by Lucy | Mar 15, 2017 | biblical counseling, emotions, whole health wellness |
Cancer: A cancer diagnosis surprised Heart2Heart counselor Donna Hart, PhD. Her first question was, “What in this do You want me to learn?” The Lord’s answer: worship. Donna’s article appeared first here on her website and is used with permission. Donna also adds an update below to her cancer diagnosis. To all who prayed for her, thank you. –LAM
I was doing well and just starting the deeper research of chapter five of my dissertation. The chapter was on endurance. I prayed the Lord would lead me to the best resources for the research.
Not many days later the doctor called to say the results from the breast biopsy tested positive for cancer. I had had these done before all with negative results so when I got the call I was taken by surprise. We know nothing is a surprise for God and that His hand was allowing this for me.
My first question after the fog cleared was to ask our dear heavenly Father,
“What is in this You want me to learn?”
I got a most curious and surprising one word answer, “worship.”
I am “Miss Independent” and very used to caring for other people; I’m very low maintenance when it comes to needing help from others.
God Provides a Friend
The first person the Lord provided to help me was a good friend who happens to be a nurse. She declared that she was going with me to all doctor’s appointments and surgeries. She said it would be important to have another set of knowledgeable ears to listen. At the time, she was walking through her own deep valley of trial: while she was on a road trip a while back, she looked down for a moment and ran a red ligh. This resulted in a fatality.
During my cancer journey, we walked together; she ministered to me as I ministered to her. I learned that trials are more endurable when walk through it with a friend.
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Through the process of multiple cancer surgeries, my friends would go walking with me because that was the only exercise allowed. They walked with me outside on the miles of bike trail near my home and inside when the weather was inclement. We would talk and grow closer in our relationship.
God Provides Praise Music
The Lord blesses us with His love through the voices of other believers.
The days I walked on the treadmill I would listen to the Vertical Church Band. Do they realize how many songs they have written about heaven? What a gift to me from the Lord to get my heart focused on the right things. I thought, it does not matter what happens, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21)
. I will worship You, Lord.
My treatment included four rounds of chemotherapy, four hours each, three weeks apart. My favorite sisters went along with me for this journey. We sat, relaxed, chatted, and knitted. What a blessed treat from the hand of the Lord: sweet friendships to make a trial a joy.
I did not know I was going to be my own dissertation research on endurance. As I sought references for my paper, the Lord brought me to an article on Counseling Suffering by John Piper, and I shall never forget his words, “The Lord is most glorified when we are most satisfied in Him.”
The world is watching: Are we a testimony that the Lord is good and enough, no matter what the trial?
The Lord was with me every step of this journey, teaching me to be less self-sufficient and more dependent upon Him knowing He works all things together for good.
Life After Cancer
Now years later and cancer free, I celebrate that the Lord is a continued song in my heart. I remember His words to me every time I would get my eys off Him and onto the circumsitons, “Iwhat crucified for you.”
Those words are a memorial reminter that He is with me, and I have nothing to fear. He started a goood work and He will finish it.
And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. Philippians 1:6
Question for You!
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Sharing Hope with Your Heart,
by Lucy | Sep 8, 2016 | biblical counseling, emotions, relationships |
Abortion stories are very rarely shared in most churches today.
Christian women are far more likely to admit depression or anxiety, a rebellious kid, or a troubled marriage.
Last year’s undercover videos of Planned Parenthood got everyone talking about the horrific selling baby parts after abortion. It set social media on fire. My heart hurt as I heard of the sale of livers and kidneys and craniums.
And my heart hurts. . .for the women and girls who’ve had abortions.
I am privileged to know Tiffany Stuart, a blogger and a wonderful women who shares her abortion story at Tea with Tiffany. God is using her ministry to educate women and to bring healing to those who’ve ended their pregnancies and feel horrible, empty, numb, angry, depressed, and unforgivable. Her voice offers healing words.
It Could Happen to Anyone
Lynn was just 17. College bound. A steady boyfriend. And a missed period, then another.
Did you know that every year in the U.S., there are roughly 1 million abortions? 1.5 percent of abortions are pregnancies from rape or incest. Lynn’s boyfriend drove her to the clinic and paid for the abortion.
“I’m so scared,” she confided to me. (Names have been changed.)
We were close friends, Lynn and me. After “it” was over, we never spoke of her abortion. Like it never happened. Back then I had believed the “right to choose” propaganda, and if an abortion was right for Lynn, then fine. Just get it over with and move on right? Right?
If it were that easy, why did we never speak of it again? Ever. Were we. . .
Ignorant?
Ashamed?
Prideful?
I didn’t know then what I know now: Women who have abortions are in desperate need of emotional and spiritual healing.
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. (2 Corinthians 1:3-4, NIV)
Honestly, if I had known the devastation to women, I would not have helped my friend get an abortion. In fact, I would have yelled, screamed, laid down in front of her car, anything but stay silent.
The workers at Planned Parenthood had told Lynn that her unborn baby was a blob of tissue.
They are wrong. She was wrong. I was wrong. We know better now, don’t we?
Breaking the Silence in Churches
If you want to help make your church a safe place to share painful secrets of abortion, start with prayer. Ask God to bring a hurting woman into your life. If you’ve had an abortion, ask God to send you a compassionate woman whom you can trust.
Here are warm words for compassionate friends and hurting women.
Dear compassionate friend, the hurting woman won’t tell you her pain at first. She needs to know she can trust you. She needs to know you won’t condemn her.
