I shall go to him ...

 On September 6, 2026, at around 11:45, my husband lost his battle with cancer (see previous post for the type of cancer, etc.)

I always believed - rested my small faith in the faith of Jesus (Galatians 2:20 KJV, the word "OF") and spoke healing into my husband's body. And yet ... and yet, the cancer did not leave, but progressed. And it was the last site of the cancer, the stomach, that physically caused his death. 

The official cause of death is "gastro-intestinal bleed secondary to pancreatic cancer with metastases" - such a clinical and cold way to describe such a vicious and cruel final act.  And before anyone says, "God took him" or any of the other untrue platitudes like "God must have needed another angel" or any such nonsense, let me say this: God did not do this. The cancer did this. The cancer came NOT from God, but from the enemy of Neil's soul. And, for reasons that only. God. knows.... the cancer did not obey words spoken in absolute confidence - and I am now a widow. 

A widow. The word itself seems awkward and strange. 

I took the courage of Scripture that says, "I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the LORD," (Psalm 118:17) and claimed Neil's healing. I still believe those words... even though his body stopped responding to treatment, I pair my belief with the following words: "I am the resurrection and the Life; the one who believes in Me, even if he dies, shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die." (John 11:25, 26). Jesus was talking about what makes us humans Eternal, like Him. He was talking about the spirit, the part of us that makes us, us. 

Yoda from Star Wars (thank you George Lucas) put it like this:  "Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter," as he pinched his own flesh.  I like that part of the original Star Wars trilogy. It reminds me that Neil is alive and well, and happier than he ever imagined he would be. 

King David, who wrote Psalm 118:17 (above) also experienced a similar thing as the events of the last 3 months have been for me. He was told that his and Bathsheba's son was going to die. He prayed anyway. He fasted, he wore sackcloth and ashes (as was the custom in those days) to prove to God his love for his son and his desire AND HIS FAITH that the child would be healed.

But the child died. And his courtiers were afraid to tell him. Finally they did, and were amazed to see their king stand up, freshen up, wash himself and put on fresh clothes. When they asked him why this change in demeanor when his son had just died, David replied, "Now he is dead; why should I keep fasting? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me." (2 Sam. 12:23)

Did David lack enough faith? No.

Did I lack faith? Did all the people who prayed for him? Did they? Was it because Neil didn't believe enough? or anyone? 

NO. 

I know that someday, God will reveal to me the reasons why Neil had to leave me. Maybe it was to teach me something. Maybe. Perhaps. Maybe even probably. I will learn ... when He (in His gentleness and mercy) knows that I am ready. 

But I refuse to blame God, or Neil, or myself, or anyone else who prayed in faith, believing. NO. Neither is God's power diminished AT ALL. 

The enemy, satan, is the source of this cruel and reprehensible disease. He is a thief. Jesus said, "The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy." (John 10:10) Jesus then said, "I have come that they might have life, and life to the full." Is Neil experiencing life to the full right now?  YOU BET HE IS!!! 

It was the Mercy of God that we saw so many mini-miracles throughout Neil's sickness: the relief from pain before he even went into the hospital (from 7 Dilaudid and 2 long-acting morphine pills per day ... down to a half a Dilaudid per day and only 1 long-acting morphine pill once every 7 to 10 days), the improvement in memory and in physical strength even when he was in the hospital, and most of all, the attitude that the love of my life had from the beginning - and I am quoting him here - "I am going to fight this disease. I am going to fight to stay with you as long as I can. But if I lose this fight - and I won't want to lose this fight - just know that I am in the Next Room, waiting for you to get there." (Neil, June 1st, 2026, upon learning the results of the CT scan that showed masses in his body.)

And it dawned on me yesterday or the day before that it was the Mercy of God that orchestrated Neil's going to the hospital on August 25th with a blood infection that took his strength from him. If he had been home and had that GI bleed, not only would we have lost him a day earlier, but we would have had to experience that traumatic event at home, and would never have been able to "unsee" that horror unfolding in our own house.  In the hospital, he was well cared-for, got the treatments that allowed him to have that extra day with us (Sept. 5th) when his body responded to the transfusion and the fluids, a time that was so precious where we got to spend the whole day with him, laughing and joking as he got stronger and stronger. That day was a gift. We all needed that.

