cancer sucks, but God is good

I've been sitting on this post for awhile and, after reading Laurie's post on prayer, I decided to "publish post" today. I haven't written too much about my mom out of respect for her privacy but, as obvious in the last photos I posted of her, she has cancer.

I pray for healing for my mom. It doesn't matter that the doctor gave her an unfavorable prognosis, my prayer continues for restoration of her health. Sound foolish? Like I'm not facing reality? Perhaps if you only look at the visible, physical evidence....but God transcends what we can touch and see. Just consider Hezekiah, or Jairus's daughter (8:41), or Lazarus, or sweet little Gwyneth.

The other day when I was praying for her, I stopped and thought, "This is crazy! I'm praying for her to stay in this world but praying for Jesus to come for me!" That made me laugh...even now as I typed it! Seriously though, my prayers for my mom have changed since her diagnosis. While I once only prayed the selfish cries of a daughter, I now pray the pleas of a sister in Christ.

For while I'm confident that she would be exceedingly better off in Heaven since to be absent from the body is to be present with Christ, in God's compassion for those who do not know Him He tells us to "pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest." My mom is a believer, and so my desire is to see her health restored that she may live to serve her Lord and Savior as a laborer in His harvest. May her life be extended that she may bear much fruit for His kingdom.

Do I know that it is God's will to heal my mom? Nope. But I also don't know that it isn't. However, I do know this. Unless He tells me it isn't His plan, every time I pray to God to heal my mom I am glorifying Him because I go before Him in confidence that He alone is the Great Physician. I acknowledge Him alone as Jehovah-Rapha, the Lord who Heals.

A question asked on the Truth Project was something to the effect of, "Do you really believe what you believe is really real?" The example was that if we REALLY believed that praying was to go before the throne of our Holy God and have Him welcome you with arms outstretched to sit and talk with Him, praying would not be difficult. In fact, we would want to pray all day! We call ourselves "believers," but do we really believe?

If you would like to pray for my mom's healing, I'm sure she would appreciate it. Her name is Sara. I also write this post in hopes of encouraging readers who may currently be discouraged. Every day that you have on this planet is a day with purpose. Whether you are bedridden, unemployed, a POW, or a SAHM (kinda the same as a POW, huh?) your life has great value in the eyes of your Creator. Every breath you take is an opportunity to glorify God in your thoughts and actions, and the ultimate way to glorify God is to trust in Jesus Christ as the One who died so that you might live.

edited2add: The following comment is from my mom...I'm just posting it for her!
I would go for years and never mention the greatness of God and now it seems that in this hardest part of my life has been the easiest to praise Him for all He has done. The opportunity to just slightly mention to others how wonderful He has been to me through all this just keeps popping up. And I say these things to people I would never have mentioned religion to before. Now I hope I can figure out how to send this comment!

And since I know it will bum out my mom if there are no photos, here goes: