Labels

Have you ever been labeled?  Maybe "talkative", "shy", "tall", "fat", "talented", "smart", "stupid"...Maybe something different.  Most of us don't like to be labeled - even if the label fits.  Well, I was recently labeled and no matter what happens from now on, it will be with me for the rest of my life.

In the beginning of December I went to the Dermatologist to have a suspicious skin spot looked at.  I've had this spot my whole life, but it had begun to change and grow and I knew it needed to be checked out.  The doctors didn't like it at all when they saw it and did a biopsy on it that day.  They said that they would only call if there was something wrong...you know, "no news is good news."  Well, they called a few days later.  "Surface Melanoma".  The doctors explained that it was really the "best kind of Melanoma" and immediately made plans to have it completely removed within the week.  Because it was a fairly large spot and because of the diagnosis, they cut out a WAY larger area than just the spot...just to make sure they got all the bad cells, which I absolutely appreciate.  I had 16 stitches and that entire spot and surrounding skin were sent off again to be tested.  In addition, I had 3-4 blood tests done and was sent to a radiology lab to have a chest x-ray.  Thankfully, all results came back clear and there were no cancer cells found anywhere outside of the original surface spot.

Feeling relieved, I returned about 2 weeks later to have my stitches removed.  I was so looking forward to being done with all of this - just putting it all behind me.  Well, the doctors said that "because of my history now", they wanted to do a full body check.  They then biopsied 10 more spots on my body!  And when that super pleasant experience was over, the nurse handed me my paperwork to take to the desk and there it was...at the top of the chart - Kristen R. Folsom and immediately under  my name was printed in big, bold lettering "MELANOMA".  My label. My history changed.  Before December, I didn't have a history of skin cancer and by the end of the month, I did.

Within a week of those biopsies, I got another call.  3 of those 10 spots came back with "the potential for bad cells".  So, with "my history", it was advised that those too be removed.  This was a far simpler procedure, with each one needing only 2 stitches.  All of those results came back clear.

During this whole ordeal, I've been to the Dermatologist's office about 8 times.  Every time, since the first spot was removed, I am handed my chart as I leave and I look at my label - "MELANOMA".

This has not been an easy thing to go through, but my family has been great and I have some close friends who have stood in the gap for me in prayer.  It's kind of like being in some sort of trauma or emergency situation - where when it's actually happening, you just do it.  You're brave and you fight and you stand tall and plow through.  Then it's over and you're like, "What just happened?  That was scary and awful and I don't know how I got through it."  That's kind of how I'm feeling now.  I have a clean bill of health - Praise God!  I'm not in any pain and I have a pretty wicked scar to show for it...but overall, even though I now carry a new label, the whole thing is just my "history".

God is for Me

I have recently joined a new women's Bible study and I LOVE it - for several reasons.  

First of all, it is comprised of an eclectic (used in the most honoring and loving sense of the word) group of women.    

Second, this diverse group of ladies is facilitated by an on fire, crazy for Jesus, rabbit-hole chasing, truth delivering woman.  :)

And last (although now I'm thinking that maybe this should have been first) is that we are doing a Beth Moore study!  If you know me, you know what learning under the teaching of Beth does for my soul.  It's the main reason I jumped in to do this study.  They had me at the picture of the Beth Moore book on the flyer.  

Now, I am excited about getting to know these ladies and connecting and walking out life with them - but I am also being challenged every morning as I study God's Word.  Last week came the most radical insight - thus far.  Something that I already know.  Something that is foundational.  But something that I hadn't really thought through or challenged my spirit to evaluate lately.  

The Bible says that "God is for us."   (Romans 8.31) Do you believe this?  This is the challenge I am facing.  Beth asked us to write about a time when we really knew that God was for us.  I immediately thought of a recent scary health diagnosis.  I felt as though God came along side me and fought for victory...for me.  (All future tests have come back clear.)

So as I continue on in my study book, Beth shares that we probably listed times when God brought victory on our behalf...things where the outcomes were what we had hoped for or better.  Totes.  Exactly what I wrote.  "Gold Star" for Kristen!  

BUT...then she writes, "In other words, our litmus test for whether we think God is really for us is circumstantial evidence."  

