Mondays with Jesus-Plans

 “I had my life planned out,” she shared; I don’t think I heard another word after that. So did I!

 I never planned to divide life by b.c. and a.c; before cancer/after cancer. We had cared for parents and grandparents with the dreaded diagnosis, but our family regrouped and returned to our life as we had known it. 

Cancer was a season, not a lifetime companion. Gene mutations lived in a remote lab, not in my closest people. Scans were annual annoyances, not riddled with anxiety and IV’s were for blood donations, not life-sucking chemo infusions. A June 2013 diagnosis of pancreatic cancer changed everything and then, came breast cancer. 

What is your before and after? Divorce, miscarriage, addiction, a career loss?   How do you make a meaningful life amidst broken plans? I’ve been sitting with Jeremiah and the exiles in chapter 29 this week; every time I read it something new jumps off the page. For example, the Message translation includes a clause in verse 11: God promises, “I know what I’m doing.  I have it all planned out.”  His after holds great promise; it’s your starting point, your foundation!

And this grabbed me: plant something new. Stop trying to make the shards of a past life sprout and start growing something new and beautiful. Plant a new relationship, a talent, something! Nourish it with love and hope and watch what God does. Read it for yourself; you’ll find inspiration. 

This past weekend I met Doris, a brain cancer warrior, in Lynn Eib’s book, When God & Cancer Meet. This is how she loved her a.c. 

life:  Are you convinced that neither chemo nor radiation, neither scans nor surgery, neither good news, nor bad news, neither predictions nor unanswered prayers, nor anything else in all the world of cancer, will be able to separate you from the love of God that is yours in Christ Jesus? 

Now, you fill in your own after and let’s both rest in His love and better plan.