Living Breath by Breath

Recently I relistened to a message that always resets my image of God and who He is and where I live. (Louie Giglio, "How Great is Our God"). After hearing it twice in the space of a couple of weeks, the following insight dawned on me. Here is an excerpt of what I wrote and have shared with some of you who walk this road with me.

Is 40:27-31 is a promise that I specifically claim for those of us who walk this road called cancer. Just remember that whatever your life crisis, God's promise is for you, too.

"Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the LORD, and my judgment is passed over from my God? Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding. He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint."

I had always viewed that last verse as Christ's victorious promise of restoration at his second coming, when our wait will be over. But Louie explained that the Hebrew in this text gives the connotation that the renewal of strength is breath by breath.  My thoughts went to my own cancer experience and the experience of others whose journey is much more difficult. I realized that when you think you can't go on, God gives you strength to take that next breath (diagnosis)...
and the next one (telling family and friends)....
and the next one (emergency treatment or more tests)...
and the next one (making decisions)...
and the next one (surgery) ....
and the next one (recovery)...
And the next one (followup treatment, radiation, and chemo)...
And the next one (dealing with cancer mentally)
and the next one to live for him in spite everything that comes your way.  

This living, breath by painful breath, totally dependent on the strength of the Lord becomes a new song that we, marred by cancer, may sing each step of our unique journey for our Creator.