Hope and Healing

 I haven't shared openly the events of the last year that I've lived with my best friend and her Daughter Gabby. I have live updated here and there on social media. I keep telling myself it's their story to tell not mine, but today I want to share my part of the story. You see, when we walk in the trenches with those who we share life and deep relationships with, we become part of their story and they become ours. 

Lish and I had been friends for several years, but over the course of the last few we had become closer and closer. We led bible study together, went to mom's groups together, send our babies all off to school together and met for weekly coffee and lunches as we talked over what God was doing in our lives. We both look back to these moments as such a gift, God knew what he was doing. We didn't see it then, but we do now. 

"You don't know what I am doing now, but someday you will." John 13:7

Last October after a series of appointments and tests, Gabby, her oldest daughter, would be diagnosed with Stage 4 Hodgekins lymphoma. We, Lish and I, and our husbands sat in a restaurant crying and trying to understand. That day I made a promise that I would walk with them through this season, and for whatever would come. It was no mistake that not only had our family walked through cancer but that I was also running and organization helping support families in this exact situation. I had no idea that sometimes your ministry work and your personal life all become one and the same. After all, I have prayed for God to use ALL of it. Now it was my best friend. We acknowledged that we saw God on that very first day. I speak for myself but I can for her too when I say, we have seen him over and over and over again and there is a beautiful story to be told that will change lives. 

On November 2nd 2019 I woke up to my phone buzzing. I had been in and out of sleep all night. I knew that Gabby was in the ER after a quick downward spiral following her treatment day. Lish was telling me to come, and come fast. I rushed to that hospital that morning as fast as I could. On the radio was "Waymaker" as loud as I could play. I had no idea what I was about to walk into....

That morning I witnessed the scariest moment I have ever seen. It's hard for me to write it out and recall it. I saw my two best friends watch their daughter go into septic shock. I wouldn't and couldn't describe what that looked like. You could have heard my best screaming "I NEED HER" across the entire floor of the PICU. That day felt like Hell had reached earth. We were all pretty sure we had just witnessed deaths darkest moment, BUT GOD. Lish and I were crunched on the floor when that one doctor came and told us that to save Gabby they would put her on ECMO. It would be the decision at that moment and that fast, that would be the first medical life saving measure that would ensue. There were hundreds more that would take place over the next several days, weeks, snd months and unless you were getting a doctors degree you wouldn't understand most of it, even then you may not. 

The reason I share today is not to give you gory details into the testimony that is actually not even mine but it's to share with you what God has done. 

Where is your hope? In healing here on earth? In comfort from affliction? God is very much active and present. He is in your midst and mighty to save. The world and the chaos in it is swirling all around us, but God is still on the throne and that will never be twarted. 

"The LORD has established His throne in heaven, and His kingdom rules over all." Psalm 103

Since that day Gabby's life is a miracle. Actually Gabby's life was a miracle the moment she was formed in my best friends womb. She was chosen and God created her. He didn't all the sudden make a mistake when cancer happened, and he for sure didn't turn his head when life got harder than cancer for Gab. You see in our pain and in our suffering God gets more near. It is through suffering and the hardship of our lives that God is most magnified and our hearts are most changed. I'll talk you through this until eternity friends. That’s my story, Gabby's story, and a countless number of other stories. 

“We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope” (Romans 5:3–4).

A lot has happened since Nov. 2nd 2019. We spent hours in the hospital, and by hours I mean 3am, 3pm, and days and days and days of no-time 24 hour periods over and over and over again. I had promised that I would not leave my bests side, but I had no idea what that promise would mean. When you make that promise, God makes a way, even when the tough gets going. Trauma destroys relationships, I have witnessed this in my own story, but it also connects you and strengthens relationships like nothing else ever could. 

In the last 8,765 hours of this past year.....

Thousands have met with Jesus on Gabby's behalf. Gabby got up and walked. Not only has God healed her body, but He's healed her cancer. Her story will be told for years and years in medical journals and in classes, by doctors, and will be used to heal others. That is already happening. People like me, who witnessed the miracle from inside those closed doors will boldy proclaim how alive and active God is in all of lives if we would just open our eyes to see. I will share stories from this past year with friends, in writing, in others lives as I walk with them in the suffering. 

Gabby even started her own ministry sending Hope and Love to people at Hershey by way of her special "Penguin". Do you know the 6th stage of grief has more recently been coined the the term "finding meaning"? Past all the stages of grief is perhaps the most significant in healing, which is finding meaning beyond. Taking all you've been through and all you've learned and using that to be the turning point in your life to step into others and make purpose and bring healing. WOW. About two months ago my son, in a pillow fight battle, empaled himself on a bed frame. It required a quick response and fast trip to the ER where layers of stitches were sewn into his belly after efforts to make sure he didn’t puncture any organs in the damage. In the middle of this, who do you think he wanted to call? Gab. Because she had a hole in her belly too. So she facetimed and told him he was going to be ok and he was. Although so different and his little mind cannot comprehend, he was comforted by someone who knew. Gabby welcome to the club of “I know”. It will always be your own but what will always comfort others is the journey you have survived. And that will give true HOPE. 

No one chooses cancer, often we don't choose the trauma that God allows in our lives. But there is purpose in our pain and there is healing in our midst. I cannot ever completely fulfill the weight of telling this whole story. I know so many of you feel that way about all that your life has become too. I do know that my greatest testimony of who God is, is happening everyday and all around me. There is no coincidence that brings a girl like Gabby to life. There is no coincidence that connects people the way God has. There is no happenstance that our fragile life is handed the events of each and everyday. 

Don't forget it.

Don't suppress it. 

You are chosen.

You are loved. 

"There is a day when death and disease will be healed for good. That is our sure hope in the midst of sorrow. When we insist that God's promises of complete healing must be applied to our lives now as well as in the fullness that is to come, we're mistakenly expecting in this age what God has reserved for the next" -Nancy Guthrie