“Beyond Cancer’s Scars: Laying Claim to a Stronger Spirit” . . . Book Release

And so it arrives . . . this moment I’ve been anticipating for over a year now. The day when I can release to you to the words God gave to me over the course of forty days last summer. It’s my cancer story, wrapped up in words and memories that express both joy and sorrow, hope deferred and hope realized. Funny thing . . . I still feel these words. They’re still fresh, still speaking strength to my soul. I pray they’ll speak strength to your soul as well.

It seems fitting that Beyond Cancer’s Scars: Laying Claim to a Stronger Spirit releases this week. Today, August 23rd, marks the two year anniversary of my cancer diagnosis. Two years ago, I couldn’t see today—a future moment when the suffering I was about to absorb would bloom as a witness to the sustaining strength and faithfulness of God. Two years ago, all I could do was feel the pain, suffer the losses, and hold tightly to the faith that had so beautifully followed me all the days of my life.

That faith and God’s grace have carried me forward to this moment—a day when he turns the tables on my previous suffering by using it for his kingdom purposes. This is my prayer . . . that my story might serve as a soothing balm to your suffering season. That you would feel less alone in your struggle and that you, like me, would allow God to use your pain to shape the souls of the generation that sits beneath your influence.

Your story in God’s hands advances his kingdom. Write it, speak it, feel it, and, most importantly, live your story forward. The best is yet to be! With Jesus, the best is always yet to be.

Would you please help me spread the word about my book? Here are some ways you can help:

  • Share this post and the book trailer with your friends via e-mail, facebook, twitter, blog, and other social media pages.
  • Purchase a copy of the book for your pastor to serve as a resource for those in his/her congregation who are dealing with cancer.
  • Purchase a copy of the book for a family member, co-worker, neighbor, or friend who is struggling with cancer or another soul-eating “something”.
  • Consider starting a support group for cancer patients/family members/others who are suffering (a free, downloadable facilitator’s guide is available by clicking on the following link: Download Facilitator’s Guide for Beyond Cancer’s Scars).
  • Ask your local bookstores to carry my book.
  • Share my speaking information page with your church staff and others who are looking for a special event speaker.
  • Write a review of Beyond Cancer’s Scars for online retailers (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc.)

To listen to a radio interview about the book, click here.

 

Ordering information:

 

This first version of Beyond Cancer’s Scars is no longer available for purchase online. The updated version, Beyond the Scars, can be found by following this link.

Lessons from the Lunchroom {on doing the right thing}

 

“Hey, Lunch Lady, can I have another slice of pizza?”

 

So said my son last Friday around noon. It’s only in hindsight that I can laugh about it. In the moment, my emotions were otherwise occupied with thoughts of escape, retreat, and getting out of Dodge while there was still some gas left in my tank. Being his lunch lady is just one of the many new labels I’m wearing around my house. Teacher, principal, janitor, and bathroom monitor are a few others. Yes, we’re homeschooling this year . . . a 6th grader and a 5th grader.

 

It’s hard, but it’s right.

 

How do I know? I just know. I knew it the moment we began. It took us a long time to arrive at this decision, but after a few years of educational frustration, it was time to make a change. Sometimes you just know when a change is needed. Sometimes you take a large leap away from what’s reasonable . . . what’s comfortable because of that knowing.

 

It’s good to have that kind of information stored away as an anchor—the assurance that the hard decision is the right decision. I’ve not always had that certainty when it comes to making decisions. Sometimes it’s a 51/49 process. Fifty-one percent says “yes”; forty-nine a “no.” Sometimes I just have to go with that extra two percent, believing that God goes with me and will make up the difference. I’m glad that’s not the case here.

 

God has this year in his hands. His reach is generous. It’s going to be hard, but it’s already very, very right.

 

Right isn’t always easily defined. But as we stick close to Jesus . . . lean in to him, rely on him, expect from him . . . he is faithful to provide us with an ample supply of strength, courage, and direction for the path we’re traveling. With such grace, we’ll find that what is right is also good, even when it feels so very hard.

 

Being a lunch lady will bring many changes to my life, of this I am certain. I don’t know the ebb and flow of it all just yet. I do know it’s requiring far more of me than I anticipated on the front side of my decision. I’m having to let go of a few good things in order take hold of this better one.

 

But I’m ready to try, and really, in the end, isn’t this most of the struggle—garnering enough personal willingness to try and do the hard thing? To just step on, step forward, and walk the line of what’s right? Those steps might be fraught with difficulty, hardship at a whole new level, and surrender at the deepest of levels, but when they’re the right steps, the struggle will be worth the gain.

 

This I believe to be true. This is how I will live my year as lunch lady, with struggle and with faith. And most wonderfully, with two young hearts who first called to me from their cribs and who, now, call to me from the lunchroom. This is going to be a wild ride, friends! Thanks for coming along with us. As always . . .

 

Peace for the journey,

choosing when to walk . . .

Rain.

I’m growing weary of it. Not of its existence; rain is needful. It cleanses the earth, grows the seed, and cools the summer scorch. No, I’m not knocking the benefits and beauty of the rain. I am, however, a bit disgruntled by its timing.

Let me explain.

I’m an evening walker. I used to walk in the mornings, started my day off fresh with a hearty three or four mile jog in the brilliance of the sun’s light. Somewhere along the way, things changed. Life changed. My jogs turned into walks, my schedule obliterated by the urgent and necessary. My schedule, these days, not so necessary, less urgent than my previous one, yet new habits have taken over where old ones once reigned. And so, I now walk in the evenings. There’s nothing profound or deep buried in this reality. It’s just how it is.

For the last several weeks, the rain has accompanied me on my walks. I may start out dry with blue skies and a smattering of gray-bottomed, cloudy pillows as my companions, but I usually return to the house with a few drops of heavenly dispensation on my clothing. In all my years of living on the East Coast, I’ve never experienced such predictability. And so tonight (with my son’s promised forecast for sunny skies and lower temps), I began my customary stroll around the neighborhood. This time I took my umbrella . . . just in case. Good thing. My “just in case” rolled in about the time my feet rounded the corner on Fordham Drive.

Buckets of rain, absorbing through my cheap umbrella, making sure I knew it meant business. I wasn’t going to escape the wetness. Instead, I was forced to endure it . . . again, all the while praying that anyone in my household might look out the blinds to notice my predicament and run to my rescue. They didn’t. Instead, they stayed dry in the comfort of our home while I willfully pushed through puddles and streams and soggy socks, all the while hating the rain and wondering why it seems to prefer my walking hour rather than the other twenty-three that fill up a day.

I know what you’re thinking. I’m thinking about it too. Why not change the time of your walk, Elaine? Why risk the rain at night, when the morning promises more dryness? Why not the certainty of the day rather than this new predictability of the evening?

Why, indeed?

I don’t have a good answer for you. I won’t even tell you that “into every life a little rain must fall.” You get it. You know about the rainy season—those times when we cannot choose the climate surrounding our hearts and we must press through the rain because there’s no other option. That’s not what I’m talking about here. What I am wondering about are those times when you and I have a choice . . . to walk in the rain or to walk in the sunshine. What about those times in our lives when we stubbornly choose the rain over the sunshine? When we refuse a change of habit and heart and cling tightly to our way over a better way? Why walk with the clouds when the sun is available?

I’ve had a lot of rainy days as of late; I cannot predict all of the clouds that will move in and out of my life, nor the precipitation they’ll bring with them. I can, however, predict a few of them—those evening showers. Accordingly, I can make a choice to avoid them . . . to move my walking to daytime hours. In doing so, I’ll avoid some wetness, some heartache as well.

I don’t always have to get wet. You don’t either. Sometimes we get to choose when we walk. Sometimes we have an option . . .

The sunshine or the rain.

Seems to me a better choice to enjoy the sun while it is shining brightly overhead rather than to be caught in the rain with regret. And therein lies a thought or two worth considering. As always . . .

Peace for the journey,

My friend, Melanie Dorsey, has also written about “choosing” today. Join her in worship by clicking here.

vintage faith

“This is what the LORD says: ‘Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.’” –Jeremiah 6:16

 

In searching through the old, I find something new. And so I went there yesterday . . . to the Cotton Exchange and Livery in downtown Fayetteville in search of my new.

 

I love old things, vintage items that date me by a few years. Linens, glassware, trunks, and clothing. Standing amongst them, I travel through time, taking a step backward, a step inward to feel what it must have been like to first wear that shawl, hold that hankie, or cook with that iron skillet. Immersed in all things vintage, I pay respect to the generation that first embraced the newness of these treasures. Used and preserved over the years, they’ve outlived the people they first served. They now serve as a witness to the lives lived before me. What stories they tell me . . . mostly imagined, yet relevant for me in the search for my new!

The story that comes before me is the anchor that writes the story now in me and the story that will follow after me. I need to visit the old, to rediscover my roots so that I might move ahead with understanding. So that I might find rest for my soul.

As it goes with my search for all things vintage, so it goes with my faith. To move forward requires a pause at the crossroads, a deeper immersion in the culture and times of my spiritual ancestors. Being with them in their history via the lens of Scripture is like finding a compass for the road ahead. Living with their old brings new perspective into my right now. Antiquity isn’t wasted when it comes to faith. Antiquity enhances faith. That which once was still is. Faith lives on, above extinction.

 

And so I go in search for the old, because that which is new is not always that which is best for my soul. Old things, ancient treasures, and a faith that lives in antiquity, this is where newness of heart and life can be found. With Abel and Enoch. Noah and Abraham. Isaac and Jacob. Moses and David. Gideon. Rahab. Samuel and Daniel. Jeremiah, Isaiah, and the prophets of old. John the Revelator and John the Baptizer. Peter. Paul. Mary and Martha. Stephen. Timothy. Elizabeth and Zechariah. Sarah. Ruth. Esther. And Jesus . . . always Jesus.

