I remember the night I first penned those beginning words to Beyond Cancer’s Scars with the nudge of the Holy Spirit alongside:
“Out of your poverty, Elaine, surrender your pen.”
It was a hard obedience. At that point in my journey, I was exhausted, worn out and hammered down by the emotional and physical requirements of my cancer season. Questions multiplied in my mind that night, doubts as well. What would become of this obedience?
In the end, words came from that obedience, nearly 60,000 of them. One thought after another, day after day of concentrated writing until forty days culminated into one binding—an inside look at one survivor’s very personal surrender. My surrender.
And so it was. So it is. Beyond Cancer’s Scars.
Tonight I look again at that old obedience. I hold the sum total of those thoughts tenderly in my hands, lift them up to the Father, and ask him a few questions not unlike the ones I asked him on that June night back in 2011. In swift measure, I sense his response. Oddly enough, it mirrors an old refrain.
“Out of your poverty, Elaine, surrender your pen.”
This is the work of our hands, the Father’s and mine. Collectively, we labored alongside one another in this hard obedience, and the end result—these words of 60,000—mean more to me than most any of the other ones I’ve said and written these past forty-seven years. These words were a gift to me; in turn, they became a gift for others, at least that’s been my hope.
But these words aren’t mine to keep; they are meant for release. To, once again, be surrendered as an offering to the Father who first enabled them … who lives in each one of them. Only he knows where to take them and how he wants to use them.
What will become of this obedience?
I haven’t a clue. But I will walk it through, just like I did back in 2011. I surrender these words all over again, believing in their eternal value. This is the best I can do … the most I can give. And therein is a moment of perfect peace for this journey I am traveling.
I pray the same for you, friends. Rest tenderly in the peace of Jesus Christ tonight, and may Sabbath arrive to your soul as a gentle grace from heaven.
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