So it is with the pain of grief and the peace that passes all understanding that I write to you to say,  "I shall go to him, but he shall not come back to me."

In fact, I know that because he preceded me in death, he will precede me in the Resurrection - unless Jesus doesn't come back before I join him. 

And that is okay. It really is. It hurts, but it's okay.  

I drew this at Montana's when my daughter's best friend took me there for lunch one day this week. The moment of the Rapture - the Resurrection and reuniting of Neil's glorified body with his spirit. 
And Neil saying "Woop Woop" instead of "Woot Woot" ... as he always did. 

 

 

A Contest on a Mountaintop

Lately, the drought has taken its toll. I'm not talking about lack of rain falling from the sky. I'm talking about spiritual rain. So many days, months, years without the refreshing and nourishing Spirit of God raining down on His people. We've learned to "settle" ... to lower our expectations ... to tighten our belts and to make do. 

And in this atmosphere, sometimes the enemy of our souls brings calamity upon us to try to convince us to give up, to lose faith, to lose confidence in God's love and power. Such a calamity has befallen us lately. A diagnosis of metastatic pancreatic cancer with spread to the liver, stomach, and one of the adrenal glands has sapped my husband of physical strength and wracked his body with daily, persistent pain. 

It is hard to watch, hard to listen to the efforts of people who are dealing with their own anticipatory grief and doing and saying things to make themselves feel better. It's hard to entertain the possibility that this thing will be fatal, with all that entails. Been there, done that. I can't awfulize the future. It's too much.

I've chosen, rather, to believe that God will be glorified through whatever happens, and what happens may just as likely be his healing. I've been speaking healing on his body: death to the cancerous cells, and protection on the healthy cells. 

Yes, he will undergo chemotherapy. Yes, he will fight to stay around as long as he can. And yes, the doctors have given him a timeline. But others have been known to surprise the doctors and go into remission, and I am clinging to the God of wonders, who spoke life into existence. Because God is the only one who knows how this will turn out. And more and more, I am reminded of one particular story from the Old Testament as the diagnoses keep piling on and on.

Elijah - after 3 years of drought - met the prophets of Ba-al (god of fire and darkness) on the top of Mount Carmel. It was a showdown, a contest between their god and his God. Each would prepare a sacrifice, and the god who answered by fire would be the winner.

Most know the story. Ba-al was a shoe-in to win; after all, he was the god of fire!! But Elijah didn't allow them to use any parlor tricks to start fires themselves. And Ba-al didn't answer, even after they cut themselves in their frenzy of begging. Hours they wore themselves ragged from their part in this cosmic contest. Still no fire.

Then it was Elijah's turn. But he didn't pray just yet. He made it harder for his God to answer. He got servants to fetch water from the sea below. Barrels full of water, drenching the sacrifice. It soaked the animal and it soaked the wood. 

Then he spoke just a few words asking God to glorify Himself. 

Free image from Pixabay

And the fire came from the heavens. It consumed the wet animal, even licked up the water on the wood and burned the wood to ash. The answer was impossible to deny. The God of Israel - the same God who extended His grace through Jesus - displayed only a fraction of His power, and the prophets of Ba-al knew their fate was sealed.  They ran. And they didn't get far. 

This is courage written in Scripture for us to realize that the more impossible the barrier, the more glory God gets when He overcomes it. Stories like these give me the courage to stand in the faith of Jesus (see Galatians 2:20, KJV and note the word "OF") and command the sickness to leave in the authority He delegated in Matthew 10:8. I follow the pattern Jesus set: not to pray for healing, but to command the disease to go away. 

Because this horrible disease, this contest between death and life, is impossible with all the knowledge and skill of humans. This disease is stage 4, considered incurable, only treatable - and only to the end of prolonging a very short time-frame. That's the human side of it. But we place our faith in the God of the impossible, the God of the incurable, the God who answered by fire that licked up the water in the wood and the trench they dug around the sacrifice. Yes, THAT God.  

