Deep Shadows and Golden Light

The autumn sun drops swiftly through the naked trees and the golden light spills into our living room cutting shadows in the gold pooling on the floor. The day is stretching out, ready to tuck itself into the night as I hear the tick-tock of the clock -- another indication the day is almost done. Sitting in the silence in the golden pockets of light, the metal click of my heart valve ticks faster than the clock above my head.

That heart valve that Dr David put in six years ago, that was supposed to let my heart keep on pumping blood for decades, is tragically closing in with scar tissue. That’s what doctors believe is happening without actually cutting into my chest and handling my heart once again. No one can tell how long it will take before the tissue growth will make the hole so small it will be impossible for my heart to pump blood to get oxygen to the rest of my body. It is casting shadows in my life and it’s reminding me that my time here, well, it could almost be done. I’m collecting days like a string of pearls, every one precious.

I turn the tragedy around in my mind like I try to patch up pastry that has too many cracks. The more I struggle to fix it, the more it falls apart in my hands. It will never look right. How can I process all the impossible choices ahead? Do I accept a rare complication or choose an irrational intervention? How do I hold it all together and stop the insides from pouring out making a mess of life? How do I dish out a sloppy attempt at living here when there is a glorious banquet already prepared in eternity?

The darkness creeps in and makes me choke. It's an agony that I can't swallow. I don't want the darkness. So I keep looking because I keep learning that in the darkness even the smallest flicker of light radiates hope. It is in the darkness that light shines the brightest. I look for the light. I'm flailing in the darkness. I look to the Light. I don’t know where else to look.

When you read the story of Scripture, when you crack it open right at the beginning, your eyes catch the first thing God created when He spoke into the darkness was light. And it was good. He separated the light from the darkness and “God called the light day, and the darkness he called night.” (Genesis 1:5)

We are in the middle of the story right now. In the middle of the darkness and decay and death and we are all groaning. We are looking and longing for peace, for wholeness. We want all things to be made right. We don’t want hearts to stop and life to be taken too early. We agonize in the shadows. We rejoice in the glorious shining radiance of the Lamb who suffered and silenced death.

When you get to the end of the story, there is a final vision of that which is yet to come. It solves the riddle of life and death, of darkness and light. For all those who have looked to the Light of the world, turned and trusted in the Lamb who was wounded, “they will see his face . . . And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.” (Revelation 22:5)

The hands that keep time have given me just over half the years we have come to expect. I don't know how many more I will get to string together. I desperately reach out to grasp more pearls, yet just like the night swallows up the sun every day, it feels like they are slipping through my fingers. I know God has all my days all numbered and one day I will see his face and night will be no more. Until He calls me home, to find my final rest in Him, I will keep looking for the light in this darkness. As I live in Christ, trusting his death was death to all death, the radiance of his glorious shining feeds my hope.

Don't Forget the Things Your Eyes Have Seen

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I was in a foreign land thirty-eight years ago when doctors discovered a sarcoma in me the size of a grapefruit. That is a big tumour for a slip of a girl about to celebrate her third birthday. My dad and grandfather rushed me to the emergency room because I had popped a penny in my mouth and swallowed it and it lodged in my esophagus.

When they scanned for the penny on the x-ray, they found more than they ever imagined. They left me in the hospital that night and carried the bad news back to my mom.

I don’t remember swallowing the penny or spending the night alone in the hospital in England. I don’t remember flying home to Canada or meeting all the doctors that poked and prodded. I don’t remember being admitted to the Hospital for SickKids on that day in September.

I don’t remember the surgery that couldn’t get all the cancer.



I do remember lying very still on a hard, cold table while the doctors blasted me with radiation. I remember months and months of chemotherapy.

No one could say if all the treatment would even kill the cancer; a type of cancer that was so rare to even be found in a child. They drew up a plan for a three year old that was as aggressive as if they were treating an adult with a sarcoma.

My mom, she refused to take me down for my first day of radiation, just weeks after my surgery. I can’t blame her. I’m not sure if I could have subjected any of my three year olds to everything my body has had to endure.

My doctor called her on the phone and told her, if she did not bring me down to Toronto, I would not live. But, she had already been warned of the horrors of all the side effects. How do parents make a heart-wrenching choice like that?

Doomed if you do, but dead if you don’t.

