O LORD, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am! Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing before you. Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath! Selah

Psalm 39:4-5

Breakfast is my favorite meal
+
Fall is my favorite season
=
Fall deepens my love for breakfast.

Ta-da!

I don’t get how some people have no love for breakfast. I’m talking to you, coffee-and-protein-bar-on-the-run people, and you, I’m-just-not-hungry-in-the-morning-so-what’s-the-point? folks. We just can’t be friends, sorry.

Anyway, after my 9AM PT appointment this morning, I was majorly craving breakfast and made my way to Chick-Fil-A. With the warm bag of food on my lap, I parked in a small patch of morning sun beside a sprawling red maple.

It’s a crisp fall morning outside my heated aluminum cocoon. The sky is blue, the trees in the lot are red and yellow, its abandoned leaves chasing one another across the asphalt lot. I left my engine running, radio on, and stretched in the sun’s rays as melodies danced into my space. Enveloped in warmth and words so beautifully strung, it hit me:

What a blessing it is to have cancer.

Pausing here—please don’t get me wrong. There is nothing inherently good about cancer, and I would trade in my cancer for my health in a heartbeat. And I don’t mean to undermine anyone else’s cancer diagnosis or experience.

But as I sang along with the lyrics, my mouth full of greasy fast food and my eyes dripping, I thought of my future and my Savior who carries me there. I became undone.

He’s coming on the clouds, kings and kingdoms will bow down
And every chain will break, as broken hearts declare his praise
Who can stop the Lord Almighty?

Our God is a Lion, the Lion of Judah
He’s roaring with power and fighting our battles
And every knee will bow before you

Our God is a Lamb, the Lamb that was slain
For the sin of the world, his blood breaks the chains
And every knee will bow before the Lion and the Lamb

Can you imagine it? It’s beautiful to try.

You’re rich in love and you’re slow to anger
Your name is great and your heart is kind
For all your goodness I will keep on singing
Ten thousand reasons for my heart to find

And on that day when my strength is failing
The end draws near and my time has come
Still my soul will sing your praise unending
Ten thousand years and then forevermore!

The magnitude of my weakened health and strength cannot be forgotten in my day-to-day living. It is front and center, leaving me crippled by the hour with pain, failures, abandoned dreams, failing relationships, guilt, nausea,  insomnia, anxiety, and so much fear. Everything that was once strong and confident in myself has, as sandcastles along the shore, been washed into the foam of the sea.

But, Jesus. My Lion and Lamb. He’s coming back for his weak and weary child.  He’s coming back for ME. Oh, what hope. What hope! Oh death, where is your sting? The future is so bright for those of us who believe! There is no tragic end for this wretched soul, regardless of how cancer plays out in my life. My soul will sing his praise unending; 10,000 years and then forevermore!  Christ has never been my hope and joy to the capacity that he is now…it’s almost as if I’ve been born again, again–and as a woman who’s known Christ for so long, I am so ashamed by this honesty.

We are all dying, friends. Not just folks with cancer or disease. It’s only a matter of a few more breaths before our time on this side of eternity is up, and the trials of our lives will end at the gates of eternal joy or eternal hell. Regardless of how hard, or dark, or lonely this life gets, my fate is secure. And God is still–always–good.

I wish it didn’t have to take cancer for me to have these truths sink in properly.  Urgently.  Completely.  But God knew what I needed, and he wrote it into my story.  I’m so thankful.

Bless the Lord, O my soul.  Let me be singing when the evening comes.