Sunday Sentiments: This Momentary Affliction

  I started this post earlier today, intending to finish it tomorrow.  The Lord had other plans for me - and other plans for Laura, too.

Laura Black is the wife and mother in the photo above.  5 years ago, when expecting her third child, the doctors found cancer.  Breast cancer.  Treatment, chemo, experimental trials, radiation, more chemo - and 5 years later, the day after she entered hospice care, the cancer won out. 

Or did it?   

You see, Laura Black was far more than a cancer patient.  She was a child of God.  Not only that, but a beloved child of God, who was chosen to walk a road that none of us - not ONE of us - would willingly walk.  But walk the cancer road she did - beautifully, courageously, honestly, and with far more grace than I believe I could.

In the words of John Piper, Laura did not waste her cancer.  In the words of the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Corinthians: "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."

Laura used her "light and momentary affliction" to point hundreds - no, more likely thousands - to Jesus.  Go and read her Caring Bridge page - have a box (or two) of tissues handy.  Her writing is beautiful, and will take your breath away.  She writes honestly of her struggles, but she writes beautifully of her Savior.

Laura's affliction - to her now - seems light and momentary.  She is fully healed, and rejoicing in the arms of Jesus. 

Well done, good and faithful servant.  She has indeed entered into her rest.

I leave you with the poem, penned by Laura in 2009.

Find me on my face, Lord
When all the world is right
In the quiet still of life
Have me clinging at Your side

Find me on my face, Lord
When sorrows enter near
Casting out all doubt
The Foe brings in with fear

Find me on my face, Lord
Crying for the souls
Of those who walk in darkness
Beneath dark shadows fold

Find me on my face, Lord
When death cries out my name
Not with bitter pangs of angst
But with joyful songs of praise

Find me on my face, Lord
When I cannot understand
Remind me of Your goodness
And the greatness of Your plan

Find me on my face, Lord
Humbly seeking only this:
“Conform my will to Thine”
Not “Please fill my requests.”

Find me on my face, Lord
Whatever life may bring
Rejoicing in the privilege
To bow before the King.