Can you let God be God and worship Him still…?

All our lives are filled with ups and downs. Each of us has burdens to bear and paths to walk…some harder than others. I have a dear friend who was diagnosed with stage four cancer almost five years ago: lung, brain, liver and bone. She has attacked this cancer diagnosis with a ferocity that is uniquely her through faith, food, medicine, supplements and yoga.

We went to high school together. She was friends first with my youngest sister but as we grew up, our lives followed a similar path, single mother. She lost her mother to breast cancer shortly after she graduated high school. Her father moved away and married again. Her aunt, executor of her mother’s will, misappropriated the money her mother had left behind to help her children attend college and begin “adult” lives. She never became bitter. She just worked harder.

She worked her way into a good job, making good money. She worked her way into a happy relationship with a ring on her finger. She worked her way into a nice house filled with a healthy, vibrant son. She worked her way into a good life, filled with good people whom she loved. American dream and all that.

When her son was nine, she took a trip down to the coast of Texas to spend the day with her fiancé, some friends and her son. She had managed to maintain a friendship with the father of her child. He was there too and they all enjoyed a day in the boat on the salt water. The father decided to leave early and left his son behind to finish enjoying the day with his mother and their friends not knowing that when it came time for boat to be pulled out of the water, to be loaded onto the trailer and hauled a short few blocks home, their son would fall and boat on the trailer would unknowingly run over him causing a lung to collapse and his skull to be cracked and his brain to be injured.

He was airlifted to a Corpus Christi hospital and to be honest, I can no longer remember how long he was in intensive care, but that hospital became her home for the next year. She watched her son fight for his right to breathe and live and she watched as the little boy she had given life to become a very different child. Friends rallied at first but as time wore on, she found very few could endure. She and the father were both understandably, angry. Though I walked with her through this time, I still cannot fathom the pain, hurt and anger at the situation…the hand she was dealt.

She is a very strong, very intelligent, very persistent woman and she tackled the issues facing her son head on… in a very HER way. When we were young, she was THAT friend that was so loyal she was ready at all times to do battle on your behalf. If someone looked at you wrong, she was the girl shouting: “hey bubba; wanna take this outside where I can teach you some manners?” She was always the available shoulder to cry on that would give you comfort food, then smack your ass and say okay, not let’s get back out there.

During this time, she did not just lose who her son had been before the accident. She lost her finance, her job, her house, her friendship with the father, many friends and her freedom but she never let that stop her. She continued to fight and provide for her son. She never just took a diagnosis as gospel. She researched and taught herself all there was to know about the challenges he faces. In fact, she’s become such an expert, she has been asked on many occasions to advocate for other children. Doctors and nurses not up to snuff, fear and respect her. She has always been fierce but now she is a force to be reckoned with as the fight within her fueled her to always push every boundary for the betterment of her son.

When she was diagnosed herself, I feared the anger that had subsided would again, rear its head but instead, she changed. Always a believer, she was now in a position of no longer be capable of handling all this on her own. I watched as every shackle began to fall away, and she began to rely fully on Him. Now, I need you to understand, her faith was already stronger than most people you and I know. God had been making a way and her ends meet since her son’s accident. But a heart that had been filled with struggle was being transformed to a heart filled with love. Some might disagree with me because as I said before, she is strong willed and fierce, always willing to go toe to toe with anyone bringing negativity into her world but as she came to the end of herself, she found a strength that is only Him.

Everyday isn’t perfect. She loses her temper with certain situations. She struggles to trust people. I am not claiming she is angelic or without fault or flaw but what I am saying is that none of this…NONE of it, has kept her from believing in both her son’s healing and her own. None of it has stopped her from trying to help others less fortunate around her. None of it has robbed her of her the fight or faith within her. Instead all of it has molded her into a warrior that searched every nook and cranny of both the physical and spiritual world for His answers for her life. She has not been broken. She hasn’t been defeated. She hasn’t given up. She has been bolstered by an unwavering truth that God is God and she will worship Him still.

Whatever you are facing today…whatever attack you are under…are you able let God be God and worship Him still? Can you be like Job: “Look, He may well kill me, but I will hope in Him. Still I will be ready to argue my case before His very face. In fact, this will become my salvation, for the godless wouldn’t even dare to approach Him (Job 13:15-16).” In your darkest hour, can you put your pride down, your doubt, fear, anxiety, issues of worth, your disappointment and worry…can you lay those at His feet and say, “I will praise God for as long as I live. I will sing praises to my God as long as breath fills my lungs and blood flows through my veins. (Psalm 146:2)”?

Nothing can separate us from His love (Romans 8:38-39) but praise and worship can separate us from what ails us. He inhabits the praises of His people (Psalm 22:3). Hence when we worship, we are in His presence and in His presence is the fullness of joy (Psalm 16:11). God is love (I John 4:8) and perfect love which He is, cast out fear (I John 4:18). My friend has no fear. She doesn’t want you thinking or saying or believing God can’t do His work in and through her. In fact, she will remove herself from anyone that doesn’t believe this along side her.  I thank her for the example of hope she is to me and others around her, running life’s marathon race with passion and determination, for the path has been already marked out before us (Hebrews 12:1).

She’s always reminded me of Winston Churchill. Here are a few of his quotes to inspire both me and you:

•  If you’re going through hell, keep going.
• You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.
• To improve is to change, so to be perfect is to have changed often.
• Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.
•  Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense.
• Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.