Yes, this is where I will stand, in the middle of their stories and then some. In doing so, I find my anchor and my rest. And that which is very old becomes new breath to my aging flesh. I breathe in the smell of an ancient faith, and I am revived.

 

The story that comes before me is the anchor that writes the story now in me and the story that will follow after me. Faith lives on, and by God’s grace, it lives on in me. Perhaps there will be day in the years to come when a future generation will take hold of something I have said or something I have done, that will thread them back to the heart of Jesus. I cannot imagine what that would be, but today I’m challenged to believe that there really could be . . .

 

A faith in me that survives extinction. A faith that serves the kingdom long after I’ve made the journey home to Canaan. Who will wear this shawl of faith that now cradles my shoulders? Who will see it as treasure, pay the asking price, and preserve it forward?

 

Old to new. New to old. The cycle of faith that never dies. Only lives.

Find yourself there, and find rest for your souls. I’ll meet you at the crossroads. As always . . .

 

Peace for the journey,

 

a right word at the right time {part two}: muddied and still willing

“Not until halfway through the feast did Jesus go up to the temple courts and begin to preach. . . . Jesus answered, ‘My teaching is not my own. It comes from him who sent me. If anyone chooses to do God’s will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own. He who speaks on his own does so to gain honor for himself, but he who works for the honor of the one who sent him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about him.’” –John 7:16-19

Dirty. Soiled. Polluted. That’s how I feel this morning, not because of what I’ve done but because of what I’ve allowed the world to do to me—slap me in the face and in the heart with untruth.

Speaking God’s truth comes at a price, because whenever his truth is spoken, the enemy stands ready and willing to defend the ground he’s temporarily claimed and cultivated with his lies, his native language (John 8:44). Satan’s lies always start with a question . . . a thought . . . a probing not unlike the one he leveled at Eve in the Garden of Eden:

“Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God really say, “You must not eat from any tree in the garden”?’” –Genesis 3:1

Did God really say?

Isn’t this the point at which all detours off the road of truth begin? When we initiate inward dialogue about what God said . . . says? When doubt muddies the waters of truth with opinion rather than fact? When we believe our own billing and trust our own instincts over the knowledge and character of God?

We do it all the time. This happens whenever we tiptoe around God’s truth and lean in to our own understanding—those inklings that scratch the itch of what’s comfortable, what feels good, and what allows us to keep living the sin, doing the sin, all the while calling it something else. Calling it personal preference; calling it a justifiable choice because, after all, no one should have to change who he or she is to suit another human being.

“For a time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. The will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.” –2 Timothy 4:4

**NEWS FLASH: We’re not here to suit one another. We’re not here to suit ourselves. We’re here to suit God. To honor him with our lives and with our willingness to bend our sin-sickened hearts to the process of holiness. It’s never been about us—these years we’re allowed on planet earth. It’s been about God and his allowance of those years for each one of us. We’re wasting precious time, friends, arguing about truth. Truth isn’t relative. Truth is truth; there cannot be multiple versions therein. There is only one way, one truth, and one life—Jesus Christ, Son of the living God (John 14:6). When we begin our search for truth with him, our confusions and personal preferences bow to the firm conclusions and preferences of God. When we begin our search for truth anywhere else we bow to our flesh, we serve it, and we risk permanent and eternal separation from God. . .

F.O.R.E.V.E.R.

Is that a risk you’re willing to take? If so, keep living unto yourself and keep slinging your mud at those who bravely speak truth to your soul. It might feel good to get a little dirty from time to time, to enter the pit of confrontation all in the name of personal preference. To rub a little sludge in to your neighbor’s eye and to throw in a few kicks to the gut for good measure. Go ahead, live your independence and call yourself brave. Stand for intolerance and carry the flag of self-preservation. Shout loud. Shout now. Shout for all you’re worth. Give it all you’ve got while you have some got to give because the time is fast approaching when your stage, your platform, and your voice will be silenced by the stage and voice of the King. And when he speaks, there will be no denying the truth. Instead, there will be hell to pay.

F.O.R.E.V.E.R.

Did God really say?

Yes, God really did say.

And so must I . . . say truth, say a few words from time to time. Why? Because I love God, and I want to honor the King with a life of service to his truth and his cross. And secondly, because I love you, and because hell is too high a price to pay for the lies you’re willing to boldly and self-assuredly live on this side of eternity.

There are right words and a right time to speak those words. Today is that time for me. Accordingly, I risk your confusion, your anger, your mud, and your condemnation. Better to risk yours than to know God’s . . .

F.O.R.E.V.E.R.

Peace for the journey,

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