God's faithfulness

Today I am celebrating 5 months of radiant health since I was diagnosed with cancer on August 29th and adopting a plant based diet on August 30th. As I look back on this journey I see God's faithfulness every step of the way. There are so many emotional, physical and spiritual victories I have had on this faith journey. Without God's grace none of them would be possible. He has comforted me and sustained me through every medical procedure and surgery, he's directed me to resources about nutrition and he's surrounded me with people who have prayed for me and encouraged me every step of the way. He's given me the strength to eat over 200 salads, swig down 900 glasses of carrot juice (no wonder I am turning orange!), swallow 9,750 supplements and keep teaching and loving my students. He's taught me how to trust Him with every fiber of my being and to rest in Him. He's given me the determination to allow old habits to die and to put new ones in place. He's given me a family that has patiently tried new recipes I make and who have helped juice all those carrots. He's provided me with a husband who has brought laughter to my life and helped me find joy in it all. He's surrounded me with friends who have listened to the Holy Spirit and obeyed when he's prompted them to call me, send a card or scripture verse, offer to help juice carrots or fix and repair things at our home. I have been enveloped with love every minute of every hour of these past 150 days. Words can not begin to express my gratitude to God and any of you that have walked with me along this journey. May God get all the glory for any good that has come and will come as I continue to face this giant knowing God has given me the victory.

Being Faithful

"When a prophet of the Lord is among you, I reveal myself to him in visions, I speak to him in dreams. But this is not true of my servant Moses; he is faithful in all my house. With him I speak face to face, clearly and not in riddles; he sees the form of the Lord." Numbers 12:7

How many of us would love to speak face to face with God? Why was Moses the only man in the Bible who was described in this manner? I believe the key is found in this statement from God: "...he is faithful in all my house." To be found faithful should be our goal. Faithful actions will flow from a faithful heart. Faithfulness in the little areas and the big. Faithfulness to be led by the voice of His Holy Spirit. Faithfulness that acts in faith, not doubt. Faithfulness to be obedient no matter how difficult the road He calls you to travel. Moses questioned and doubted God six times when he was first called to lead the Israelites out of bondage. He tried to shrink from the road God was calling him to but in the end he was faithful and obedient and thousands of lives were saved as a result.

Fast forward to the end of Moses' life which is described in Deuteronomy 34. Moses climbed Mount Nebo to the top of Pisgah which looked down on the whole land. He climbed this mountain at age 120! Once he got to the top the Lord allowed Him to see the land the Israelites would go in to possess. Verse 7 says Moses died on that mountain yet his eyes were not weak, nor his strength gone! The Lord then buried him and the Bible says to this day no one knows where his grave is.

I would love to be strong enough to climb a mountain right before I died and to have great eyesight. Could it be that Moses good health was partly attributed to all the physical exercise he got during the Exodus and eating the food God provided during those 40 years in the wilderness?

In Moses final words to the Israelites in Deuteronomy 33:25 he said, "...and your strength will equal your days."

If we look at our society today this would not be a true statement. Most people are dying of crippling diseases of the mind and body. I don't want to go that way. I want to be climbing mountains, having perfect eyesight and muscles that are full of strength. God has given us the responsibility to care for our bodies. Not just for the sake of disease free living but for the sake of His gospel. I want to have as many years as I can here on this earth to spread the gospel and to encourage, bless and minister to as many people as possible.

I am grateful for this wake up call of cancer. It is forcing me to look at what I have done to my body all these past years and to address the areas of nutrition, exercise, stress and rest. I am grateful for the time He has given me to make the changes necessary to become healthier than I ever have been. I pray you do not wait for a health crisis before you assess your physical health habits. As I have studied nutrition over these past 30 years and even more intently these past 5 months I am fully convinced most of us will bury ourselves with our fork and spoon. Don't be one of them! Change is difficult but nothing is impossible with God. He loves you and believes in you and so do I.

An Ever-Present Help

Yesterday one of my students came in to class and said, "Mrs. Dunton, your face is on my sweatshirt." I was perplexed and had no idea what she was talking about. She came closer and I saw a past edition of the front cover of our Genesis school newspaper printed on the sweatshirt. There were two articles on the front page of that issue. One was about a family in our school who lost their home in the October fires we had and the other was about my battle with cancer. Both were stories of how our student body had come around us to minister to us.

I felt elated and overwhelmed with God's presence. Once again He was reminding me Psalm 46:1 which says He is an ever-present help in times of trouble. I have noticed these past 5 months how God know exactly when to send His visible encouragement. It shows up in the most unexpected ways and forms. It can be in pink bracelets that my advisory girls sold in order to raise carrot juice money, through cards, hand written scripture notes, emails, phone calls, friends juicing carrots and helping to roof our house or transplant a tree, a husband folding clothes or buying me a hot cup of tea, shoulders to cry on, and even through sweatshirts! God has been an ever-present source of comfort to me through his word and through so many of you.

No matter what challenges are in the days ahead you can be confident that He will show up with His loving arms of comfort just when you need them. He sees your struggle and your pain. He is with you in the darkness as much as He is when the skies are blue. Don't trust your feelings, trust His promises and cling to them. You never know when a sweatshirt of encouragement will walk through your door.

Silencing Your Soul

There is a unanimous opinion that rest is essential for healing. We have all been taught how to rest physically but few of us have learned to rest our souls. Today I was reading Streams In The Desert by L.B. Cowman and this is what he says about it. "God's voice demands the silence of our souls. My soul, have you pondered these words: "Be still, and know" (Psalm 46:10)? In the hour of distress, you cannot hear the answer to your prayers. How often has the answer seemed to come much later! The heart heard no reply during the moment of its crying, its thunder, its earthquake, and it fire. But once the crying stopped, once the stillness came, once your hand refrained from knocking on the iron gate, and once concern for other lives broke through the tragedy of your own life, the long awaited reply appeared. You must rest, O soul, to receive your hearts desire. Slow the beating of your heart over concerns for your personal care. Place the storms of your individual troubles on God's altar of everyday trials, and the same night, the Lord will appear to you. His rainbow will extend across the subsiding flood, and in your stillness you will hear the everlasting music."

