oh death, where is your sting?

the edges are pressing in around me. i think this is what empty feels like. joy is a distant memory. and i am tired. i have nothing to give. i'm failing at most everything. i wish i were different. and more than anything else, i just want to believe that my Abba loves me.

today i talked with my mom. she's a nurse, and she doesn't know everything in the world of medicine, but she knows a good bit .... and her assessment of jason's situation was less than hopeful. when she was talking to one of her sisters and she said that there was no good in this. her sister didn't completely agree, but my mom insisted, "how could there be anything good in a 24 year old with an aggressive brain tumor?"

i'm right there with her, on the brink of despairing. it would take just a breeze to brush me off the cliff into the oblivion of hopelessness.



never before have i struggled so to believe the truth, "O Death, where is your victory? O Death, where is your sting?" though it may not have the victory forever, it seems to overwhelm me now. and what i feel when i stare this human frailty in the face is much sharper than a sting.

oh Lord, what can we do? all flesh is fleeting. we are but grass. from dust we came. we are incapable. we are broken. we are feeble. we are small and foolish and so very deceived. yet You have made us a little lower than the angels, given us dominion over the earth ... perhaps to show us how little dominion we actually have.



like gandalf to the hobbits, "yet hope remains, while the company is true." there is only one true companion. only one faithful. only one who loves freely. only one gracious. only one compassionate. only one who creates and sustains all life. only one who speaks things into life or death. only one who knows the end. only one who leads us with gentleness to the streams of living water. only one who can make sense of the chaos of this life.

he never fails.

never.


He is my hope through the tears. He is my hope for restoration. He is my hope for rescue. He is my hope for victory.

oh Jesus ... i put all my hope in You.



and all the rest of my life fades to gray.