There’s this theme that floats around Facebook… “throwback thursday” My husband like to play this theme game. He has some picks that he will “throwback”. He told me last week that he was going to get into my yearbook and get a picture of me to throwback… and I told him, “Throwback Thursday makes me want to throw up!”
The last thing I have wanted to do since I gave my life to the Lord twelve years ago was throwback to the days before I knew Him. That girl was dead in Christ and I preferred to keep her there in the grave of the past and press forward in this new life that the LORD by His mercy and grace allowed me to have. For a very long time, I simply shut down that part of my brain that held those memories. There was too much shame and hurt attached to them and I needed to heal.
When I met my husband, I began to walk away from the things that were in my life before him and began to cling to him. I had met the man of my dreams and I did not want to do anything to mess it up. I was the first of my girlfriends to marry, so in becoming a wife,and an immediate mother of an eight year old at the altar, my life pulled inward into family… which was exactly what it needed to do for God to get my attention and for Him to get me moving in accordance with His will.
For the past fifteen years my eyes have been focused forward. Seeking to walk in the will of my Savior and to grow in the grace and knowledge of God and striving to become the woman, wife, and mother that God saved me to be.
So Throwback Thursday has never held any appeal to me.
However today, one of dear friends, a friend I have known since grade school, a friend who I played ball, cried with, fought with, spent most of my summers with is in the final stages of cancer. Having conquered melanoma in 2010, today she is on her way home from Houston to receive treatments here so that she can be with family and friends. Tumors on her brain, in her jaws, on her liver and kidneys, continue to grow at a massive rate… and for days my heart has broke for her and her family. She has at home a young barely teenage daughter and a rambunctious young boy just now loosing his first teeth. She has the brother and sister that I grew up loving as my own and parents that were one of my second sets. My heart breaks for them…
Many are praying for a miracle… many are praying that God would just remove all the tumors… perhaps He will. Perhaps He will use my friend to display His glory in this way… but just in case He does not let us never forget that there is no greater miracle than that of salvation and resurrection!
By His stripes we are healed of the SIN, the sin that condemns all men. By His death He defeated death and our death is defeated the moment we die in Him (Romans 6). Those in Christ NEVER LOSE A BATTLE TO ANYTHING! Our victory over death and all things of this world came the moment WE BELIEVED (Romans 8:31-39, 1 Corinthians 15:53-57).
You see we bring Him glory in life and we bring Him glory in death because we have a Savior. We are children of God! We are the redeemed! The chosen in Him…
So to my friend Mary Beth Wallace Lee , YOU WON the moment you said, Yes Lord, I believe the gospel. You won the moment you said, I believe that Jesus is the resurrection and the life and whosoever calls upon Him shall be saved. I believe He alone is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and no one comes to the Father but through Him. You won the moment that you believed that on that cross He died for your sin and by grace through faith you came to Him for salvation and because He lives you live with life eternal.
Beth, I refuse to give cancer power over you. If you leave this life it is because the One who holds the keys to life and death says, I am bringing My daughter home!
“For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing… The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed, and will bring me safely to His heavenly kingdom; to Him be the glory forever and ever. Amen”
2 Timothy 4:6-8,18
To live is Christ and to die is gain (Philippians 1:21). Precious sister, you are in a WIN WIN situation! You are victorious either way! Our Lord Jesus Christ reigns and in Him is your future and in Him is your hope… He holds you and He holds your precious children and your precious family in His hands of grace. God has used your body to bring two eternal lives into being… He has used you for His glory and as a testimony to His Son and His glorious gospel. He has used your suffering to bring many to call upon Him in prayer… only in eternity will we know how He wove your life, this story, this fight, this suffering in His grand plan of redemption, but make no bones about it, He has and He will use this for His glory and the glory of Christ!
“The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me. Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.
O righteous Father, although the world has not known You, yet I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me; and I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them”
John 17:22-26.
Today “Throwback Thursday” doesn’t make me want to throw up. Today “Throwback Thursday” reminds me of the girl I totaled my first car with, the girl I got my first apartment with, the girl I used to stay up all night playing Mario with, the girl I used to play cupball with, the girl I used to trade books with, the girl I used to walk down a gravel road to her grandparents with, the girl I still hung out with once high school was behind us, the girl I used to get into a lot of trouble with, and the girl that also came to know the Lord as her Savior, the girl that I know even when this life is over for the both of us, I will get to spend eternity with…
Beth, this life took us in different directions but I hope you know that I love you and you are forever a part of me and I will see you again my friend!
*** Beth went home to be with the Lord late Saturday night, October 19th, 2013. She rose to her glorification Sunday morning just like her Lord! She worshiped Sunday morning in His physical presence in the heavenly temple with all the saints of God that have already went home before her. My, I bet it was AWESOME! Our God is good… Jesus just simply could not go another day without wrapping His nail scarred arms around her.
Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.
~ Jesus