We can do hard things

A story of remembering and God's faithfulness

In today’s issue:

• Thoughts about remembering, cancer, and God’s faithfulness

• Questions for you to consider

• A prayer

Lighthouse on Prince Edward Island

Hard things

The year was 1993. A few months after earning my bachelor's degree, I secured a teaching position about 30 minutes from my hometown. A song churned through the car’s speakers as I drove to work, reminding me of a truth I needed to hear.

I can do all things through Christ, who gives me strength.

Long before it was popularized by artists like Ellie Holcomb (listen to her newest release here), I listened to Scripture verses set to music on a cassette in my car. (GenXer here. Cassettes are to playlists as paper books are to ebooks). I rewound and replayed Philippians 4:13 again and again.

Over time, I can do all things shifted to I can do hard things because I was not only embarking on a new career as a teacher to hearing-impaired high school kids, but I was a young single mom. Life was, quite frankly, hard. Though my daughter was two, and we’d made it through my final years of college four hours away, student teaching, and a move back to my hometown in the western suburbs of Chicago, I struggled to see how things would work out.

Would I have enough money?

Would my daughter stay healthy?

Would I make any friends in this new town?

I still hear the faint melody. I can do hard things. My mom gave me that cassette, and after my daughter and I moved to the new town where I worked, Mom mailed postcards with handwritten verses to show me what it looked like to go through hard things—to look to Scripture and look to Jesus.

Graduation day

My mom’s hard thing

Six years ago, shortly after my newly blended family and I moved 1,000 miles away from my hometown to live near Boston, Mom was diagnosed with lymphoma. Eighteen months after that, when we thought we’d hear the cancer was gone, we learned the beast mutated instead. Where the original lymphoma was slow-growing, this new version was aggressive. Mom, Dad, and her team took an equally aggressive stance, one that almost took her life, did the hard thing, fought back, and appeared to have won for a time.

Until a few months ago, when we learned the beast that ravaged her body had invited a friend. Mom was diagnosed with second stage-4 cancer, but this time, it metastasized to her liver.

I can do hard things through Christ, who gives me strength.

Maybe that’s why the song returned to me thirty years later, watching my mom and dad navigate the treatment and decisions and appointments. Yes, they’re doing hard things; we all are, aren’t we? And they’re tired.

This felt like a moment to add a chorus of the psalmist’s cry - How long, Lord? (Psalm 13:1; Psalm 35:17)

Maybe you’re singing the same refrain but for a different reason. How long, Lord? Will life always include this (insert your “this” here)?

A picture of God’s grace

More hard things

This is where I found myself a few weeks ago. Though Mom is holding her own, and my husband helped make a childhood dream come to life as we visited Prince Edward Island (my dream, not his), I struggled to see what lay ahead. Any planning sent waves of anxiety over me. Mom’s health, navigating the back-and-forth travel to help, and being present for my family while working full-time felt like too much. Something had to change, so after we returned home from our vacation, I resigned from my job. There were many contributing factors, but this was one thing I could control.

Until I couldn’t. A few days later, regret set in. What.was.I.thinking?! I lamented.

Okay, I didn’t lament, I complained.

I whined and worried and wept before God. I can’t do this, I wrote in my journal. This is too much, again.

Will I have enough money to cover my needs?

What about my mom’s health?

Will I make any friends in this new town we recently moved to?

Why does this keep happening?

This is too hard.

In a feeble attempt at avoidance, I started scrolling through Instagram, stumbled across a reel about the Israelites, and was reminded of their song of complaint.

Israel’s hard thing

You may know their story. In the book of Exodus, we read how they were oppressed and cried out to the Lord for help.

Then, the people cried out to be rescued from slavery - God sent Moses to lead them to freedom.

They panicked when they realized they were being pursued - God parted the Red Sea.

They grumbled when they went into the Desert of Shur because they had no water - God made the bitter water at Marah sweet.