Changing my eating habits and learning to love carrot juice has been easy compared to learning how to rest my body and soul. I am daily challenged to slow the beating of my heart over concerns for my personal care. This isn't a skill that I have been taught. It is one that pain teaches you. As a teacher I wonder how many life long lessons students are never learning in the classroom. Silence and stillness are not disciplines applauded in our society. We all know how to hurry but how many of us truly know how to rest?

Are you resting your body? Are you guarding your sleep? Do you take time out to have fun with the people you love? Are you quieting your soul in His presence each day? Are you turning off your mind in order to hear His voice? Please pray that I will let God teach me how to truly rest because I know it is the key to receiving my hearts desire.

I will leave you with this poem taken from the German of V. Schoffel

Tread in solitude your pathway,
Quiet hearts and undismayed.
You will know things strange, mysterious,
Which to you no voice has said.

While the crowd of petty hustlers
Grasps at vain and meager things,
You will see a great world rising
Where soft sacred music rings.

Leave the dusty road to others,
Spotless keep your soul and bright,
As the radiant ocean's surface
When the sun is taking flight.

Storing up COMFORT AND HOPE

On Friday I received an email asking for prayer for a woman who had just come out of surgery. The doctor's found a tumor on her brain which was cancerous. They were giving her 4 months to live without chemo and 6 with. My heart ached as I read that email. I so desperately wanted to offer her hope that nothing is impossible with God. Man's proclamation of death over our lives is not necessarily God's. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. I know He can perform miracles. His ways are not our ways. What if the cure for cancer is already found and it isn't chemo or radiation? What if it's in the food He created and treating our bodies as temples, not trash cans?

I have read dozens of testimonies of people who were cured after their doctor told them nothing would work and they should go home and get their affairs in order. These cases remind me of Psalm 39:7 which says, "But now Lord, what do I look for? My hope is in you." As much as I want to be cured of cancer for my sake I want to be cured for the sake of others. I want to give others COMFORT AND HOPE.

I went to bed Friday night with this burning on my heart and the next morning this is what LB. Cowman wrote in Streams In The Desert.
"Comfort, comfort my people, says your God." Isaiah 40:1
"Store up comfort. This was the prophet Isaiah's mission. The world is full of hurting and comfortless hearts. But before you will be competent for this lofty ministry, you must be trained. And your training is extremely costly, for to make it complete, you too must endure the same afflictions that are wringing countless hearts of tears and blood. Consequently, your own life becomes the hospital ward where you are taught the divine art of comfort. You will be wounded so that in the binding up of your wounds by the Great Physician, you may learn how to render first aid to the wounded everywhere. Do you wonder why you are having to experience some great sorrow? Over the next ten years you will find many others afflicted in the same way. You will tell them how you suffered and were comforted. As the story unfolds, God will apply the anesthetic he once used on you to them. Then in the eager look followed by the gleam of hope that chases the shadow of despair from the soul, you will know why you were afflicted. And you will bless God for the discipline that filled your life with such a treasure of experience and helpfulness. God comforts us not to make us comfortable but to make us comforters."

I have always felt God has used me to encourage others. As He is healing my cancer I believe He is giving me an even greater ministry. God is daily applying His anesthetic to my life. He has given me hope that has chased the shadow of despair from my soul. Only through reading this devotion have I begun to bless God for the disciplined life I am having to lead because it is filling my life with a treasure of experience and helpfulness for others.

How have you suffered and been comforted? How has God bound up your wounds? How has He given you hope in the midst of your affliction?
Persevere through the training. God wants to use you. Don't waste your pain and sorrow. Give it to Him. There is a purpose and plan in it. Bless God for all of it.

Hills and Valleys

"But the land into which you are about to cross to possess it, a land of hills and valleys, drinks water from the rain of heaven, a land for which the Lord your God cares; the eyes of the Lord your God are always on it, from the beginning even to the end of the year. And it shall come about, if you listen obediently to my commandments which I am commanding you today, to love the Lord your God and to serve Him with all your heart and all your soul, that I will give the rain for your land in its season, the early and late rains that you may gather in your grain and your new wine and your oil. And I will give grass in your fields for your cattle, and you shall eat and be satisfied." Deuteronomy 11:11-15

Before each of us stands a new year. We don't know what valleys we will visit or what hills we will climb but we can be certain that the Lord our God cares. His eyes are on everything that 2008 holds for us. If we cross the desert of sorrow and pain we know He will send rain from heaven to refresh our weary souls. We cannot always see what our losses and trials are accomplishing. We just need to trust Him. Our New Year Resolution should be Deuteronomy 11:13. What if we listened obediently and loved and served the Lord with all our heart and all our souls? He promised the Israelites rain for their land so they could grow grain and feed their cattle. He told them they would eat and be satisfied. He promised to provide for them. What do you need God to provide for you this year? Is it finances, healed relationships, health in your body or peace in your soul? Whatever it is, God is big enough. Let quietness and trust guide you through each day. If I've learned anything this past year I've learned my Heavenly Father is big enough and strong enough to slay the giants that would come into my land. All I need to do is hide in the shadow of His wings because the battle is His, not mine. Together we will have the victory but to Him alone goes the glory.

P.S. Yeah! I did it! The doctor wrote a note on my paper work after the colonoscopy that said, "Well done. No polyps. No cancer." Another answered prayer!