My friend::Ruth Moran

God has given Martin and I a new friend.

I had the privilege to spend part of the day with her yesterday. She is a crack up, a fun gal to hang out with and most of all, a steadfast believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. She loves a good Starbuck's mocha that she sips for hours due to her deformities with her mouth...noone could appreciate a cup of coffee more. Her challenges are very similar to Martin's battles. She is someone I want on my dream street. Oh, my dream street is my street with all my favorite people living on it..just one door down so we can share a cup of tea, a smile, a wave, a meal and help each other in times of need. I think about it often and populate it with those I love.

Here is an excerpt copied below from Ruth's Caring Bridge website journal. I hope that you will read her "story" here, to know how she got to this day and how the Lord has sustained her. You can follow her journal with updates. I hope that you will include her in your prayers. She has another surgery on Friday. Ruth puts a beautiful, surrendering, trusting face on the relentless test of cancer. She knows that cancer suffering is not about her..it is about drawing closer to Him.

I love you Ruth!

In her words, written when she was my age, in the "early days" of her battle with cancer:

Friday, August 25, 2006 5:08 PM, CDT
We’re leaving for our annual family beach vacation tomorrow and I’ve been thinking and planning and preparing for that (and for school) so much that my family had to jog my memory of the upcoming occasion. I won’t be home for it but my family and I will be celebrating my (deep breath) fortieth birthday a week from today on September 1st. There was a time when I didn’t think I’d live to see the day come. In fact, when I was a kid, I couldn’t possibly fathom the idea that I would live to see the turn of the century! Little did I know then that God said, “your thoughts are not my thoughts, nor your ways, My ways.”


This time last year was full of promise and anticipation of a second year of homeschooling, continuing to work on my Master of Arts degree (Theological Studies at RTS, Charlotte), helping Tim lead the Cub Scouts, etc. But God’s plans were different from ours. It would be the ultimate expression of hubris, I think, to blithely plan this year as if I could pick up where I left off before “it” all happened. To take a step without recognizing the impossibility of that notion would be to deny the work of God in my life. Of course the physical effects and changes are undeniable, but those are temporary and relatively insignificant with eternity in view.


What God has wrought in my heart, in my passion, in my focus and priorities is forever altered from “what was” and I pray I never lose sight that the tumor, the surgeon’s knife, the radiation’s beam were only instruments in the Potter’s hand to mold me into someone who more closely resembles Christ—not because of me, but because I have hope that there’s less of me and more of Him. Though it might appear to have been a passive process that was done to me, I have constant reminders that it has been and is anything but passive. It is ongoing, graciously unceasing, painful—for I do not let go of “self” without struggle—but overflowing with blessings too abundant to list in a sitting.


One of the beautiful benefits of this kind of suffering is the inexplicable byproduct of enormous gratitude. I seem to have a hyper-awareness of what I’ve been given how much I have to be thankful for, and how completely undeserving I am of the smallest of grace-gifts. I can easily (admittedly sometimes in hindsight) identify Satan’s attack on this attitude when my focus changes to enumerating my limitations. I have limitations and I’ve spent some time these past weeks adjusting my understanding of these limitations and restrictions. This has been a necessary and healthy process for me so that I don’t fall back into the “getting in over my head” habit. But beyond that, I can hear the tempter whisper “yeah, but you can’t…” and it’s a dark pit to fall into.


So as I approach this fortieth birthday, it is with great joy that I celebrate what I’ve been given and that God loves me so much He continues to work on me and through me. I get to luxuriate in His grace and mercy that He deigned to choose me to be His child and His instrument of glory-giving, that His name would be exalted for “His marvelous works”. Isn’t it fantastic that He gave me another year to praise His name and to accomplish those “good works” He prepared for me and empowers me to do?


Share my joy that “the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” (Romans 8:18) I love that whole chapter—spend some time there if you’re feeling a bit disconnected from the reality of the eternal. Celebrate with me that Christ bore our punishment and made a way for us to be His joint heirs in the grace of life!

Painting

I have said before, that I wanted to use more paint with my children. Low and behold, I got the urge! We were still in our jammies and I wanted to make hand print and ink blot thank you notes. I know this is really nothing spectacular but, it is a beginning to using more paint. I am truly challenged to get messy with paint but want to put an end to that insecurity...yes, that is what it is, an insecurity. What can really happen anyway? Its not like I leave them and go paint my toenails and say, "have fun!"

The wash bowl was a good idea and filled with warm water on a wintry morning, it made it extra special to get cleaned up. I buy the cards in a pack of 50 with envelopes. They are the perfect blank "canvas" for lots of media to make homemade cards for any occasion.

I love how excited that they were to do this and how much they admired their work. I love how it was not too stressful as long as I got my act together with preparing the supplies which did not take too much effort. This is just plain ole' Crayola Kid's paint unmixed.

I think we should do it again. I think we will.