Don't Give Up

I sit here tonight as I write and find myself overflowing with gratefulness.  Two months ago, I was barely able to walk.  I was on my second different medicine that was needed to block cancer from returning, and it wasn't working.  The first one caused blood clots, and now this one seemed to be shutting down my ability to walk.  So the doctor took me off of it in early January for three weeks to see if I improved, and I did.  I began my third medicine about a month ago.  The doctor said to give it a good month and see what happens.  Well...I am at a month and I am doing great!  So far, my knees and legs are better than ever.  I've even begun to exercise again and that feels good.  Until now, when I feel so good, I didn't know just how bad I felt then.

What struck me so much this week that I would like to share with you is something I read that Max Lucado wrote.  He said that God never gives up.  There were a lot of examples he gave in which God could have given up on someone, but didn't.  But what was most powerful for me was the last two sentences which said, "When human hands fastened the divine hands to a cross with spikes, it wasn't the soldiers who held the hands of Jesus steady; it was God.  God, who would give up His only son before he'd give up on you."  Wow!  I sat there for a long time after I read that thinking about what it really meant.  I have to say that when I look at myself, my life, my sin, my human nature - when I really look at me, it's hard to believe that God would give up His one and only son before He would give up on me.  What that told me was that I couldn't give up either.  There have been many times during this last year and a half that I felt like giving up.  I didn't know if I could take another step.  When I think about how I feel today versus how I felt this time last year, I realize that without God I couldn't have made it.  This time last year I was in the throes of radiation treatments.  Before I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I was having excruciating headaches.  At that time, the doctor determined I had shingles inside my skull.  They weren't on my brain, but just inside my head on my skull.  It was awful.  Then during the radiation treatments I developed another round of shingles on top of the radiation site.  I wanted to give up.  But God wouldn't let me.  How?  Because He would send me just enough strength to make it and just enough encouragement to see it through, and just enough support and love to rest in Him, many times through each of you.  He took me where His healing was waiting for me.  God tells us in Psalm 125:2, "As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds His people from this time forth and forever". (NKJV)  He never leaves us and never gives up on us.  We can't throw in the towel when the going gets tough...there's something waiting for us at the end.  James tells us to "consider it pure joy when we face trials of many kinds, knowing that the testing of our faith produces patience; to let patience have its perfect work that we may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing". (NKJV)  I think this is a hard verse of the Bible because when we are in the middle of our troubles, the last thing we feel is joy.  I never thought I would face something so life-changing, so challenging, so uplifting all at once.  God gave up His son so He wouldn't have to give up on me.  I know He's walked with me, and I know He's given me more blessings than I can count through this cancer walk I'm on.  I've seen my life be transformed into something I sometimes don't recognize...because I see God at every turn.  I see His beauty and His love and His grace.  I feel His presence, His whispers, His arms holding me when I'm scared and when I cry.  I feel Him smiling and His encouragement when I'm able to do something today that I couldn't do two months ago.   I see Him in the vastness of His sky and the whiteness of His snow.  I hear Him in the voices of His people that He puts in my path, or a song I hear that seems to be meant only for me.  I hear Him in the night saying, "I am with you wherever you go" (Jeremiah 1:9).  So I can't give up...look at all the things I'll miss. 

So what I would like to share with you today is that if you've just found yourself in the middle of something overwhelming or insurmountable, something scary, an illness that just comes on the wrong day or an illness that can be life-altering, a relationship that's in trouble, a child who's wandered from the fold...anything that you weren't expecting that you don't think you can get through...please don't give up.  God is waiting.  He's there and ready to walk before you and carry you through...and when He does He'll show you things you never imagined, beauty that you've never seen.  Remember, He gave up His only son so He didn't have to give up on you.

I love you all,
Kacey