That first appointment was rescheduled. And every weekday for the next five weeks they put me on that cold table in a large room with a big machine killing things I knew nothing about.

I still tremble when I think about that table.

For two years, my fight with cancer continued.

For the next thirty-six years, I have pressed on and I look back lest I forget what my eyes have seen.



No one knew back in 1979 that the radiotherapy they blasted at me as a 3 year old child would send me into advanced heart failure as a 37 year old mom of three young children.

It had already destroyed a lung and so the open-heart surgery I needed was risky business.

How can a body with 30% lung capacity manage on a heart-lung machine for over six hours? No one knew if it could.

Stepping up on to that operating table was a step of faith.

Faith perseveres by seeing “Him who is invisible” we are told in Hebrews 11:27.

My eyes have never seen God. I have never stood before a burning bush or stood at the foot of a mountain and see it burn with fire or heard the voice of God. But, I have seen His wonders; I have seen His glory displayed in my life. I have known the truth He has revealed in His Word.

I will give thanks to God for the great things He has done.



In Deuteronomy, Moses exhorts the children of Israel to not forget what the Lord God has done for them. They are once again on the eastern border of the Promised Land. Moses was forbidden to enter the land and he would die in the land of Moab before God would tell Joshua to cross over the Jordan and take possession of the land He was giving the children of Israel.

They have wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. And now, before Moses dies, he urges the people, with a series of sermons and prophecies, to obey the Lord God who is faithful, unchanging, and full of grace and mercy. God had demonstrated His power and love over and over and yet, it keeps slipping from their mind that He alone is God.

What slips from our mind can never lead to gratitude in our hearts. You forget his wonders, and next you will be forgetting God.



In Deuteronomy 4:9, Moses tells this generation of Israelites: 

“Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children’s children.”

Don’t forget! Don’t forget what you have seen God do. Don’t let it slip from your memory. Tell it over and over to your children. Don’t give any room for any idols in your heart. God is good and faithful. God is just and holy. He alone is God. Do you know it?



John Calvin, in his commentary on Deuteronomy, wrote:

“the people must beware of shutting their eyes against the clear revelation of God's power, and therefore urges them to keep it in memory, because man's ingratitude is but too prone to forgetfulness."

We don’t know what we may have to face tomorrow.

We don’t know what the road will look like. It may look like the impossible. It may look like cancer or some other sickness, or a costly sacrifice, or persecution, or reproach.

It may look like the Red Sea, or the wilderness, or the Jordan River. It may part and you will step out in faith on the dry ground able to endure because you are relying on God’s promises.



Thirty-eight years ago the doctors found a sarcoma right beside my heart. Three years ago doctors rebuilt my heart, but they didn’t think I would wake up that night after the surgery.

For three years now my heart ticks loud like a clock in my chest. I can hear it keep time with a steady beat as if to remind me every moment of the day.

Before God had created the world, He knew my every heartbeat. He knows my days. By grace, He has brought me back to Himself and with His steadfast love will lead me all the days of my life.

I have seen God do great things. He alone is God. I will not forget.

I will tell them to my children and if it is God’s will, to their children.

Resist Beginnings: Stay Steadfast in the Middle of the Story

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“Resist beginnings.”

I read those two words in a book last week and I stopped short. It was the little book, “Follow the Lamb” that the poet, Horatius Bonar, wrote sometime in the middle of the Industrial Revolution. Back when the world was on a quest for radical change.

I think about these words now, when the world is again striving for radical advancement. A world that is full of proud, arrogant, heartless, and reckless people who are lovers of self, seeking individual freedom.

It is old advice and I’m not sure if that opinion would gain much popularity today. 

We love beginnings. We love to start new things. We want the next thing. We want it to be better, bigger. Beginnings are exciting and excitement is contagious. We think it is brave to begin. We think is it brilliant to begin. We want to build our Tower of Babel to reach the heavens.

We grow weary of the ordinary, day in and day out, modest routines of our lives and we want something brighter, more enticing, more thrilling.

We are willing to invest time, energy and resources into anything that will make life more captivating, more meaningful, more enticing.

But, in reaching for the next new thing, have we traded in something more valuable.

What if we were a people who shrewdly resist beginnings and simply remain faithful?

There is a way to move forward and progress has been good . . . in part. History has been a march of progress. But, it has cost us.

