Humbled By His Grace

Thousands of people travel in and out of our lives and never know the inner secrets of who we are or the challenges we face. Most of the time not even our closest friends have an idea of how much pain we carry inside. They see the outer shell that we present and hear the words we speak out loud. Some of us are very good at making the sun shine in the hearts of others even when we feel like we're walking in darkness. The truth is, I have found that the way through our darkness is humor. We tend to use humor to mask the hurt inside, the constant feeling of loneliness and wondering will anybody get it. Well four years ago this wonderful friend of mine was diagnosed with cancer. A form of cancer that never went into full remission. So for these four years she battled. She went through countless hours of chemo, radiation and many surgeries. Well, A few shorts weeks ago I had the great pleasure of traveling back to my home town to spend time with this very special friend. A woman who knew the meaning of struggle, a woman who dealt with a life time of rejection and insecurities, yet chose to show great humility around everyone she knew. She was a master of providing hours of humor and creating amazing joy for those around her despite the struggle that lied deep within her.  Don't misunderstand me, her life wasn't all darkness. She had many days and moments of joy and gratitude. She is a mother of four grown children who all adore her even knowing her mistakes. She is honored even though she doesn't know it. So many times we look back and say yes I chose to be a mom and I may have made some rotten choices as a parent, but I worked hard. I did whatever it was that I knew to do to make them safe and to see them smile. Hoping they will never know of the hardships and praying they never remember the many bad choices we made along the way.

 

On November 17th I had the great honor of experiencing one of the most humbled times of my life. I walked into her hospital room and waited for her to return from yet another session of radiation. Some thirty minutes later the nurse helps her into the room and there I saw this outer shell of a battered body. The flesh in me saw the pain she carried within her and it took everything in me not to lose control of my emotions. We all know the rules. We are to show a strong and positive front for those who are sick and hurting. So I did just that. I put on my brave face and I smiled and held her hand and to no surprise, she did the same. Although I knew seeing each other again was enough to bring joy to our hearts we were both dying inside. So of course our 1st response to the situation was to use humor. Funny yet sarcastic humor, because that was what we knew and I must say we are pretty good at it, in front of most people anyway. Again, in our darkest most painful moments we chose humor. We were absolutely not going to show the one another the pain we felt inside. I could only imagine the horrifying pain she felt in her body, but I knew the feeling of the horrifying pain I felt in my heart. Moments later as Pastor John came to visit we prayed together. We actually had the privilege of praying together on several occasions. So for the next week I was able to spend with her there were many good and bad moments. There's no way to explain the amount of humility that comes with watching someone you love so much suffer in such agony yet ignore their pain to make everyone around them feel better. You often wonder if it were you, could you be so strong and joyful in times like these. There were times the pain was so out of control she had to cry but moments later she would deliver a remarkably funny line to make everyone laugh. No matter how strong you pretend to be around the ones who are hurting, they still see your pain. Despite the pain and sickness of their disease they still see yours. They are quit aware that you have to experience this with them. So please, don't hide it from them but also don't make your pain more important then theirs. I would wait sometimes for hours before I would allow myself to cry because I tried to hide my pain so she wouldn't hurt for me, and although I pretended that I was succeeding at hiding the pain, I knew she saw it. So because she is who she is, she would change the subject and say something funny as she always did.

 

During one of my last days there she handing me a binder with many pages in it and asked me if I was interested in reading it. She explained how they advised her to journal everything she felt along the way so she didn't bottle her feelings up inside. She there lies this journal of four years of fighting cancer and of course she found humor in that as well. You would think it would be so hard to read but it wasn't hard all the time. As she lay asleep I would sit at the foot of her bed and read. Silently wiping away tears so she wouldn't notice. There were times in her journal that it was almost impossible to read, yet there were also some great experiences and achievements as well and I was so humbled and honored that she invited me into that part of her life. On my last day there as I was preparing to leave she looked up at me and asked me to hand her the journal. So I did just that. She then opened the binder, removed some mail and handed the journal back to me. As I was about to lay it back down, she asked me if I would take it home with me. I cannot even begin to explain what my heart felt at that moment. Years had passed since we've spent this much time together and she hands me her inter most thoughts and asked me to keep them. I was beyond grateful and humbled and as I got in my car I emotionally broke down like never before. I had in my possession every thought written down from the heart of my friend who found many rays of light even through her darkness. Instantly I thought of Jesus. Maybe we don't all have journals that we write on, but as we pray, as we cry out to God we are writing on the tablet of His heart. When we fall to our knees and humble ourselves before our Father we are baring every part of who we are to Him, just as my friend did to me and I cannot tell you how amazing that makes a person feel. So can you begin to imagine how that makes our Father feel when we lay before Him our darkest moments?  It reminded me of John 8:12 I am the Light of the world, he who follows Me will not walk in darkness, but will have the Light of life.

 

 

I must admit that I went to spend this time with my friend I was hoping to shine the light of Jesus on her as she dealt with this horrifying disease, but the exact opposite happened. She became the light of Jesus to me. This amazing person showed me how Jesus is present even when we can't see. I always knew He was present but this time the experience of His presence was much different. Although I pray I never have to see another one suffer like this again, I pray that no matter who I am with I allow the Light of Christ to shine on everyone around me. I pray that even in my moments of darkness Christ's light will radiate as it does on my friend. For all of you who allow Christ to strengthen you enough to shine His light in your darkest hour I Thank You. To my friend Debbie I love and cherish you more than words can say. Thank you for being the Light of Christ in your darkest hour. I am more than humbled by His grace.

 

                            Karen Hurl

                            12/15/2015