Surrendering the Heavy Things

Surrendering the Heavy Things 

We circled the wooden sleigh bed as my friend, Melissa, sat propped up against quilted pillows. An army of dear friends gathered to do battle in the heavenlies. We held hands and spoke words uttered from the depths of souls weary from a long fight. The room filled with tongues of men and of angels. Nine of us stood around Melissa that day contending for a miracle.

“I just can’t seem to get over this cough,” she told us at the sturdy picnic tables of PittmanPark two summers earlier.

“It’s so frustrating. This dang bronchitis just won’t go away!”

By that Fall, we learned what doctors had labeled as bronchitis and pneumonia was in fact the cancer that had once stolen a breast, now coming back for a lung. Same strain, new location.

Timelines get fuzzy when battles wage over years. But, by the time Melissa was beginning chemo and radiation, our friend group had already created meal and childcare schedules with no end date.

For two years, we cooked clean food to strengthen her weakening body. We alternated care for three children whose mommy was too weary from strong medicines that were simultaneously saving and breaking down her system. And, we prayed like I have never prayed before. All of us had witnessed miracles, and we claimed one for her, too. When one would falter in big faith, the others would reinforce our foundations time and again with the promises of our miraculous God as told throughout Scriptures. We held each other up as we held Melissa up. I believed that Melissa would keep breathing.

TO keep reading, join me over at Persimmon Prints for the rest of this #SurrenderStory