My sister-in-law recently sent me to a friend's blog.
The blog is www.mundanefaithfulness.com by Kara Tippetts.
Go there.
Read her words.
Go there if you want to see God's grace and mercy.
Go there if you want to be challenged to fully live each day.
Go there if you want to see that God can be glorified even when life isn't fair.
Go there if you want to read beautiful words documenting really hard stuff.
Go there if you are brave enough to cry.
It's a blog by a mama.
A mama of four precious children.
A mama who is battling cancer.
And her last appointment didn't bring her good news.
Her recent blog entitled Peace said something that I can't get out of my head.
In fact I woke up in the middle of the night thinking about this woman I don't know, her family, and her story woven through her gift of writing.
This is what she said after posting a picture of herself looking at her beloved husband who was taking her picture:
"If you look close, you can see my heart here. I'm looking at the object of my affection on the other side of the lens, and I'm saying I'm sorry. I'm sorry the beautiful in our story is so hard. I'm sorry I can't fix this. I'm sorry it hurts so much, but the hurt is evidence of the best of us. I'm sorry we have to go on another desperate hunt for grace. We don't get to be the family we saw happily eating dinner after baseball practice. But I have never been sorry for this life spent looking for Jesus right next to you."
Exhale.
"I'm sorry the beautiful in our story is so hard."
What kind of grace allows a woman to see beauty in the really, really hard?
I want to know the God that allows for that sentence to even be written.
The God who brings the beautiful through brokenness.
"We don't get to be the family we saw happily eating dinner after baseball practice."
I'm instantly overwhelmed by my own family's ability to eat a simple dinner without hearing the ticking of a clock. The clock that is counting down time left together. Is it a gift to believe there will always be another meal together? Is it a gift or a curse? The assumption that time is ours for the taking. What would it be like to really view every day as if it were our last? For some reason, the thought sounds depressing and daunting to me. Would I want to know if I didn't have much time left? Or that someone I love doesn't have much time left? The thoughts quicken the beating of my heart. Yet, I find myself slightly envious of this woman's ability to squeeze every ounce of life out of the moments given to her.
This beautiful young mom fighting for her life finishes her blog with this:
"You might be that family we saw the other night. You might be going through each moment and not noticing the gift. Each breath, each hug, each moment is such a gift. An unbelievable gift. Don't withhold your love, it's been given to you to give. Don't let my story grow fear in your own living, but let it give you the motivation to embrace each small moment as the giant moment in grace that it really is."
I'm hoping this woman has many more dinners with her family. Maybe even some moments of just plain normal. Moments to just enjoy her people and to not dread the ticking of time. And I'm praying for the ability to do as she writes and "embrace each small moment as the giant moment in grace that it really is."
