A Shared Journey

I spend most of my day today distracting myself so I wouldn’t have to think about how I spent the last two days, knowing that if I allowed myself to think I would experience pain.  In the past few years I made a new friend.  We met each other in 2003, when I was assigned to say at her house overnight.  I was a single gal on a trip to Illinois and she was a new bride looking forward to many years of marriage.  I don’t remember much about our first meeting, but I do remember the beautiful pictures in Leann's house of her with her husband on the beach in Hawaii on their honeymoon.  

I don’t remember seeing Leann again until 2011 when we met at a restaurant in Indianapolis.  Both married, Leann had three children and was expecting her fourth and I had two children.  When we met our husbands, Zach and Derek, formed an instant bond by comparing their bald heads and discussing the medical treatments they were going through to prolong their lives on this earth.  We didn’t connect much in person often after that, but did keep up with each other’s lives via blogs and texts.  They stopped at our house for an hour or so on their way home from Ohio one weekend and supported us at Cancer Redemption Project Presentations in Illinois.  We tried to schedule a weekend for us to get together in Illinois in the spring of 2013, but Derek ended up in the hospital and Zach was given the news that his time on earth was short. 

On June 6, 2013 God ended Zach’s three year battle with cancer and welcomed him into Heaven.  Derek and Leann attended Zach’s funeral knowing that unless God chose to perform a miracle of healing there was a funeral in their future too.  Leann and I continued to communicate occasionally via phone calls and texts.  The kids and I were blessed to stay overnight at their house twice in early 2014.  Our kids loved playing together.  During those visits Leann and I talked about life and raising kids,  but a lot of our conversations centered around Leann surviving the continued battle with cancer and me surviving the battle after cancer.  I last saw Derek on May 10^th.  His body was so weak and I knew that it had taken great effort for him and Leann to drive to Goodfield to hear Psalm 100 sing and support me as I talked about the Cancer Redemption Project.  It was hard to see Derek because in him I could see Zach and I knew that the Cancer was winning the battle against his body. 

On July 2, 2014 God chose to take Derek home after a three year battle with cancer.  As I watched Leann and her children follow the casket down the aisle yesterday my pain was great because I remember my similar trip a year ago.  I grieve because it is Leann’s time to start on the road as woman raising children without her husband. It is her time to figure out how to spend her life now that it is not consumed by cancer treatments, doctors, and unexpected medical emergencies.  It is her time to figure out how to live without her best friend.  I know by God’s grace she will survive the next year of her life just as I have survived my last year.  I know that God with show Himself to her in ways He has never shown Himself before, but I also know that the process of healing comes with questions, tears, pain, sleepless nights, and fear about the unknown future. 

Please join me in praying for Leann, Lexi, Wesley, Whitley, and Lainey.  As you pray for them praise God for the work that He did through the cancer in both Derek and Zach’s lives.  Both were so passionate about life and about furthering God’s kingdom.  God asked them to use their cancer in different ways, but in the end they both were a testimony of living and dying well because of the presence of Jesus in their lives.  It makes me smile to think of them both strong and healthy enjoying life together in heaven.  Life is hard, but God is so Good.