The Works of God

Jesus welcomed one of his own last week, a young mom who lived with cancer for several years until her fight was over last Saturday.

I never met Laura Black, but a friend of mine did know her and pointed me to something she wrote just a couple of weeks ago:  What I Want You To Know: Suffering for the Gospel (as I write this it is on page three; as posts are added you may need to look for it farther back in her CaringBridge journal).

Here is a sample:

Suffering adds to the Kingdom.  Nothing grabs someone’s attention like seeing someone suffer and living out the Christian life during it.  Let’s face it, you can sing the Hallelujah chorus when you just won the lottery, your first grandchild was just born on your birthday, or you just got a huge promotion, but who cares?  I’m not saying it’s not good to praise God for those things. Of course you should praise God for those things and rejoice in them.  But that doesn’t point people to the cross.  When you rejoice and praise Him in the good times, that is expected.  However, when you rejoice and praise God in the middle of the suffering, that points people to the cross.  The fact that our family has gone through five years of cancer and is now watching my body slowly fail and yet we still praise God and rejoice in His plan, that points people to the cross.  There’s no way we could ever do that.  There’s no way we would ever choose to do that.  When people see us do that, they know it’s nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Thank you to Martin Maners for sharing this piece of Laura’s story.  May we all live and die so well.