Obedience
How many of you bristle at the word “Obey”? I’ll raise my hand high. I wouldn’t say that I buck authority or refuse to submit, but this word, in particular, has never felt comfortable. Maybe that is why I walked through 7 years of darkness before I found God. Then, another 7 years with God, learning to trust in His love and my value, before being diagnosed with cancer. And finally, an additional 7 years post-cancer learning how to submit and obey. It has been an incredibly, sometimes painful, sanctifying 21 years.
This specific step of obedience started in the summer of 2020. I went to a writers conference for women in all stages of the writing process, from never having written anything to best-selling authors. Being excited about a writers conference is something I can genuinely say surprised me. In the years after cancer, I wrote as a means to process my emotions surrounding the experience. From that, I unintentionally wrote a book; an extremely raw book that I had no intention of letting anyone read. Much to my dismay, God had a different plan – as He usually does. The Holy Spirit began nudging me to publish it. How I was supposed to publish a book, with no formal training or mentorship, was completely beyond me. Still, the Holy Spirit poked at my soul. So I prayed for help, some guidance, a well-lit runway style path to follow, anything really. I also prayed that I wouldn’t have to do it, in all honesty. The fear of publishing my words has grown congruent to the conviction to publish them. Which is all the more proof that I need to do this.
God is funny. He doesn’t stop pursuing you, or sanctifying you, or loving you when you say “no”. Trust me, I have said “no” to God for a long time. My bent is towards fear; fear of man, and people-pleasing. The fear can be paralyzing at times. And even with this completely infuriating personality quirk, God remains patient and steadfast in his pursuit of me and his grace for me. Let me tell you how it looked in my life.
Progressive Sanctification…
The words “submit” and “obedience” go hand-in-hand and have been all the more present in my life over the last 6 years. I married my husband 4 years ago and we dated for almost two years before that. We were blessed with a truly exceptional mentor that stepped into our relationship and taught us what sacrificial love really was. He taught us that there is great joy and beauty in submitting to one another in marriage. Not the oppressive act society would have you believe it to be, but the biblical submission we are both called to do. Both of us are reflections of Jesus through our submission in marriage. The freedom that we have experienced by stepping into the beautiful design of marriage is unbelievable. I do mean the full weight of the word “unbelievable”. The physical act of submission in this relationship has strengthened my ability to submit to God and therefore increased my ability to submit to my husband and my role as a wife and mother. It’s very circular and ever-growing. Even in that, being face-to-face with the idea of obedience still makes me stiffen and pull away.
Having children redeemed this area for me in many ways. God has given us two beautiful girls and a third on the way. In them, we are blessed with little reflections of ourselves. One of our daughters is me in so many ways. She is of course her own unique person: kind, tender-hearted, fearless in all the best ways, a bright light of joy… Additionally, she is strong-willed, stubborn, independent, and refuses to ask for help (me, me, and more me). I am constantly thinking, “wow God, you are so patient with me. Thank you for not smiting me today.”. Parenting her has given me a new appreciation for the love that Godly obedience provides. The obedience I require from my daughter is one of deep love for her flourishing and development. I am often reminded that my love for her (and all my children) is a mere glimpse of the depth and beauty of God’s love for us.
The real picture of obedience came from my cousin, Jessica. She is a cousin on my dad’s side of the family. Both sides of my family are big and close, but on my dad’s side, we share an added bond of a genetic predisposition to cancer. Jessica was diagnosed with Breast Cancer a couple of years ago. In our family, there is kind of a playbook for this. We are diagnosed with cancer, we do the things, and we live to tell the tale. We may have a recurrence but we follow “the rules” and live on. I could share all the family members that have outlived their “self-life” by a lot, but that would take all day. At the time of her diagnosis, very few of our relatives actually died from cancer, all of those that had fought long and hard, exceeding expectation. Maybe that made us overconfident?
Jessica did all the things, it came back, and it was vicious. She never stopped. Never stopped the recommended treatments. She never stopped loving her people without hesitation no matter her circumstances. She never stopped smiling. She never stopped faithfully walking out her relationship with God.
Jessica died two days before her 34th birthday from metastatic breast cancer. She has wonderful husband and a 6-year-old and an 8-year-old. Her support system was second to none. She was loved big by a lot of people. Her life, by all intents and purposes, was one you would fight like hell for. When she died I was mad, devastated, and completely turned upside down. I was weeks away from getting my metaphorical 7-year cancer survivor chip, and she barely got a 1-year chip before the recurrence. Why? She was given a clean bill of health only to die weeks later. Why? She was a rare gem that made people’s lives better. Why her?
My “Aha!” Momment
At her funeral, her best friends spoke, and it hit me. Jessica lived in full surrender to the Lord. Her life glorified God in ways that her untimely death could not diminish. She was faithful and obedient even at the very end when God said, “You have fought the good fight, you have finished the race, you have kept the faith. It’s time to come home. When God said, “I’ve got your babies and your husband. You can let go. Come home.” She obeyed, with what I speculate was the hardest step of obedience she’d ever taken. She faithfully stepped towards the Lord one last time and took her last breath.
It reminded me that we are not the point of this story, God is. The point is to be in a relationship with Him, and that through that we might get to experience the transcendent joy of the Lord. We experience the unending delight He has in us, the unshakable foundation He created us in. How sad that I would let another broken and imperfect human define me more than I let a perfect God define me. How sad that I would allow potential rejection and wounding words of another keep me stuck in opposition to the creator of my being and lover of my soul. What a wicked thing to give someone else so much power.
So I am here, starting a blog – something that still makes me nervous sweat – and sharing my voice. Because God said someone needs to hear about my hope in the darkness. Someone needs to know that even when their world is shattered there is redemption. Someone needs to know that they are strong enough to take the next painful breath. So, dear someone, please hear me when I say, “you can do this”. I know you can because I have.
Psalm 119