"We Can Do Hard"

This is the 200th post of my blog and I've been wondering what it would end up being about. I mentioned last entry that life's been a little hard the last couple of weeks.  I'm still having adjustment issues and it seems like everywhere I look these days, life is hard for somebody.  I love the title of this entry and I can say that because it's not mine.  Mary Beth Chapman coined this phrase as she's helped her family navigate through the tragedy of losing little Maria a couple of years ago.  Watching God bring beauty out of ashes in their family has been an encouragement to so many because of His amazing faithfulness.  Should you want to follow her journey yourself, here's the link to her blog.

Since moving back to Georgia, we've been going to Passion City Church.  This week, Louie and his sister, Gina, had the sad but wondrous experience of being with their mom as she slipped into eternity to be with the God she faithfully served while here on this earth.  We know according to Psalms 116:15 that "precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His godly ones", but for those left behind there's a loss that won't be fully healed until they're reunited someday.  Here's the link to the Passion City Church blog if you want to know more about what God is doing in Atlanta through this ministry.

Today, my heart is especially heavy for a friend of Tiffany's that she graduated from Furman with.  I introduced you to Emmett and his family several months ago and shared how they had learned very unexpectedly that he had esophageal cancer.  They started a blog to keep friends and family updated and I've been following their journey of faith and struggle.  Earlier this week, they went for another CAT scan to assess the chemo effects and got discouraging news.  If you'd like to follow their story, here's the link.

I'm going to let Wendy's words (Emmett's wife) close this entry.  Sometimes life is hard, but because of God and His love and grace, we can do hard.

"You see, if you read the Bible as I do, from the slightly cynical angle of someone who started walking with God later in life, then quite often Jesus answers questions in a way people vastly misunderstand. Pretty much every conversation he has makes sense in light of the cross, but if you think about the context, then people’s perplexed reactions make perfect sense to me. I am completely and perfectly aware that I may have misunderstood the Lord’s answer to my prayer that day because I want to believe Emmett will get well. I completely understand that I cannot see beyond my circumstances and ten years from now I may understand that prayer differently than I do now. But for now, we’ve made the choice to take him at his word, which is very difficult for me. Because you see, as I write this, thousands of women are being or have been raped in the Congo by rebel and government soldiers, with no one to turn to for safety. Children in southeast Asia are being sold as slaves into the sex trade, and thousands of people around the world are going without food, medicine, or clean water. So why would God have mercy on us? There is absolutely no reason he would. Suffering of all kinds exists because there is sin in the world, and sin multiplies just like the aggressive cancer in Emmett’s body. And the love of Christ, which he has chosen for now to demonstrate through his church, seems as impotent as the chemotherapies used to fight Emmett’s advanced cancer. The beautiful mystery is that God’s love will triumph over evil on this earth, and millions of people throughout history who don’t deserve the love of God will find true healing in the blood of Christ. So we’ve chose to believe in physical healing because that’s the only way we can find the courage to face each morning. We weep often because we find it difficult to balance apparent reality with a hopeful faith."