Cornerstone Church of Knoxville

How many of you start your week looking forward to Friday?  Whether you are anticipating the end of your workweek or the beginning of a fun weekend, are punching out at five o’clock mumbling, “TGIF,” or are shouting, “it’s payday,” everyone appreciates Fridays.  Any other week, I would wholeheartedly affirm my love for the day of the week beginning with “F”.  But this week…not so much.   Tomorrow is a personal anniversary that I have been anticipating all week.  To be honest, I have been counting down to it since January.  And anticipating might give the wrong impression but to say I was dreading tomorrow would be a bit of a stretch.  The fact is July 16 is my least favorite day of the year.  Tomorrow marks the fifth anniversary of the end of my mom’s battle with cancer. 

My mom-mom (that is what I liked to call my mom) passed away at 7:57 am on July 16, 2005, after struggling with cancer off-and-on for almost two years.  I was in my second-year at UT when she was first diagnosed.  It was hard to be separated from her, my dad, and my brother as she went to doctor’s appointments, had surgeries, and received prognoses.  As to be expected, I really struggled to have faith in God as my family walked through our trying circumstances.  But God was kind – I found much grace through my quiet times, received much care from our church, and was encouraged by my mom-mom who had an exponential amount of faith the sicker she got. 

And then a week before she passed away, we were informed that she was not going to make it.  It was time for last goodbyes, hugs and kisses, words of wisdom, tears, and (thankfully) time spent together in God’s word reviewing His promises to His children.  She had been in the hospital for a month before they allowed her to come home on hospice.  She came home on Friday afternoon; Saturday morning she passed away in her sleep.  She went to Heaven to join her Maker and Savior and we were left behind to learn to live without her.  I did not struggle with God’s goodness towards His children or His purpose in conducting His sovereign will; though it was hard to see mom-mom go it was comforting knowing she was in her true Home.  And I found it most helpful studying what Scripture says about our Eternal Home and the works of Randy Alcorn – it gave me a more complete picture of my life as a sojourner here on earth seeking to get to my true home in Heaven. 

What I did struggle with was faith.  To be more exact, all faith I had was extinguished.  When she passed away I did not know how I was going to live without her.  How could I cook dinner if I could not call her while I was grocery shopping to ask her about ingredient substitutions, or call her for advice after starting a grease fire on the stove?  What about school?  Who would encourage me when I did poorly or congratulate me when I did well?  She would not be there to see me graduate with my master’s degree.  Or go out on my first date.  Get married.  Have a baby.  Silly things made me question whether or not I could survive without my mom-mom and I had no faith that I would.  Over time with the help of friends, Scripture, and dutifully participating in church life I was awakened to my lack of faith in God.   

Did you enjoy Jeff’s message on faith this week?  I certainly did!  I received the agenda for the meeting a week prior and was excited to see that as the topic.  All weekend-long I was looking forward to hearing Jeff and hearing what Christ had to say to Sardis regarding faith.  Every year the week prior to the anniversary of my mom-mom’s passing is a difficult one both emotionally and spiritually.  It is a huge temptation to lack faith and to doubt God’s grace in sustaining me during this week in particular.  When I saw we were going to hear about Sardis at FX I was relieved and encouraged that such a timely word would be brought to me when I knew I would need it the most.  It certainly gave me something to anticipate. 

Listening to the message made me recall 1 Timothy 6:12, “Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.”  Jeff said the life of faith is one of endurance, perseverance, and attention – it is a cross-country race.  He used the example of the cross-country race explaining that you run the race for the long haul, you run it with your teammates, and you run to obtain the prize.  We fight this fight, or continue this race, because we want to combat laziness in our lives and continue our growth in godliness.  And we do not run this race in our own strength, but only through the strength that God provides by His grace! 

We run the race with our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, who are also enduring through their own fight of faith.  But we go through it together, just as in the story Jeff read, so we can hold hands and drag each other up the hill.  I cannot even begin to recount the number of times I have been dragged up the hill in the past five years.  This week I have been thinking of my dear allies that have been faithful to care for me and love me as I have stumbled along the course.  We all have those allies!  What gifts of grace God has given us in friends, caregroups, pastors, and families…the list goes on.  Would it not be fun to sit around one evening and just exchange stories about how God has been kind to use our relationships, our allies, to remind us of His grace that He provides?  I would enjoy that. 

And lastly, we run this race to obtain the prize, to finish the course, to arrive at Home.  We sojourn here on earth for but a moment so that we may spend eternity in Heaven with our Savior!  How glorious that one-day we will be united with our Maker, our Savior and our King!  Randy Alcorn, the author who has written a lot about Heaven, wrote, “We were made for a person and a place; Jesus is that person and Heaven is that place.”  This world is not our home.   For those of you who caught the Sunday sermon, how timely was Bill’s correction to our congregation!  We are simple-minded creatures and are too easily caught up with what the world has to offer us but we need to remember that we were not called to reside here forever. 

I know this is a super long post…my apologies.  I really just wanted to share with you how this week’s message at FX was encouraging me in my fight of faith.  After listening to Jeff, and being reminded of the above, I was also struck with the fact that God gives us grace to have faith for the moment – not tomorrow or a year from now.  Too often I lack faith for my future and I get discouraged.  But the truth that I need to call to mind is that God gives me grace to have faith for today and I can deal with tomorrow when it gets here knowing that He will be ready to dispense more grace. 

So I do not have to have faith for my wedding day today.  In fact, I DO NOT have faith for that day.  But I know that if God wills for me to get married, He has already allotted for me overflowing grace so that I can have faith to make it through that day.  Right now my faith is resting in the Lord and His provision as I prepare to list my house on the market and move to Virginia to find a job.  Tomorrow, it will be faith in the Lord who bottles all my tears and keeps me under His wing all the while doing only what is good for me.  But it will also be a day of joy…because I will be able to look back over the last five years and see where God has brought me and know that His grace has been upon my life and will continue to be.