King David's words, given to us early on in this journey, still ring in my head: "I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the LORD." (Psalm 118:17) Focusing on that gives me focus and helps me not to succumb to the daily grinding attitude of hopelessness that surrounds this diagnosis. 

I rest in His faith and speak to this cancer - daily - to shrink, to shrivel and to disappear in Jesus' mighty name. I speak to the pain this disease causes in my husband's back and tell it to leave, so that he has dignity and the mental capacity to choose how to live his life. This is life and death here. And life - and the Giver of life - wins.  

Work to Rest

 Hebrews 4:10, 11a - "For whoever enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from His. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest..." - NIV

 This concept of working to rest is probably one of the most counter-intuitive ideas in Scripture. Yet God - being inscrutable, or hard to figure out - is full of opposites like this. Dying to live. Humbling ourselves and being lifted up. 

This one, written by the author of Hebrews (whether Paul or not, it doesn't matter), is particularly hard to fathom. Working to [enter God's] rest?  For many years, I thought it meant that we work our behinds off in order to reach Heaven, which never made sense to me, because that interpretation flies in the face of Grace being undeserved favour, as opposed to works being something about which we could boast ... something God would never allow. After all, if we could work our way to Heaven, why did Jesus have to die?

But the context of this passage in Hebrews indicates present tense, as if God's rest is something we can achieve now! The key is in resting from our own work (vs 10), and on the surface, that makes no sense, because how can we labour (make every effort) to rest from our own work? 

But Jesus DID die. And that is the answer to the mystery. Because Jesus died, and offered God's grace to us freely, we can stop striving as if we had to EARN God's favour, because we already HAVE it. We can rest in what Jesus did for us, because that was enough.  That's our foundation. That's our solid rock. We can depend on that, and not anything that WE do. 

There is such freedom in that fact. We can rest in it, be grateful for it, and learn to cease striving to be accepted, because in Jesus, we already ARE. THAT is the rest we enter.

And entering that rest seems so simple that we stumble over it. Just Jesus? 

Yes, Just Jesus. 

So why must we make every effort (or as the KJV puts it, 'labour')? (vs. 11a)

Maintaining that focus of "just Jesus", when all around us, people are telling us to do this, do that, do something else, do, do, do ... putting all those voices behind us and focusing on resting in His finished work ... is hard work!! It goes against our human nature, to rest, to trust, to relax into what He has done for us. We humans want to DO something! We want to have a hand in our own fate, be masters of our own future, be recognized for our own efforts. 

Free image from Pixabay

But that is not God's way. We are told here to work on maintaining our focus on resting in what God has already provided for us - so that anything that we do FOR Him becomes an outflow of gratitude, rather that wondering if what we do is "enough."  

From a human perspective, working to rest seems backward. It's upside-down. But it's true. God is like that. He's enigmatic. He cannot be "pegged." His grace knows NO bounds. 

I could go on at length about how that wonderful truth plays out in our lives on an everyday basis, but I think it best to leave the concept with each one to grapple with this idea ... not an easy one, to be sure. 

I think that it is worth the time it takes to ponder. 

Attraction

 "The message I got was always, 'God is great, you're a worm, try harder.' "
      - - a teen after leaving the church

"Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion..."
      - - Tradition #11 of Alcoholics Anonymous

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Once in a while, I go to the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous and read the heart of the book, chapter 5, which talks about how the alcoholic cannot hope to change or get rid of his core problem (which is NOT alcohol, by the way; alcohol is only a symptom) without God being the Director of his or her life. It's an eye-opener for many people. It was for me the first time I heard those steps.

Even though the book does not specifically mention Jesus, the 12 steps of AA are a blueprint for having a personal relationship with God based on admitting our need, submitting to Him and repenting of an old lifestyle to embrace, day by day, "a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty." (chapter 5). This was Jesus' message to a T.

My quotes, above, contrast the current message the western church sends to people against the approach that AA takes toward bringing new people in to embrace their message. They are polar opposites. And that - in my opinion - is so very sad. Many people are revolted by the judgment and the bigotry that is so rampant in those who call themselves Christians and attend church on Sunday, yet use their beliefs as a weapon to exclude rather than as a magnet to attract. 

