Tattoos. What’s your take on them? Do you like them? Do you have one? Do you like the multi-colored ones, or just black? Flowers? Hearts? Flags? Or don’t you like them at all?
I have to confess; I have two of them. They were done fourteen years ago, when I was 71. But they are really, really small.
They are just two tiny dots to show the radiologists where to aim, because I had breast cancer. I suppose that I should have been more involved with my diagnosis and treatment, but I wasn’t. I was too busy. I did what they said and showed up when I was supposed to, but I just wasn’t really with it. I didn’t have the time or the energy. Because my husband was in and out of the hospital with esophageal cancer, and he really needed me to be there to help make important treatment decisions. And I was exhausted.
We lived in Manahawkin, and my radiation was being done in the hospital there; he was in Jefferson in Philadelphia, 60 miles away. So I would get up in the morning, do what I absolutely had to do at home, run in to Radiology, and then drive to Jefferson to spend time with him; then drive home in the dark and wake up the next day and do it all over again, 5 days a week. On weekends, blessedly, there was no radiation, and I could spend all day at Jefferson. At the end, though, he came home in Hospice, and the day he died was the next to last day of my radiation. I kept my appointments.
This little short story is just a snapshot of the many times when we face situations we cannot change and don’t see how we can handle. How can we do it? Where can we turn? I wasn’t especially strong or especially anything. But I had the greatest thing in the world going for me. I had Jesus.
I know that ‘I can do all thing through Christ who strengthens me’, but that didn’t change needing to be in two places at once. But Paul also said, In Acts 22:33: Pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.
And It’s true. God CAN and DOES step into these situations and make all things possible. You can be frightened, you can be grieving, you can be angry, you can be totally overwhelmed. I’ve been in all of those miserable places and more, but when I prayed, and especially when I remembered all the times that God had already brought me through, I could feel God’s peace running beneath all the pain and confusion, strong and steady. His doctors became available when I could be there. I could do it.
God is so good. I am stubborn. But after enough times when I first tried to battle it out on my own, I finally got smart and gave up on THAT scene, and started to remember to trust God FIRST. And then it became almost automatic, and that was God ‘guarding my heart and mind’. Without this process, it is so easy for us to slip into resentment and bitterness, which is certainly not what God desires for us. His peace really is beyond our understanding, not only because he is eager to offer it to us, but also in its depth and power. And it is ours for the asking.
What a wonderful God we have!