A wise man once said, there is nothing new under the sun, but we keep looking for something new. And then we are surprised when history repeats itself.

No new thing, no matter how great, is going to bring greater happiness. The created can’t bring eternal joy.

Change is necessary. Time and time again we need to make an about face and turn back and head in the right direction. Revolution means “a turn around”. Repentance means to have a change of mind and to turn from sin and return to God.

But, do we get so carried away with our cravings for new beginnings, we neglect to stay steadfast in the middle of the story?

Can’t you see it spread all over our lives? In our diets, our health kicks, our new years resolutions, our churches, our relationships, our politics, our social media. We are stuffing ourselves on beginnings and failing to thrive to the end.

How many things have we begun that now hang limp or are tucked away or have been destroyed by the lust of a new beginning?

Remaining faithful lacks the flare that a beginning delivers, but it is the soil where roots grow deep, grace is poured out, faith is strengthened, and where love will flourish. 

God had a plan before time began, before creation. Before the foundation of the world: God knew, God purposed, God loved us, God chose us.

God, who has no beginning, set all things in place. God, who has no end, sees that all things will happen according to His plan. God, who remains faithful, set His plan in motion and will bring is to pass to the praise of His glory.

God doesn’t need men and women to dream up exciting beginnings. He wants us to remain faithful. To continue, to press on, to persevere.

Straight after Paul told Timothy to “Fight the good fight of the faith”, he urged him to “. . . take hold of the eternal life to which you were called . . . ”

With our eyes fixed on the eternal, strength and courage come so we can rise above the struggles of this world. Hold tightly to the prize of eternal life: that is how you will remain faithful in this life to which you were called.

We need to remain faithful in the unseen things.

Splashy beginnings draw much excitement at the outset, but these embers burn out. It is the steady stoking of the fire that keeps the blaze burning.

Remaining faithful may never be popular. This world will go on looking or bigger and better beginnings to draw crowds, to reach new heights, to make progress, to go beyond our dreams, to find happiness and health and wisdom, and discover the unknown.

Remaining faithful may never be comfortable. This world looks out for self. It tells us, if it doesn’t feel good, get out, give up, do whatever you need to find your own self. Well, referring back to the little book I read last week, Bonar wrote:

“Denying self is the beginning, the middle, and the end of our course here, as followers of Christ.”

Remaining faithful may never be easy. It is a fight. A fight that needs determination, endurance, and every ounce of perseverance a soul could hope for.

And that is exactly what we have. Hope . . . Eternal hope.

We have been made to know God. We have been made to be in communion with God. Since the fall we have fallen short of His glory. God had a plan before creation to climb down into the world He spoke into existence to redeem us back to Himself.

He has not left us alone. He has remained faithful.

He has loved us and given us hope for a future.

With hope like that, we can say, “Quiet down, soul.”

Resist beginnings.

Remain faithful.

Learning From the Life of Hannah: A Woman with Serious Problems {Part 5}

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{This is Part 5 in a series on the Life of Hannah.

Click here for Part 1.}

For the last four weeks we have been examining the life of Hannah as told in 1 Samuel. As we come to the end of Hannah’s story today, we know God will be Eternally Glorified and we see that Hannah Erupts in Praise to the Supreme Ruler.

The God who Sovereignly Governs over all, Providentially Guides all circumstances, Graciously Gives all things is Eternally Glorified and “we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.”

“I consider that the sufferings of this present time”, Paul said to the Romans, “are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”

Oh, He is worthy of our praise.

In Romans, Paul said: “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?”





Hannah knows the goodness of God in her life and understood that there is no one like our God who will graciously give us all things.

Hannah’s heart erupts in praise to the Lord. She takes what has happened in her life and she breaks forth in magnificent descriptions of the character and goodness of God.

Her joy is in the Giver, not the gift.



In 1 Samuel chapter two, we read Hannah’s prayer.

In her prayer, Hannah meditates on the extraordinary goodness of God to her with all of who she is, she rejoices in the strength His gives. Her heart leaps for joy at his salvation; his deliverance.

She proclaims his absolute holiness, and acknowledges there is none like Him. He is above all.

Hannah uses the metaphor of the “rock” and speaks of his majesty and might. She knows He is the safe dwelling place for his people.

She speaks of His omniscience, His sovereignty, His omnipotence and His power over life and death. Hannah declares He is Creator and Sustainer of all. That He upholds all things and directs all things.

He knows all things: He knows our heart, our thoughts, our actions.

He is the Supreme Ruler. His plans will come to pass.

She knows He is Just and merciful, gracious and faithful in His promises.

She tells of the promised Messiah.

These are the things Hannah’s heart knows. Do you know God like this? Does your heart leap for joy the way Hannah’s did?





Hannah’s tune changes from weeping over her problems with sorrow to rejoicing in the Lord with this song of praise.

The book of Samuel begins with Hannah praying for the son that God would use to lead the nation of Israel from the time of the judges to establish the Davidic monarchy. God promised a Messiah through the line of David and to establish David’s throne forever. Jesus Christ, the promised Messiah, our Redeemer will reign forever.

Nothing can frustrate God’s plan.

Jesus Christ is the perfect substitutionary sacrifice and He bore the wrath of God for our sin that He might bring us to God.

The Supreme Ruler who Sovereignly Governs, Providentially Guides, and Graciously Gives, provides Hannah with three more sons and two daughters. Her future is secure.

In every way His will must prevail.





You may be women with serious problems, but we have a God who is Supreme over all. Because of His love He will graciously give you all things to conform you into the likeness of His Son to the praise of His glory.

With all your afflictions, sorrows, and anxieties find your joy in the Lord.

God Sovereignly Governs, Providentially Guides, Graciously Gives, and is Eternally Glorified.

Like Hannah, will you endure your problems, earnestly pour out your soul, entrust your Provider with all that He gives you and erupt in praise to your Saviour?

We have looked to the life of a woman with serious problems whose joy was ultimately in the Lord. We will conclude with these words Joseph Addison wrote in his hymn:

“Ten thousand thousand precious gifts

My daily thanks employ;

Nor is the least a cheerful heart

That tastes those gifts with joy.

Through every period of my life

Thy goodness I’ll pursue

And after death, in distant worlds,

The glorious theme renew.

Through all eternity to Thee

A joyful song I’ll raise;

For, oh, eternity’s too short

To utter all Thy praise!”

Learning From the Life of Hannah: A Woman with Serious Problems {Part 4}

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{This is Part 4 in a series on the Life of Hannah.

Click here for Part 1.}

For the past three weeks we have been gleaning truth about God from the life of a woman with serious problems.

Hannah is a woman with serious problems whose joy was ultimately in the Lord.

Hannah knew the Lord sovereignly governs over all and providentially guides all circumstances. She also knew God graciously gives all things and we see that Hannah entrusted her son to her Provider.

God desires our hearts to be fully devoted to Him.

Hannah has earnestly poured out her soul and promised her son. Eli, first misunderstanding her, stands corrected, and tells her “Go in peace, and let the God of Israel grant your petition that you have made to him.”

Hannah, the woman of grace, replies, “Let your servant find favor in your eyes.”

Hannah knows God will pour out His grace. Her circumstances have not yet changed, but she went her way and ate and her face was no longer sad.



They rose early in the morning and worshipped before the Lord. They return to their house at Ramah. Elkanah knew his wife and the Lord remembered her: she conceived and bore a son and called his name Samuel. She said, “I have asked for Him from the LORD”

She sees how God graciously provides and she trusts in His faithfulness to be able to keep her vow.

For all these years she wanted a son. He granted her petition and she would give him back to the Lord. He had given her a son; she could trust Him to secure her future.

Hannah doesn’t hold too tightly to what the Lord gives her. She enjoys the Provider more than the provision.

In the joy of the Lord, Hannah finds strength to move forward in what God had purposed for her: to give her son back to God.

Taking her focus off her problems and fixing her gaze on the Lord, Hannah trusts in the God who pours out His grace.



Do you remember these words?

“He giveth more grace when the burdens grow greater,
He sendeth more strength when the labors increase;
To added affliction He addeth His mercy,
To multiplied trials, His multiplied peace. 

When we have exhausted our store of endurance,
When our strength has failed ere the day is half done,
When we reach the end of our hoarded resources,
Our Father's full giving is only begun. 

His love has no limit, His grace has no measure;
His power no boundary known unto men;
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus
He giveth and giveth and giveth again.”

Hannah knows God’s grace.