Free image by hince at Pixabay

But it was not always so. The early church lived their lives in such a way that people were drawn to the Saviour. They didn't pound people over the head with the Scriptures or judge them for their debauchery. They loved each other, supported each other, and cared for each other's needs. THAT in itself would attract people to the Lover of our souls. True, they did not participate in the practices of the people around them who were not followers of The Way. But they did not torch their temples, mutilate their artwork, or protest their bath-houses either. (That only came later, once someone made Christianity the state religion...) No, their policy was the same as AA's. Attract. Yes, they were to 'preach the gospel' but largely through their lives, by living a lifestyle of love, by healing the sick, raising the dead, casting out demons, AND NOT by shoving a 20-something pound Bible down their throats. They lived life to the full, not by insisting on a bunch of rules and demanding perfection, but by listening to the Voice of Love.

Love accepts. Love does not keep a record of wrongs. Love perseveres. Love is loyal. Love believes the best of people. Love gives. Love cares. Love forgives. And since God is Love, God is all those things ... and more. 

My calling - if you can call it that - my passion, possibly even my ministry - is to wake the dead. Not the pagans. Not the 'unwashed' ... but believers. 

Listen to the Voice of Love. Receive His Love and pass it on: no conditions, no rules, no judgment! Accept. Believe. Give. Forgive. Care. Just as He did for you.

May God - who is Love - show that Love to you today ... in a new and fresh way.

He Touched Me!

" ... 'Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.'
And Jesus reached out his hand and touched him. "
'I am willing,' He said. 'Be clean!'.." - Matthew 8: 2, 3

The story of the leper is probably one of my favourite stories in the Gospels. Not so much because of the (then) impossibility of healing leprosy, but because of something else.

When I read Scripture, I like to put myself in the story. I become the woman at the well, the man in the tree, the blind beggar. In this case, I become the leper.

Ostracized by society.
Separated from family and friends.
Jobless. Homeless.
Having to advertise his disease to any and all who approached. "UNCLEAN!"
Hated. Feared.
Hopeless.

Not for years has he known the touch of a human hand. And then, Jesus.

From a distance, he has watched Jesus heal others. And somehow, he knows that just a word from the Master will heal him. And Jesus turns his attention to him. Him, the unclean one. Him, the diseased one. And Jesus asks him what he wants.

Humbly, he makes his request. "But only if You want to."

Jesus could have just said the words. But He didn't. 

He REACHED OUT to this man IN HIS DISEASE and TOUCHED him.

Monumental. NOBODY touched a leper.

But Jesus did. 

Let that sink in. Jesus touched one of the most feared and hated, one of the most disgusting-looking people on the planet. And He did so BEFORE He healed him. 

I imagine that even years later, the clean (formerly leprous) man could still recall the feeling of a clean person touching his diseased face.

"I want to." Jesus' intentions were clear. He wasn't doing this because He was expected to. He was doing this because He WANTED to.

"Be clean." The outward appearance was only a symbol of what was already happening in his heart. Regeneration.

And now others can see his healing - the healing that had already happened inside because Jesus touched him. 

Free image by Fabian Geiske at Unsplash.com

What other than gratitude could be his response?

He'd been touched by the kindest hand ever, rescued from his horrible circumstances, able to go back to his family and friends, given hope, given peace, given a way to enter the workforce again and support his children. In that moment, he was whole again. Whole. Clean. Restored. Born anew. 

His natural response would be to be grateful, to love as he had been loved, to serve the One who had reached out to him in his disease and distress. 

Only those who have discovered the depths of His love and grace can truly understand how a desire to please the Master can be the only response to relief from that kind of suffering. 

You and I cannot know that depth of gratitude. Or can we? Weren't we completely lost, without hope, without peace, judged, dismissed, unseen, unloved until He reached out His hand of grace to us? Weren't we just like that leper? If our sins and our brokenness could have shown on the outside of our bodies, would they not be as broken as his was? Once He touched us and cleansed our disease of that horrible sin nature from us, were we not as free to be our true selves?

I think so. I am grateful, thrilled, worshipful. 

Aren't you?