Today I’m traveling to the funeral of our friend and neighbor, Sandra Shiraz. She was always so full of joy. She loved Jesus a lot and she loved our family. We sure will miss her. Last week, after she had passed, my son looked at her desk and saw that she had hundreds of scriptures and prayers written out. Here is one piece of paper he found with a prayer at the end:
Life has to change when cancer enters in. We cannot go back to the same ways of doing and being. Cancer compels us to look at our habits, our attitudes, and our priorities. It calls us to reexamine and reassess what we’ve always held to be true. Cancer itself changes us. Its very intrusion into our lives forces us to think of the present and the future differently.It presents us with opportunities to hold onto and embrace even more what is good in our lives. It presents us with opportunities to purge what is unhealthy and unfulfilling. We cannot go back to the old ways that do not work anymore. They simply weaken us and inhibit our healing and well-being. We need instead to reframe the way we live to include everything new that will build us up.Changing is so hard most of the time and I resist it a lot. But God, you reach out to us to help change everything that hurts us and keeps us from being who you have made us to be. Help me to take your hand and follow where you want me to go. Amen
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I am reminded as I read this of Kim (not that I ever forget), Clinton’s beloved wife, and how she and they lived each day for the Lord in the face of her illness… she said once that she thanked God for her cystic fibrosis because without it she wouldn’t have known God as closely as she did… she was always my heroine… and he is still my hero…
I will pray for you all…
God is good.God love’s you.Sometimes God gave us trials for us to be strong and to see how big our faith in Him. So be thankful to God because God love us even if we are sinners. Every one of us faces problems in life. God allows us to experience trials and problems to test us and mold us as better persons.Keep pray!
after having read this i dont believe ive ever been smacked in the face with how petty ive made this life out to be. gosh… forgive me Father. help me as my sister said “to take your hand and follow where you want me to go.”
honestly i dont feel least bit worthy quoting this. its EVIDENT sandra had to go through LIFE ALTERING transformation to get the revelation she so beautifully made into a prayer. now thats living.
i am SO grateful you shared thsi. thank you.
im bought to humility [and tears] at how God beautifully orchestrates our lives to go through difficult seasons so that others may glean from them.
nothing in God is spared.
if there were a way id thank sandra for the life, the example and the inspiration she is….
i will keep you and your family close in prayer.
God bless you Seth!
You’re welcome, Joann. Pray for the family, please. It’s so hard to lose someone as vibrant as Sandra.
She seems like a beautiful person, both inside and out…
Amen to what Sandra wrote. When my surgeon gave me his “you have two years to live if we didn’t get it all” speech, my world changed. What could I leave behind that might help others?
What tools had I wished for that would have helped me and others to make a difference?
My children needed a different place to grow up. We would move.
My colleagues needed to be released to follow their callings. We would reorganize.
A lifetime of insights needed to be distilled into a set of conversations that would let pastors see how to receive all the people God would lead to them.
Without the cancer and the deadline, I would never have had the courage to say goodbye to many interesting things and to commit to the truly significant task for which God had given me a unique burden.
Thousands of pastors have been helped because of that cancer, even as thousands will be helped by the beautiful works from your friend, Sandra. Thank you for sharing her.
Thank you for those comments, Carl. That’s profound. I’m carrying it with me as I go to meet the family and will share it with them.
Thank you to Sandra, Seth and Carl. Each of you are spectacular lights that resonate God’s love.
Cancer does change you. My wife, Karen, had stage 4 colon cancer that spread to her liver. She had about 18 inches of her colon, her gall bladder and 1/3 of her liver removed. Praise God that 5 years later she is cancer free and the picture of health. She experienced the healing power of God! We gained a perspective on life and faith that would not of been possible without cancer. We are stronger from the experience. But, Karen is saddened that most of the friends in her cancer support group have died since then. No doubt, CANCER SUCKS!