My Mom

I'm at the tail end of a year long read of The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard, a book I've been chugging through 5 pages at a time, with a lot of breaks. In in the last chapter, which is talking about spiritual formation and discipleship in terms of dealing with circumstances, temptation and adversity. I read these two verses this morning and thought a lot about my Mom and how she's been dealing with her Pancreatic Cancer.

James 2:1-4:

2Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. 3You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. 4So don't try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.

Romans 5:1-5:

1By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us--set us right with him, make us fit for him--we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus. 2And that's not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand--out in the wide open spaces of God's grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise.

3There's more to come: We continue to shout our praise even when we're hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, 4and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. 5In alert expectancy such as this, we're never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary--we can't round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!

I thought about my Mom not so much as to remind her of these, but as the way that she's modeled these verses for me in terms of how you're she's dealing with her cancer over these past months. She have every right in the world to complain and pity herself throughout this process - but she doesn't. Each day I talk to her, she genuinely looks for the blessing in all of it, in each day, in each thing. If she's sick one day, she focuses on the fact that it could have been worse, or that it will be better the next. Reading the part where James talks about "You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors", I think her true colors have really shown themselves, and to quote a commercial - they're beautiful. Through all of this, she is teaching me so much about me about perseverance, faithfulness and what it means to be formed into the image of Christ through adversity. She's really an amazing woman. But if you know her, you already know that.

Tags: Dallas Willard, Lynn Kurt, Divine Conspiracy, Adversity, Cancer