I longed for rest. I did not know, that it would deep inside me grow.

I set my quest to be set free from disappointment, friction, loss.  Establish a place in spite of cost. To climb the ladder from which I see, the world below, away from me. Then I would have the peace and rest, my life controlled, I’d passed the test.

I climbed those rungs throughout my life. Spent years defining what’s worth the fight.  Have home and family, job and friends.  But rest alluded still within.

How does one find what we were taught; that higher road past worries fraught?

"Take up your cross, men will oppose.  They hated Him, they’re still His foes." So life dished out what life does best. The persecution would be my test.  

"Just stand up tall, endure the fight. Our God will bring you through the night.  Just live by faith and not by sight. You’ll find that rest when you know you’re right."

But rest still wanders from my soul. What is this faith?  What makes it real, if all I’ve done still makes me feel the emptiness of unsettled soul?

Just give me rest and let me have the peace that passes all we know. Just fill me up and let me drink. Let faith produce this missing link.

But still his words remain the same. "I’ve given all you need to gain.  If you want rest within your soul, you come, you learn, you die to all you’ve strived to gain without avail."

"This rest you want is not a tale.  It’s not a high and lofty peak.  It’s not maturity we seek.  It can’t be given for it is learned.  Come unto me and so discern that I am meek and lowly too.  If you want rest, then you must do."  

For in your humbleness of heart, no one can take or break apart what has already been laid down.  The failed ambition, the broken soul, the trials and woundings and lonely parts were the courses taught in school for those who long to know a peace-filled heart.  

I searched through life for peace and rest. I chaffed at setbacks and small mistakes.  I thought they stood between me and peace.  To only learn they teach release.  If I want rest within my soul, I come to him who’s in control.  I do not wait for rest to come.  I watch and learn what’s in the Son.  He did not speak of what rest is, but said to learn from what he lived.  

The rest we seek is not from gain, is not measured in wealth and fame.  It does not need our hand-picked friends nor life without the trials.  

It simply is my life that’s marked by lowliness and mild.  The journey with Christ that reinforced that I am still his child.

David Collins July 15, 2010

Sandy has terminal cancer.  This is her third post on Paradigm's site as she journeys with us in a stage of life many of us will not face for years to come.  She has much to teach.

"Am I dying? I don’t know. On Saturday, I thought I was probably going to end up in the hospital, and I wondered if I would die. And I panicked, a little bit. It wasn’t that I might die, but that I hadn’t finished something. I had spent hours and hours organizing my house, and buying things I thought my family would need, and sorting through trash, and endlessly DOING things, that I hadn’t spent any time writing anything down for my children, or my husband, or my friends. I had things to say, and I hadn’t said them.

Sandy has terminal cancer.  She is teaching me about life.  These are gems that we are privileged to glean from her.

"I saw a bumper sticker the other day. It said: What if doing the Hokey Pokey IS what it’s all about?
I laughed, and thought of Paula, and the time she made me stand up at the front at a playschool tea, and do the Hokey Pokey in front of all the parents and grandparents. Good times.

Doing the Hokey Pokey.
The more I thought about it, the more I came to think that there is a grain of truth in that statement.
What do you do in the Hokey Pokey?
You put your right hand in,
you take your right hand out,
You put your right hand in
And you shake it all about.
You do the hokey pokey, and you turn yourself around,
That’s what it’s all about.

BUT that’s NOT what it’s ALL about, because then you have to do it all over again with your left hand.
And then you think, “Okay, I get it… THAT’S what it’s ALL about.”

BUT you’re NOT done.
You have to put your right foot in, and then your left foot in, and then your head.
And you think you’re finally done.
But you’re not, because then you have to put your whole body in.

It’s very exhausting.
Which is why teachers of small children like it.

I think one of the reasons why the Hokey Pokey is so exhausting is because you keep thinking that it’s over… that you’ve done all the verses, and that you’re finally finished. But you’re never finished.

