Prayer for a friend

CANCER.  Such a dreaded word, isn’t it?  It seems to rear its ugly head in the places that seem the least fair and at the time it seems most inopportune.  Obviously there is no opportune time for cancer to appear.  But when it hits kids and young parents it seems especially cruel.

I found out today that one of the most giving, joyful, honest, caring, genuine women I know (and have known since we were 15 and took driver’s ed together) has breast cancer and it has spread to her lymph nodes (she just found out yesterday).  She is a wife and the mother of two young boys.  She is a friend, a sister, a daughter, a voice teacher and she is completely indescribable, though I will certainly continue to tray.  She brings the light of Jesus into a room when she walks in.  And she loves Jesus as deeply and truly as is humanly possible. 

This is one of her Facebook posts from today, they day after she finds out the worst news of her young life (I hope you don’t mind, Hayley):

“The funny thing about receiving such horrific news about your sudden, unexpected BAD health and what that means now for your life, is, aside from Trusting in the Lord and gleaning all that you can from the literal hundreds of loved ones who are surrounding you in prayer, you STILL awaken at 3:30 in the morning from a dead sleep, with tears in eyes, shakes in body and sadness in heart that it was in fact not just all a bad, bad dream.

It's easy to venture down the road of the extra scary thoughts and dwell on the extra sad thoughts about never being able have another baby... or the fear of the sheer pain of such extensive surgery... or the fear of losing my music studio.

But then, instead of getting onto sites that just deepen all these thoughts and fears, opening the Word of the Lord and finding something like this:

2 Corinthians 4:16-18 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

Let the Glory be all Yours, Lord... through it all. ALL YOURS.”

Please, please keep Hayley, Aaron (her husband) and her boys Grayson and Lincoln in your prayers.  She is one of the most optimistic people I know and I know she will fight as hard as she can and when she can’t fight anymore, her husband will fight for her.  If you want to look at her blog, it's www.lifesprom.blogspot.com 

 

Abba, hold tight to this family as they walk through an unimaginable journey.  Continue to use them to bring glory and honor to your name as they continue to give their lives over to you.  Continue to shine your light through them and continue to put praise on their tongues so that you may be glorified and so that you might be known because of their testimony.  You, Lord, are in complete control and whatever comes you will never cease to be good.  You will never cease to be love. And like Hayley said, Let the Glory be all Yours, Lord…through it all.  ALL YOURS.