15. The tender gift of love

Journeys > 15. The tender gift of love

Today was chemo round 3. Armed with heavenly strength and the constant reassuring love of Andy by my side, I’ve been readied and equipped. The nurses in the chemo unit are such wonderful, compassionate and considerate people, so it’s easy to feel embraced and to settle in quickly. Today the right veins are standing to attention in my hand, in the same way the assured end victory is in my soul. This cancer may take my breasts, but it won’t take my faith or the favour I know I am being given by divine intervention.

The great news today is that my blood counts have bounced back. It’s another answer to specific prayer. God’s covering has been so tangible.

Don’t get me wrong, there have been days when I have been tired or just not felt myself. But on those days, I’ve listened to my body, rested up and refused to pay attention to the rare occasions when my emotions have tried to play tricks on me. On every occasion, the dip in energy has been replaced with a wonderful sense of rest and revitalised perspective. Whilst as a family we are doing all the things we can to help this - with food, exercise and quality time together, this peace is only possible through knowing God is taking care of all the other things we can not. It’s a partnership, which is working in perfect harmony – just the way He always intended.

I do believe in silver linings. The upside from those days of rest, has been a stillness I don’t think I’ve ever experienced in such fullness. On days where I haven’t felt inclined to be doing, the implicit permission to stop has brought with it the most incredible moments. Hearing the different tone of each bird’s distinct call in the garden, seeing the low intense red glow of a setting winter sun on the neighbouring hills, experiencing a heightened joy from the different pitches of laughter that come from Jacob’s heartfelt gusto – they all fill me with adoration. Noticing these often-unseen wonders has been so amazing. How often in our busy lives do we truly stop to be present to the simplest of life’s treasures?

It’s this stillness that’s also enabled the immersion of something else more precious than life itself. - the deep waves of God’s love washing over me, like the running waters we’ve been promised in His word. Through this, I’ve realised that whilst on many occasions God’s peace, strength and courage have powered my response to life’s many trials, I’ve never been still enough to truly allow His love to flood my inner most being in this way. The intensity and purity of this is like catching the end of the rainbow and wrapping it round my heart.

So this is why we are encouraged to be still and know He is God. For in this rest is the tranquillity of certainty and the remedy for all burden. Both are the bounty that in the most tender way, accompany God’s presence.

How often do any of us truly make the space for this gift so freely given? The gift of the abundant, extravagant, incomprehensible love God is just waiting to shower us with – if only we would allow Him. Oh, what grace.

‘God’s love is meteoric,
    his loyalty astronomic,
His purpose titanic,
    his verdicts oceanic.
Yet in his largeness
    nothing gets lost;
Not a man, not a mouse,
    slips through the cracks.

How exquisite your love, O God!
    How eager we are to run under your wings,
To eat our fill at the banquet you spread
    as you fill our tankards with Eden spring water.
You’re a fountain of cascading light,
    and you open our eyes to light.’

Psalm 36:5-9 MSG