Hannah takes her son to minister to the Lord in a place where the priests—the two sons of Eli--were worthless men that did not know the Lord, doing evil things and their sin was very great in the sight of the Lord: they treated the offering of the Lord with contempt and they “lay with the women who were serving at the entrance to the tent of meeting”.

And this was where her boy Samuel would grow in the presence of the Lord.

Although this was the vow Hannah had made to the Lord, Elkanah went along with it telling her “to do what seems best to you.”

So after Samuel was weaned, Hannah brings him to the house of the Lord at Shiloh and presents him there along with her offering. She has come back with an apparent peace offering and she presents the offering. She, who has known the peace—the wholeness of the Lord—, partakes of the feast now with praise and thanksgiving.

Hannah, a woman with serious problems, loves the Lord, surrenders herself to Him and He pours out His grace in her life and she finds peace and joy in Him.



God continually and graciously gives us all things to demonstrate that He is good and only in Him will our hearts truly find rest.

Take time this week and consider God’s grace in your life and come back next when we will conclude looking at the life of Hannah—a woman with serious problems.

{Continue to Part 5 here.}

Living with Purpose in this World

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I know it like the back of my hand. How life takes on a whole new sharpness when any day could be your last.

You savour the sweet pleasures and the bitter sorrows of life when your days may be short. You stay attentive to living, keenly aware that life is a mere puff of air. You lean into life, pressing in to squeeze every drop of meaning out if it. Suddenly you cannot get enough and you are stuffed to the brim all at the same time.

All week the clouds have poured down rain on the fading flowers. Tulips have dropped their petals and the cherry blossoms have blown away.



As quickly as the thunder rolled in, the sun chased the clouds away and we ran to scan the heavens for rainbows. We saw promises hung in bows across the sky and new life forming in the all small green cherries that have burst forth on the tree in the backyard.

How does one take hold of each day that is strung together to span a lifetime that fades like a passing shadow? Here today, gone tomorrow.

How does one measure one’s life?



Surely life is more than the length of days lived or the dash between two dates.

When you don't know if you will grow old with your beloved or watch your children grow up into adulthood every new sunrise becomes precious. I know about this.

I know it’s hard to live every moment to the fullest. But do we open our eyes wide to every new day we are given while eagerly waiting for our future hope?

Try to hold a shadow in your hand. It is futile. But, cling to hope and hope never disappoints.

The way to measure a life is to know that our ultimate purpose is to glorify God. Our days are numbered but our hope is in the Lord.



C. S. Lewis, in his book, Mere Christianity wrote:

“If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”

Made for another world. Made to find our rest in God. Made to enjoy God forever.

When dying young is a threat in your day-to-day life, fear can grip you and ensnare you to waste moments and throw away opportunities to really live.



Fear of the known as much as the unknown can keep you from living life to the fullest.

We desire to live abundant lives but our lives are far from full when they are filled with fear.

No one wants to live an empty life. Yet, we let fear tighten its grip on our lives and choke us until we fall silent.

How do we loosen this hold that cages us into living pitiful lives?

When we remember that our days are numbered and our time on earth is brief, that we are simply passing through, life is put into perspective.

But, it is the present hand of the Lord in our lives that releases us from these pointed fingers of fear.

The knowledge that the Lord is near is what allows you to live without worry, fear, and anxiety.

Right before Paul exhorted the Philippians to not be anxious about anything, he reminded them that the Lord is at hand.

“The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” {Philippians 4:5-7}

The way to overcome fear is to be confident that the Lord is near.



Fear subsides when you rest secure in the presence of the Lord.

He is in our midst, a present help, and he is coming to make all things right again.

The promise that He is coming again should make us live every day of our present lives ready for all eternity.

King David knew where his hope came from and it made him ready for his death at any hour. Psalm 39 records his words:

“O LORD, make me know my end
and what is the measure of my days;
let me know how fleeting I am!
Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths,
and my lifetime is as nothing before you.
Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath! Selah
Surely a man goes about as a shadow!
Surely for nothing they are in turmoil;
man heaps up wealth and does not know who will gather!
“And now, O Lord, for what do I wait?
My hope is in you.”

The promise that the Lord is with us and is coming again empowers us to not be anxious about anything, gives us confidence to come before the throne of grace, and grants us a peace that surpasses all understanding.

C.S. Lewis also wrote these words in Mere Christianity:

“If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next . . . It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.”