Life IS a little bit like doing the Hokey Pokey.
Have you ever been through something difficult? A time when you had to rely on God for something – strength, patience, safety, health? A time when you knew that it was just you and God? And you knew that if you didn’t cling to Him, you would just slide into the abyss?

If you’re alive, and if you have a relationship with God, then I’m sure you’ve had times like this. It might have been just a moment, or it may have lingered for months, or even years. And sometimes, when it is all over, we can look back and see how God touched our life in the midst of that darkness. We see a truth we learned, or a little growth spurt we experienced, or a deepening of our relationship with God. And we might be tempted to think that we figured it all out. That we know the WHYS.

I can’t tell you how many times I have figured out what life is all about. Or, at least, what my life is all about.
And I’d say to God, “OH! I get it! THAT’S what this is all about!” And I’d refer to the lesson, I thought I had learned through it all. But, like the Hokey Pokey, I’d turn myself about, and find myself learning the same lesson again later on. The circumstances might be different, but the “lesson” was similar.

It’s like there’s an overarching theme to my life. It’s different for all of us, but for me, this overarching theme has often had to do with learning how to let go of my expectations about what my life is going to be like.
Learning how to relinquish this obsessive need to control everything, and to make everything go MY way."

Her name is Sandy.

I first began to pray for a person who had that name.  She had cancer, young children and a loving husband.  She was the sister-in-law of my friend.  It is hard to pray for a name with cancer so Sandy began to take on a life as reports trickled back.  She survived that round of cancer. This round they tell her will not have the same result.

Most of us know of stories like this.  Few of us have been this story.  All of us will one day have to address this reality. And who of us knows how we will react?  It is difficult to walk into the unknown.  Some courageous people have shared their journeys with a privileged few.  Most of us have not known such courage.  So, with Sandy's permission, we are privileged to walk in the shoes of one who is saying goodbye but also believing that her life can just as easily be extended.  To those who have ears to hear, this is rich soil.

"I feel as though I am in a cone of grace, sheltered from the grief that howls around me. My friends are in pain, my family worried,my body abandoning me. And yet, here I stay in the gentle grasp of the God of Hope.
Yesterday, I went forward for prayer, and held up my hands, open for God to fill. My prayer is for all to come under the shelter of His wing into that place of refuge, to rest in the warmth of His breast.
God is at work in power, and I am just here to watch and wonder. Share what you will."  Sandy

These are excerpts from Sandy's blog

"We think we know what is good and what is evil. We have a propensity to make judgements about the things that come into our lives; to declare whether something is good or bad. We make judgements based on whether things make us happy or sad. If it makes us happy, it must be a good thing. If it makes us sad, or causes pain, it must be a bad thing.

Two years ago, I had rectal cancer. I had surgery, and months of radiation and chemo.
And God was there in power, refining me through fire.
And I was better.
And I went back to work.
And I was so happy.

But about two months ago, I received confirmation that the cancer had returned. And this time, it is not curable.

When I started telling people that the cancer had returned, there were a lot of different responses.
But one response that I found a bit puzzling was when people said to me, “Cancer is NEVER part of God’s plan!”

Really?
Well, it certainly wasn’t my plan.
But, I’m not the one writing the book.

Hebrews 12:2 says, “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of God.”

He is the AUTHOR and PERFECTER of my FAITH
* Notice that it says FAITH not LIFE – this tells me that my faith is more valuable to God than my life is.

So, maybe God will write some really hard things into my life to perfect my faith, or to “finish” my faith, as the King James version says.  So, I don’t want to say that cancer is a bad thing in my life; that it’s evil if God’s big plan is to use cancer to perfect my faith.

And not just my faith.

My little baby girl is seven years old; her brother is ten. MY plan is to be a mother to my children, and to raise them as best as I can: to help my daughter choose a wedding gown; to watch my son deliver the valedictory address at his graduation. MY plan is to grow old with my husband.

Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails.

