Waiting, assurance of what is to come...

The waiting...

There are so many ways that we continue to wait. We are waiting to begin treatments, and we are waiting to know how my body will respond to those treatments, we are waiting on surgery, and we are waiting on more scans in months and years to come. It is scary. I am honestly not sure how people do this. How do they play the waiting game over and over and over...

"Well, you are doing it!" you might be thinking. Yes. I am. I do it imperfectly. Quite imperfectly. I wait with fear at times. I wait like a zombie sometimes. There are moments I find myself just walking around the house. I might look productive when in fact I am walking aimlessly around holding a diaper in one hand, a toy car in the other, and mindlessly looking for my hair brush. Dis-shoveled. Waiting.

But while I wait, sometimes patiently & sometimes rather aimlessly, I do have a great assurance of one thing... I have a heart changed by the power of the gospel. It was dead and now it is alive in him. That is a good place to find REST in those moments of wondering aimlessly. In your moments of waiting. Where do you find rest? Where does our hope come from?

Romans 5:1-6 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.

1 Peter 1:3 "In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead."

My hopes does come from the fact that Christ died for the ungodly. Me. I am the ungodly. You too friend... you are the ungodly. And while I walking aimlessly around my house holding my hairbrush (because I do eventually find it - even if I don't brush my hair) I can REST, truly REST, in knowing the promises of this verse: we can rejoice in our sufferings not because we are super good, or brilliantly smart, or terribly wise, or moral, but because GOD has poured out his LOVE to us through the Holy Spirit. Christ died for me. For us. For the ungodly.

Please check out this great site that helps explain TWO WAYS TO LIVE. You either live for the KING or you live for YOURSELF and reject him as KING. Who do you live for?

update: Chemotherapy day two. I was quite ODD feeling all day. My parents thought maybe they gave me the wrong drugs because I was talkative & very busy. I did crash tonight and have felt nauseous all day in a small doses.
Kind of crappy stuff from flooding your body with drugs:
achy body.
bones hurt.
nauseous.
tired.
irritable with noise and in a house full of boys this is hard to avoid.
yucky mouth (a little bit)
hair loss (one other thing I am WAITING for... ugh)

Sweet Mercies of today:
I am a child of the King.
People are in and out of my house more often. I love that.
Test messages.
Loving notes from people.
Hair cuts in my kitchen from one of my favorite gals.
my baby jack. what a joy. his smile. his laugh. his delightful personality.
my boy Johnny. his beautiful eyes. his hugs.
my benjamin. the way he sings the doxology with his whole heart. his kisses.
family worship. oh sweet family worship. i am so glad no one can hear our horrible voices. (totally worth it even it they could).
my husband. my dearest friend. who prays with me. comforts me. and works two (make that three) jobs tirelessly. so thankful to not be walking through this alone.