Let us ask ourselves: Do we desire to live abundantly while here on this earth? Do we wake every day with the resolve to live effectively in this present world? Have we set our mind on things above and fixed our eyes on things that are eternal?

Know that the Lord is near and you will be freed from fear and filled with the joy and peace of God as your shadow fades and your hope overflows.

Even When Healing Takes Time

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Three years ago my life came to a crashing halt. The heart echocardiogram on that warm May morning showed my cardiologist that my heart was in dreadful shape. His face was grim and his warning was urgent in that small examination room as he stood over me. I looked down at his shiny navy shoes tied with bright cobalt blue laces and choked back tears.

Three months later, despite what he thought possible, I was split right open and a brilliant surgeon patched up my broken heart, held by God’s Sovereign Hand.

They all told me recovery would take time. Time. That’s all they would say. But, time ticks along like an old Grandfather clock that runs slow, when the days are hard and healing is long.

Time, it seems is the antagonist in a story where immediate results would be more sensational. Who wants to put in the hard work of slow improvement when we can gratify our selves by indulging in instant success that will impress?

That first winter after open-heart surgery dragged on cold and harsh. We couldn’t see it, but hope was tucked deep in our souls.

As the writer to the Hebrews said, “Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”

Spring did come as sure as new seasons always do. That long winter finally gave in to warmer days.

As the spring flowers poked through the ground, I stood helpless as I watched wild rabbits relentlessly chew off all the young tulip shoots. Only a few tulips survived.

Flowers fade. Hearts break. Lives are laid low.



Even when life doesn't turn up the way we plan, our hope is secure in the One who died, was buried and rose again.

So, when the apples were red and ripe on the trees, I bought more bulbs to plant in the front garden. Time ticked on, a little steadier. Some days began to pick up the pace a little. I thought we were too late to put the bulbs into the ground—September had marched past and October refused to stick around despite my longing for more golden days.

It was early November before we had a chance to stir up the soil in the garden as the sun gently beat down on our backs like a warm embrace, and we planted.

The littlest one took hold of the bag of tulip bulbs. Her Daddy grabbed the garden tools and together we buried 50 bulbs in the dirt.







That same night my son, between bites of an apple--his second bedtime snack, recalled, "Mom, you how I said last week that I didn't miss you that much last year when you were in the hospital? Well, I did, but I think I was able to go on because God calmed me. If every day I thought about how you could die, I don't think I could have handled it—I wouldn't have been able to eat, I would have been exhausted. But, God helped me."

I knew what he was saying. Life is hard. Waiting, suffering, healing, yes they are all hard, but there is always hope.



Last week, another warm day in May, three years since my life was turned upside down, I had another echocardiogram to examine how my heart is holding up from the surgery. After I cleaned up all the cold goop used in the ultrasound I sat waiting in another exam room in the cardiac clinic. The resident doctor walked in with my medical file in the crook of her arm, a Starbucks Venti in her hand and bloodshot eyes. She worked in the cardiac clinic after a 26-hour shift because my cardiologist, she said, is a fabulous teacher. She scrolled over the latest results with me, and we compared them with the last few tests before the teacher-doctor joined us.

No change in the last year and the latest three echos is good news. Three years later and my cardiologist stood smiling down at me. He was taken back at how my children, who were hanging out in the waiting room, have all shot up. There has been a lot of growth in three years. I beamed with gratitude and the resident doctor, weary as she was, observed what hope does even when healing takes time.

There is no doubt that dark, uncertain days and hard, heart-breaking circumstances will come. Don't lose heart.







Hold on to Hope. We read in the book of Hebrews that: “ . . . we who have fled to [God] for refuge can have great confidence as we hold to the hope that lies before us. This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls.” Jesus has gone before us. He is our hope.

In seasons of waiting, when pain and suffering press in, when time slows and days pass by long and trials are hard, you are never left alone in the darkness.

Hope never fades. And joy, well it is always right there rising out of hard places. Healing may take time, but God, He holds time in His hands. He, “who works all things according to the counsel of his will” is faithful to do just that.

My broken heart is still held together by our only Hope.

And the rabbits still run wild all over our yard. But, for the second spring in a row, fifty bright red tulips stand stunningly in our front garden stretching black faces toward the sky, yielding as harsh winds blow.