But God is writing a really big story, and I am not the main character. HE is the main character of my story. And He has already designed my story to perfect my faith. It’s not just my faith that’s being finished here. The little collection of short stories that makes up my life is connected to the stories that make up Laurie’s life, and her collection is connected to Lynay, and Lynay’s are connected to Tammie’s, and so on.

The story God is writing is HUGE.

A couple of weeks ago, my surgeon said to me, “You must feel as though you’ve landed in the deep water without a life preserver. I wish I could throw you a life preserver, but I don’t know which one to throw.”
They can’t get to the bottom of this cancer. It’s a tricky one, and they don’t know how to treat it yet.

So I went home, and thought about what he had said; and a few days later I wrote him a note. I said: I already have a life preserver. His name is Jesus, and no matter how deep the water gets, or how rough the waves, I know that He will encircle me with His arms, and keep me safe. He holds my life and keeps me from sinking. I told him that my children are praying for God to dissolve the cancer and make me whole. I let them pray like that, and I told him that whether God heals me or not, my life is in His hands and I trust Him.

My surgeon’s faith is part of the story, too. And God’s plans will prevail."

Have you ever read a passage of Scripture and wondered whether Jesus meant for it to be literally carried out, in every circumstance? I received a phone call two days ago from a kind neighbour in the mountains. “Your cabin has been broken into.  They stole your wood stove and broke the door frame.  I don’t think anything else was taken. It looks like the doors have been left open for about two weeks.”

Yesterday I was online checking my banking statements and noticed that $20,000.00 had been taken from my home owners line of credit. My bank card had been compromised and my accounts had been accessed.

In one sense it felt like too much in too short a time.  Give me bad news in smaller bites. 

My first thoughts were to recovering what had been stolen.  My second thoughts were the cost that will have to be incurred at a time when pay checks are scarce. The third round, I began to check to see how I was feeling towards the individuals who had invaded my life.  Was I mad?  Did I want to see them pay for what they did?  What emotions were beginning to guide me?

Strange how God seemed to take me to the Beatitudes (Matthew 5 & 6).  Love your enemies.  Pray for those who persecute you? - Have you ever wondered why? My first prayer might have gotten it a little bit wrong.  It started out something like, “Get them God.”

One of my favourite movies that no one will want to watch is “Angel and the Bad Man”; the 50’s version with John Wayne. Angel is a Quaker girl who is falling in love with a killer. They are walking in her fields when Wayne notices dried up irrigation ditches.  Explaining why they were dry, Angel tells of a man who owns the water rights who had diverted the water back onto his own land.  She also mentions that they are praying.

Wayne assumes they are praying that God will send the water again.  She answers, “No, we are praying for the man.  Every day he holds back the water, he is damaging his soul.” - I’ve never forgotten the profound truth behind that statement. They loved this man more than their need for water. 

When Jesus elevates the second greatest command (love your neighbour as yourself) to the same level as the first (love God completely), you wonder why Jesus would imply that my neighbour is as important as God is?  Yet if I don’t love my neighbour as myself, who do you suppose I love more?  And if I love myself more, then how can I love God with all my heart, all my soul, all my strength, and all my mind?  I simply cannot love God the way I should if I can’t begin to love my neighbour as much as I love myself.  But if I truly love God, then my heart will also long to love what he loves and care for what he cares for.  

I’ve begun to pray for the souls of the people who have stolen from me. I’ve begun to ask God to spare them from a lifestyle that is lazy, that exploits and doesn’t want to work.  I am asking God to use this experience to change them, introduce himself to them and to set them free from a path that will ultimately lead to their own loss.

Since then I have been able to have this conversation with the RCMP and now with you.

There has to be a willingness to think differently if we are ever to understand what Paul meant when he pleaded for us to have renewed minds (Romans 12).  We don’t have to live in a box of an eye for an eye.  We can rise above it.  We can become individuals who bring reconciliation to a broken system.  But it all comes down to how much I honestly love God.