So when I don't get the job I was for sure God had for me, or the diagnosis is not good, or a relationship is in turmoil, or death comes way too soon for someone I love - God wasn't for me?  No, that can't be.  

Then Beth gave the example of parenting and great insight followed.  Many times as a parent, I have to make decisions for the sake of my boys - for their good.  They don't see it.  They think I'm mean or unreasonable or possibly even not "on their side" - not "for them".  They want to play video games all day long and not do any school. They get upset with me when I insist they set that controller down and pick up a book.  However, I know that they need more.  I'm not trying to take away something good, I'm preparing them for their future - for something better.  
Jesus said in John 13.7, "You don't understand now what I am doing, but someday you will."  Beth explains that God "knows when something glorious in the future necessitates something difficult in the present."  And because "He knows the glory will be worth it, God will risk being misunderstood."

It really all goes back to what inspired this blog...Furnace Walking.  God was with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego as they ruled and led in the land of Babylon and He was with them in the fire.  He didn't rescue them from the fire - but He did walk with them through it. 

God was for them.  
God is for me.
God is for you!  Who can be against you?

God of the Impossible

About 4 months ago, we left the church that we had been actively serving in for over 18 years.  We felt God calling us to "go", so we stepped out in faith and are trusting that God is directing our feet. And we now find ourselves in a period of transition as we search for our new church community.

The church searching has been hard and great and weird and amazing all at the same time.  We have visited several churches and do feel that God is leading us to connect with a particular church community soon.  However, in the search and in the journey, I have just been reminded yet again of how BIG and awesome my God is. He is the God of the impossible.  Now, I know that searching for a new church family is not "impossible".  I'm not saying or even implying that.  But through the challenge of visiting and putting myself out there to meet new people who know nothing about me or my love for God's Word or my desire to teach His truth or that I'm extremely introverted and not at all a people person, I have been reminded that my God is bigger than all of this and that His plan is always big and always best.  

At this church we are currently stalking, the Pastor is teaching from Isaiah.  The first week we heard him preach, he threw out a quick challenge to read Isaiah in its entirety.  I took him up on that and am on chapter 30. So far, it's a whole lot of what God is going to do (or already did) to the nations, their people groups, and lands of the Middle East.  However, in the midst of that, a few verses have continued to come back to my thoughts over the past couple of weeks.  

In Isaiah 7, God is speaking to King Ahaz via his Prophet Isaiah.  In verse 11 God tells this King to ask Him for a sign of confirmation of all of these things that are being told.  But not just a sign...God say to "make it as difficult as you want - as high as the heavens or as deep as the place of the dead."  He says, "Ask me for an IMPOSSIBLE sign.  Something crazy and out of this world.  Something that will have to be 100% Me.  Go ahead...ask for it?"  Well, Ahaz says, "No".  He feels that this would be testing God and doesn't want to participate.  So the mouth piece of God, Isaiah, says, "Listen up!  You have exhausted human patience and now you are exhausting the patience of my God!  So the Lord Himself will give you a sign...a crazy, impossible sign.  Listen to this...'The virgin will conceive a child!  She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means 'God is with us').'" (Taken from Isaiah 7.11-14)  

God says, "Here you go.  A virgin, from whom a child would be ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE, will conceive a child.  This child will be a son and she will give birth to him and he is the Messiah, Son of God, God in flesh!"  God's sign to King Ahaz, through the mouth of Isaiah, is impossible!  This only even resonates a semblance of possibility to us because we live in the AD side of history.  This must have sounded like absolute gibberish to the King.  I would think that as the words flowed from Isaiah's lips, even he would have wondered about the 'whats' and 'hows'.  But we know that in the Gospels, the virgin Mary gives birth to the Christ child, Jesus Messiah - just as Isaiah's prophesy, God's sign, foretold.  

So as we continue to search for a church, homeschool and raise 2 young men in the way they should go, and try to live our lives in a manner worthy of the calling of Christ, I pray that we would always see God in the impossible.  I want us to remember that He is so much bigger than anything in our path.  And that if God says it, then I want us to believe that no matter how impossible it may seem, it will be done! 

This is where the blessing is - in believing God in the impossible.  
Luke 1.45 says, "You are blessed because you believed that the Lord would do what he said."  

May it be so.