The Bible says,
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. (Romans 8:1, NIV)
Dear hurting woman, are you afraid to tell a friend about your abortion? If you haven’t experienced healing, you need to reach out. Do you feel nervous or angry around babies and children? Sorrowful? This sorrow may show up as uncharacteristic silence. These are signs you need healing.
Dear compassionate friend, offer her hope. She must learn that nothing can separate her from God’s love. Show her this verse in the Bible:
“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39, NIV)
Dear hurting woman, you’ll find peace when you reconcile with God, with yourself and with others. If you haven’t already, talk with God and agree with him that you made a bad decision. Ask for his forgiveness. He will give it to you. At Calvary Jesus paid for all of your sins–past, present and future. However, you do not need to forgive yourself. No where in Scripture are we commanded to do this. God’s forgiveness is all that matters.
Dear compassionate friend, help the hurting woman reconcile with others when possible by speaking the truth in love to people who had a role in the abortion. They may have sinned against her, or she against them. Guide her in these difficult conversations.
Dear hurting woman, do you need a healing way to remember your loss? If you desire, write a poem or draw or sculpt, or memorize a scripture verse, to remember God’s loving-kindness toward you.
If anyone reading these words had an abortion, may you wrap yourself is the truth that God loves you and is for you. Why not talk with him? He’s waiting with open, gentle arms.
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Sharing Hope with Your Heart,
by Lucy | May 3, 2016 | biblical counseling, emotions, relationships |
Friend, I hope you’ll love this replay of one of my popular posts. I made a few edits and changed the photo but my heart on friendship remains true. Jill Savage and her daughter Annie have a new book on moms and friendship. It’s titled Better Together: Because You’re Not Meant to Mom It Alone. You might want to check it out.
The one thing every friend needs is. . .someone who accepts our messiness and loves us in the messy.
Let’s be honest. Friendships scare you and me.
Friendships meet a God-given need for relationship, so why do few women make friends as easily as my college-aged daughter Julia? She collects friends like shiny pennies. She and her friends — girls and guys — always text, tweet, snap chat, and meet IRL (in real life) over lunch, dinner, snacks, more snacks — all their waking hours.
She’s the girl I wanted to be in high school, the girl with gravitational pull.
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Could some of your and I fear we’re too messy to be lovable? accepted? to have a place of belonging?
Why a Friend Matters
A friend is “someone you feel close to, see often, and can count on when you need her” This is a definition Dee Brestin shared in her iconic book, The Friendships of Women.
A friend helps you know you matter to her. . .even when your life get messy.
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And who doesn’t have a messy life? Sometimes “super women” look like that they have it all together. They don’t. They’re hiding behind masks. Perhaps perfection or busyness or materialism or career-climbing.
Please be assured that they’re messy too.
Listen to Elyse Fitzpatrick, a biblical counselor, conference speaker, and author:
Until recent years, even though I knew I was to serve God, I never had my priorities straight. I never understood that my problem was me — not my husband, job, kids, car, parents . . .you fill in the blanks. I was confused and the psychological pholosophies that had crept into my thinking were making things worse. Didn’t I neeed to learn to love myself? Didn’t I need to get my needs met? Didn’t I have a need for romance? For security? For significance? How could God expect me to pour my life out for others then I was so miserable myself? Didn’t I need to fill my own ‘love cup’ before I could fill others? (from Women Helping Women, Harvest House, 1997)
After digging deep into the Bible for God’s truth, her focus changes and she recognizes her messiness and the solution to it.
Now I understand that I’m not to be concerned with whether my perceived ‘needs’ are being met. These ‘needs’ are not issues for me anymore because I believe that God have given me everything for life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3). It’s not that I’m perfect, I’m not. In fact, I’m far more aware of my sin now than ever before. It’s just that life makes sense now and I’m confident that my loving Father is in control.
Yes, she needs friends. Just as I do and you do.
Real friends.Our real friends give hugs and listen when we have real hurts and laugh with us not at us. Because they listen, our friends encourage and strengthen us. They help us know we are not alone.
Do you have a friend you encourages you? How do you encourage your friends? Hugs? Notes? Listening? Laughing?
Are You Friend “Challenged”?
God is piloting me through a friend-free zone now, and I don’t like it. My once close friends got busy and I got busy too — with work, with family responsibilities. Does your busy life make time for friends? How can you schedule in friend time so you can encourage her and be encouraged?
I cried to God, “I feel friendless and I don’t like it.”
The Lord spoke to my heart: “Come to Me.”
Quiet sharpens my hearing.
Be still and know that I am God” Psalm 46:10, NIV
I sensed that the Lord will renew friendships and bring new ones. . .in his time. He’s giving me another opportunity to trust him. Do you feel friend challenged too? If so does this bring on feelings of worthlessness?
You Matter
Whether you have a bazillion girlfriends like my daughter, Julia, or just a few — or none — God says you matter. When friendships become hurtful, you matter.
It’s not the number of friends on Facebook that matters most. So stop counting. Stop comparing.
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What matters most is your friendship with your Maker, and he’ll take care of the rest. Honest. God knows your need of friendship better than you do.
Now What?
Here are a few “You Matter” verses from God’s heart to yours. Why not memorize one or two this week?
“I am a child of God.” John 1:12
“I am a saint.” Ephesians 1:1, 1 Corinthians 1:2, Philippians. 1:1, Colossians 1:2
“I am chosen of God, holy and dearly loved.” Colossians 3:12, 1 Thessalonians 1:4
“I am God’s workmanship — his handiwork — born anew in Christ to do his work.” Ephesians 2:10
Sweet friend, be sure to read the next post. Simply subscribe to my blog now while it’s on your mind.
Sharing hope with your heart!
