Resting, ready.

The afternoon my gp instructed his assistant to schedule me with the oncologist "ASAP" I was asked to stop by the cancer center on my way home to pick up a packet to to prepare me for my first appointment a few days later. "Sure," I said, and thought, "no problem, I'll just swing by on my way home." I pulled into the cancer center parking lot, shut off the car and to my surprise instantly panicked. David said he would run in without me but I declined. I had to go in, just did not want to. This response was nothing but pure selfish. I did not want to walk through those doors and look at the sick people, at what I was about to become. 

I did find sick people in the chairs of the waiting room. I did not see myself joining them however. It was not the pallid skin, scarfed heads or slow walks that was striking to me as I had feared. It was the death of soul emanating  that broke my heart. As I looked around the waiting room, hearing the cheery receptionist talk to David in the background, my thoughts were not of my illness but of grief for so many individuals who seemed to be in this situation where their bodies were finally catching up with the dying their souls had been engaged in for a long time already. 

Fast forward through a few nights with some tears, hopes, fears, assurances, realizations and awake dark hours and you next find me woken one morning by the Lord. Early morning summons are always my favorite. This one was particularly precious. 

I have been swimming in wisdom for decades. If God were an ocean, I stepped in and never stopped aiming out to the deep. The beach has been long gone, I've enjoyed those waters past the horizons end that are so beautiful from the shore to lose your heart in on a morning walk on a vacation beach stroll. Those words poets find that describe that sensation I won't summon, but it's that place, few do not understand, the beauty of the far and wide of that horizon. Iv'e been swimming there with Jesus for as long as I can remember. I've read the Bible umpteen times, read countless books of inspiration and wisdom, structured my life around His Word, raised my children in his truth, lived a life for Jesus, Iv'e loved Him, praised Him, enjoyed Him. Iv'e been swimming in wisdom but have known that while I had (nor wanted) no life jacket or boat on the way there was this aspect of truth that I was enjoying swimming in an endless ocean but somehow not really, truly getting wet.

That morning,when the Lord woke me was the morning I have been longing for. If I may continue the metaphor briefly, it was as though I just stopped swimming, floating, being about in the water. Gently, preciously, beautifully, I drowned in His depths. It's as though I finally understand that thing that has been in my mind, on my heart, known as truth to my soul but just not quite exactly grasped. I died to myself. There are no few words sufficient to describe this change I know. They are all the words of eternity, released in life. Released in Him. 

I do not want cancer. I do not want this port in my chest. I do not want to lose my hair. I do not want to be sick and tired all the time. I do not want chemicals dumped in my veins that will eat my flesh if they touch my skin. I do not want to suffer. I do not want any of the things from the list of miserable side effects the nurse so carefully listed out for me today. I do not want to die. I will however, forever thank God for this cancer experience that saved me. Saved me from the beautiful but just shy of completely lost in Him that it has given me. This cancer that released a love within that transcends all the words and ways that have been "me." I don't know how this will look to others. I think it will look like the fruits of the Spirit without the effort, I hope. I think it will look like compassion and knowing. I think it will look like Jesus. Honestly, I don't care what I look like. Finally, I really know so deeply, eternally, Jesus and Him alive and Him Eternal. I can sit in that waiting room, in a body doing whatever it is going to do while fighting cancer and do so not with the tragic death of soul I saw on that day in the waiting room but rather resurrected in life eternal. 

I love I Am, I love being forever lost in His forever. Resting, ready. 

Hebrew 4:9-16

So then, there is still awaiting a full and complete Sabbath-rest reserved for the [true] people of God; For he who has once entered [God’s] rest also has ceased from [the weariness and pain] of human labors, just as God rested from those labors peculiarly His own. Let us therefore be zealous and exert ourselves and strive diligently to enter that rest [of God, to know and experience it for ourselves], that no one may fall or perish by the same kind of unbelief and disobedience [into which those in the wilderness fell]. For the Word that God speaks is alive and full of power [making it active, operative, energizing, and effective]; it is sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating to the dividing line of the breath of life (soul) and [the immortal] spirit, and of joints and marrow [of the deepest parts of our nature], exposing and sifting and analyzing and judging the very thoughts and purposes of the heart  And not a creature exists that is concealed from His sight, but all things are open and exposed, naked and defenseless to the eyes of Him with Whom we have to do. Inasmuch then as we have a great High Priest Who has [already] ascended and passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession [of faith in Him]. For we do not have a High Priest Who is unable to understand and sympathize and have a shared feeling with our weaknesses and infirmities and liability to the assaults of temptation, but One Who has been tempted in every respect as we are, yet without sinning. Let us then fearlessly and confidently and boldly draw near to the throne of grace (the throne of God’s unmerited favor to us sinners), that we may receive mercy [for our failures] and find grace to help in good time for every need [appropriate help and well-timed help, coming just when we need it]. (AMP)