They grumbled more because they were hungry - God provided manna, bread from heaven, just enough for each day’s needs.

They pressed on and again quarreled with Moses because they had nothing to drink - God brought water from a rock.

But God’s people forgot all He’d done, all He promised, and all He provided. Their eyes stayed fixed on their desire for comfort, even to the point of longing for the good ole days of life in Egypt (Exodus 16). They thought being bound in slavery was more comfortable than the freedom of adventure with God. What they knew was, well, known, while traveling through the desert with a fire and cloud guarding them from ahead and behind seemed, well, uncertain. In their discomfort, they missed God’s power and Presence at work around them.

Hardship does that. It distracts us and pulls our attention toward the sound of our pain instead of the song of our Redeemer.

Even still, our circumstances don’t impede God’s faithfulness. Though His people worried and complained, He heard their cries, responded with mercy and grace, and called His people to remember all He’d done.

Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way … Deuteronomy 8:2

But remember the Lord you God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth … Deuteronomy 8:18

Remember that you were slaves in Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you … Deuteronomy 15:15

Remember the wonders he has done … Psalm 105:5

Do this in remembrance of me … Luke 22:19-20

Maybe this is why the song from my past plays on repeat these days, reminding me not only of Who will provide but also of how He provided. Maybe as I bear witness to His faithfulness from before, I can trust Him with what’s yet to come.

Journals that help me remember God’s faithfulness

Remembering

With the soundtrack of those early years humming in the background, I jotted this in my journal:

We have always had enough. God not only provided enough money to care for me and my daughter during those early years as a single mom but every day since.

My daughter stayed healthy and grew into a beautiful woman who is now married with an adorable son of their own.

I have friends, quite a few of them. Though some stayed for a season, many weathered the decades with me.

Jesus rescued me from despair.

My mom has endured and survived and even thrived when we were told there was a limit to her days (which, by the way, she surpassed a few years ago).

I remind myself of these good things God has done and choose not to forget as new hard things disrupt my comfort and pop up before me.

Though I sit in the discomfort of the unknown, I choose not to forget how God has sustained me.

Yes, I remember the difficult times, and there were more (click here and scroll to the bottom of the page to hear the story of my youngest daughter’s death), but I choose to finish the rest of the story of God’s faithfulness. I look to Scripture and along with the prophet Jeremiah, I choose hope.

“The thought of my suffering and homelessness is bitter beyond words. I will never forget this awful time, as I grieve over my loss. Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this: The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning. I say to myself, “The Lord is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in him!”” Lamentations 3:19-24, NLT

This is why I can do hard things, through Christ who gives me strength.

This is why you can do hard things, through Christ who gives you strength.

We can do hard things, through Christ who gives us strength.

Today, I choose the adventure God calls me to live with Him and leave the comfort of what I know behind. Would you like to join me?

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For you to ponder

• What hard thing are you facing right now?

• How has God’s revealed His faithfulness to you in the past? Consider jotting those memories in a journal.

• Are you willing to go on an adventure following God’s leading, knowing He is faithful to provide all you need? If so, let me know!

• Not a question for you to answer, but an invitation to listen, consider, and remember who God is (This is our God)

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A prayer

Lord, we are sorry for all the times we forget your faithfulness and shift our gaze to the pain and discomfort we feel instead of fixing our eyes on You, Jesus (Hebrews 12:2). Forgive us.

Today, we choose to remember all You have done. You formed us (Psalm 139:13). You see us (Psalm 139:2-3). You loved us first (1 John 4:19). You redeemed us through Your Son (Ephesians 1:7). You lavish Your love over us (1 John 3:1). We will not only remember Your goodness and grace, we will tell others so they know, too (Psalm 9:1). Amen.

Just because

Prince Edward island pictures: the house that inspired Green Gables, lighthouses and landscapes, Lake of Shining Waters, a walk along Lover's Lane, and a night-showing of the 1985 Anne of Green Gables movie