Update #6 - 5/23/23

We are very excited to share with you all the news from Kara’s appointment with the doctor yesterday: Kara’s cancer has not spread to any other part of her body! This was the result we were hoping and praying for, and we thank you for praying with us on Kara’s behalf. It is hard to describe the weight that is lifted from our shoulders with that news. Obviously, we still have a difficult path to walk, but the heavy burden we will carry on the journey is perhaps not as heavy as it might have been.

In sharing this news with our girls, I reminded them that God is so good. But God is not good because He answered this prayer the way we wanted Him to. No, God is good no matter what! God is good all the time and in every circumstance. God was good when we received the diagnosis, He was good the day Finley was born, and He will still be good tomorrow no matter what it holds. When we say that God is good, we are not awarding Him our approval for meeting our standard of “goodness”; we are declaring an immutable aspect of His character which is true whether we choose to acknowledge and submit to it or not.

Florida is known for sunshine and heat, beaches and swamps, rain and humidity, so it may surprise some of you to learn that Florida experiences an annual dry season that can be drought-like by April and May. I mowed my grass last week for the first time since February (and it barely needed it then). But I will likely need to start cutting it weekly now because as I write this, the spring rains have arrived in Florida! Even though the more or less daily rains of summer won’t start for several weeks, these rains signal the end of the dry season for us and the beginning of a new season of growth.

We are certainly in a new season of growth in our lives as we learn what it means to depend on God for everything, and to receive blessing from His people. I know that last part may not seem hard, but we go into ministry because we like to be the ones doing the blessing! It is very humbling to both acknowledge our needs and receive God’s provision for them. It is a sweet thing to live under the watchful, loving care of our heavenly Father! “Let us press on to know the Lord; His going out is sure as the dawn; He will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.” (Hosea 6:3)

This is the way it always works with God from the beginning of our relationship with Him: we must humble ourselves to the point of admitting we are not good like He is, and cannot work our way to being right with Him. We must humble ourselves to the point of receiving unearned and undeserved blessings from God: forgiveness through Christ, adoption into God’s family, and eternal life in His presence. These can only be given, never earned, and when we receive them we become new in a way that is illustrated so well by spring rains. The new growth that comes from dry, parched ground is like something that was dead has been made alive. Without Christ, we are already condemned because of our sin and spiritually dead, but with Him, we are forgiven, made alive, and made new.

If you’ve never acknowledged your need for a Savior, asked God to forgive your sin and make you new. I commend to you this challenge from the apostle Peter: “Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.” (Acts 3:19-20)

God is good!