Hanging by the hem of HIS garment

 “When you are hanging on by a tread, make sure it is the hem of HIS garment”.

Some days I am doing okay. There are things I feel really good about. There are truths I embrace and let flood my soul. There are places where no doubts creep in. There is the feeling of success and purpose and completion. There is a future, a promise, and expectation of things still to come. There is JOY, even in the midst of my sorrow. Those are my okay days…

Then there is the really struggling days. The days when I just cannot pull it off. Where my pillow in a darkened room seems the best place to lay my weary body and my aching soul. These days leave me spent, with nothing to offer. I am filled with doubt, not about the goodness of God and heaven, but about the here and now. Doubts about whether I will survive this grief. Doubts about my ability to carry others when I am too tired to carry myself. My mind floods with the crazy thoughts that fight truth, wanting to say, “What if” or “but maybe that doesn’t apply to me”. My throat feels thick, my stomach hurts, it is hard to catch my breath during those times. Only a cleansing flow of tears can bring any clarity to my grasping mind.

Still other days I am left hanging in the balance, somewhere between okay and losing it! This is the time where I can offer compassion to another while still wiping my tears for Millie. I can complete my daily task while stopping briefly to think about my girl and how much I miss her. I can choose to live in the here and now, but learn from the ‘could of, should of’ been thoughts.

As I fight this constant battle for peace, my mind keeps going to the verse about a sound mind.

2 Timothy 1:7 “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”

I often beg the Lord to flood me with a sound mind to replace my fear. I did not realize it spoke of God giving us a spirit of power and love also until I read it just now. That power is something I am left search for. I need that power to overcome the fears. Fear of disappointing those we are closest to. Fear of rejection, of being misunderstood, or being unloved. We all have fears, but they are not from GOD. The spirit of fear comes from the great deceiver. The one who would have you believe half truths and outright lies. The one who says this will never get better, that you are not enough, that you will never measure up. If he can keep us fear filled, then he has control over our lives…. GOD however gave the power of victory to US! With this power comes love and the peace of a sound mind. AMEN!

I know so many momma’s in the cancer world right now that need this sound mind. Mommas that are laying their babies down for the last time this week. Mommas who are clinging to the side of a hospital bed begging for healing for their babies. Mommas who are asking for their child to have comfort as they wait for heavenly healing. Mommas who are breathing a prayer of peace as they wait for that test or scan or answer to come. Mommas who are rejoicing in the success of being off treatment, while silently holding the breath of anxiety for the what if that might come. Mommas like me who pray daily to make it through this day and the next and the next without our baby…our flesh and blood…that we wait to see again. Before cancer, I never dreamed it was so big, so far reaching, so impacting. I was blissfully unaware of this life…

Tonight, as I am hanging by the thread of his garment, please know I am wrapping it around myself, tying it tight, determined to fight the good fight for myself and my family. I pray you are doing the same.

Philippians 3:14

14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

Hebrews 12:1-3

1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.