I couldn’t take my eyes off of the woman at our table. I thought she was a stranger until she told us her name. Suffering had changed her outward appearance, but she showed us how the brutality of suffering and the renewal of our hearts can travel on parallel tracks. She had turned her focus to the unseen magnificence of what’s happening on a higher, invisible plane. It all sounds rather “pie-in-the-skyish” until we embrace faith in our own suffering. (see video below)
The Treasure:
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day … So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)
If you’d rather read than watch the video, here’s the full video transcript:
This is where I go to church. It’s really just a building right now; there aren’t any people inside. But last week I sat at a table with 12 women for a Bible study. One person looked at me and smiled and asked me if I had been camping with Pilgrim. I wondered how she even knew about Pilgrim. I didn’t recognize her, but I answered her. It wasn’t long before she introduced herself to the table of women, I realized I had been studying with her in another Bible study for a whole season. But I didn’t recognize her now because she had had a cancer diagnosis and had been in treatment and had lost so much weight. But I also noticed that she seemed to be the most vibrant woman in the room. So, I called her today; I just wanted to hear more. I choked up a bit. Well sometimes cancer is a little up close and personal after losing Steve four years ago.
But she told me in the dark of night that God had given her a message in her soul that was threefold:
- Stop worrying; you’re going ahead of me.
- Get out of the chair with your chemo pole and go talk to the other patients.
- You haven’t been praying like you used to.
God’s words gave her hope and purpose, and she hasn’t been the same since. From the moment of her first appointment with the oncologist she realized her diagnosis could be the end. But it’s not the end right now. To me, she seemed the most vibrant woman in the room, and I can’t wait to meet her at the table again next week!
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