious mind, causing me, night after night, to break out in a sweat of cold..white…fear.

And night after night I prayed. Claiming the promise of Jeremiah 26:3, “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee,” I struggled to stay my mind on Him. How I battled with that powerful fear! How I longed for that perfect peace! Over and over, as the fear would rise in my heart, I would cram it back down, and try to “stay my mind” on Him.

Then one night, as I again went into battle, praying fervently, I heard the Lord whisper to me (in my mind), “Give Me your fear.” This was a new and alarming thought to me. So instead of trying to control the fear, to cram it back in its box, I was to let go of it–to surrender it to Him? This meant letting it rise up, yielding up control of it to Him…and that is what, on that night, I did.

With trepidation, I let the feeling rise in my heart and mind, and I gave it up to Him. I sensed a tearing of something from my breastbone area—something that felt like it had roots. Then…a quietness…a peace where before there had been panic. I opened my heart fully to the Holy Spirit, and asked Him to fill me with Himself.

And He did. From that time forward until now, some forty years later, His peace has ruled in my heart. The torment, the cold sweats in the night, when fear sat on my chest and sucked the breath out of me, are gone.
And as I continue to stay my mind on Him, He keeps me, now still, in perfect peace just as He promised. Words cannot adequately describe the richness or the beauty of this gift of peace from the Beautiful One, the Prince of Peace Himself.

Everybody Wears A Yoke

Everybody wears a yoke of one sort or another. A metaphor for how we deal with life, if our “yoke” isn’t the easy yoke offered by Jesus, it will be another one and ultimately difficult. It may be the yoke of pride: “My life is my own and I’m going to live my life my way!”; or of fear: “What will people think of me? What could happen to me?; or perhaps it is a yoke that is forced upon one by another, (as in an abusive relationship, or human trafficking). No matter what our yoke is, if it’s not the yoke of Jesus, the burden will be heavy and difficult to bear.

Doesn’t that make it even more poignant what He says about His yoke—there will be rest, peace, and a lightness of the load? The beauty of His yoke is that it can be taken and worn in whatever situation we find ourselves. His yoke is about dealing with our circumstances in His way—obeying Him, receiving guidance from Him, and experiencing the outcome of doing things His way—for He promises to work everything together for good for those who love Him (Romans 8:28).

So as He personalizes His yoke for each of us, making it fit perfectly, He also joins us in the yoke, sharing in the burden, pulling alongside us. Certainly Christians have endured severe and extremely difficult situations through the ages. During persecution for instance, believers had a hope of eternal life that carried them through. Just as Jesus Himself endured the agony of the cross for the hope that was set before Him, imagine those early Christians in Roman times being thrown to the lions, or crucified for Jesus’ sake or those burned at the stake (and even today how Christians are suffering persecution in the Middle East and around the world)! There is a cross of suffering for each believer to endure, but it is the joy of the Holy Spirit and  hope of eternal life we have in Him that is our strength to get through it.

So as you are enduring your difficult situation, as you work your way through it, and if you have indeed taken the yoke of Jesus, think of the hope you have in Jesus as His yoke. Remember that He is pulling alongside you and with you taking the weight of it on Himself. What you may feel as hard and deep and cutting is not His yoke, it is the pain that sin—maybe yours, or maybe the sin of another—is causing you. By choosing the yoke of Jesus, by yielding your life to Him, you are choosing the way of hope and joy and deep inner peace, no matter what else is going on.