As I lay here in my softly lit home wrapped in the same Care Bear blanket that I have clutched all of my life, I think about what comes with walking into my Junior year of college. So much has changed in the two years I’ve spent there already. So much more even beyond that. So I pray.

I sit closely with Jesus. “Who will you have this year?” you asked me. “Jesus,” I say without a thought.

What have I learned of myself? I’m a cancer survivor. That means a lot more than I ever thought it could.

What do I hold onto? Love; it wins.

And what was the biggest lesson? Something simple. A reminder, I suppose.

Jesus will never leave me nor forsake me. He desires me. He is obsessed with me. He KNOWS me. And, Jesus? Absolutely loves me.

It’s as simple as that. And that changes everything about everything.

This summer was perfect in those lessons.

Rejoice!

…because love wins.

“Speak,” You whisper to me a little louder than the time before that.
“But I know what happens if I do that, I think.”
“But do you, child? I go far beyond you. And I speak in ways that you cannot comprehend. You trust Me. You love Me. So you follow, dear child. I know you well.”
“It’s been 12 years since they told me I had cancer. 12 years. Why in the world am I still here? Why not in the world am I still here? What do I even know of love? I am but nothing. You are everything. All for You.”

And so the words come. They come in the form of stories of dying cancer patients, and they come of my own frailty. They come of what healing really is, and how deeply Satan wants for us to fall away. They bite and they guide, and they are not mine. The peace consumes me and it’s far beyond me. Something that I cannot grasp as if the mist of a summer storm greets my soft cheeks. I remember my Jesus. I remember what lives within me. And I let it all go. To be fully abandoned, and lost to myself. And, grace abounds.

As I walk away and marvel at 12 years, I don’t think forward or back. I look my Jesus in the eyes, and I say without a thought: “Thank You.” With a smile I can almost touch, He says: “My little one, well done.”

I am so free to live. So free to be me.

…because love wins.

What would you say and do if you knew you were dying? Please, let this change your heart. Because you are. But we have a perfect hope.

http://deathisnotdying.com/fullvideo/

2:20: “Most of you know that I am dying.”
3:00: “When it’s the time that you have left  to cuddle with your kids or spend with your husband, it’s terribly, terribly short.”
6:10: “What defines me is my relationship with Jesus.”
7:10: “Know God. Know yourself. Know the gospel. Know your purpose.”
8:49: “God’s words are what matter.”
11:17: “There is a natural tendency within us to view God as what we’d like Him to be.”
13:05: “Our view of God will shape our view of everything.”
13:40: “There is nothing you can do to make God love you more. There is nothing you can do to make God love you less.”
20:42: “The lie of self esteem is that “I” need to do something…in order to be complete.”
23:11: “Doing things on the outside does not change the inside. Our hearts are still the same. Be honest with yourself.”
27:27: “I wake up…and then I remember I’m dying.”
41:30: “Without the knowledge of  God’s glory, we would be robbed of true joy.”
48:29: “It is an honor for me to suffer…it is the only way any of this makes sense at all.”
52:22: “Eventually the cancer will win.”
53:29: “I have learned that…I will never be perfect on my own.”
54:12: “Death will not kill my soul.”
54:30: “God is going to make everything new.”

Amen, sister. Amen. I’ll see you in eternity.

…because love wins.

And what would happen if you really did believe that love wins?

Take a chance.

…because love wins.

What is a love story?

Two people, slowly or even swiftly find themselves being consumed with thoughts and actions of another. In a world full of billions, there are those few who begin to stand out. Who aren’t the other thousands that won’t get the early morning phone calls or the tears that come in the moments of loss. They’re the ones that hear the giggles and they’re the ones that feel right to be shared with. They should be there all the time. But they don’t have to be, to be found of the same character. Every moment seems a dream for they allow the first character to realize there’s more happening in this Divine conspiracy than they know. Every moment, begs to be told again to these ears that listen, begging them to be forever.

They hurt. They love. They hurt. They love. They live. They die. They live. They die. They live. They hurt and love and live and love and die and live and love; together.

People used to tell me I needed some sort of prince to walk up and take my hand and then I would know love as the story that everyone wants to tell. I’m not so sure that’s the truth, because every moment of this that I live seems to be wrapped in something I cannot explain with the simplicity of words. Every tail gate in Best Buy, every late night Dennys trip. The sparkle in eyes and the ache when we walk away. And, the realization that we have forever together. You weren’t put here because you would be here just for a moment to remind me of something. You weren’t put here just because I needed to tell a story as Forrest did. You are more than that. I can’t say why, but I know I feel it in every thought of us. Every single moment.

Moments with you sparkle before me, and replay within me, and you, dear friend, have been and will always be a lead role in my love story. And the world wonders how it works while we’re swept away in a dream that will always be a story worth telling.

So a a love story? Well, that’s us.

Thank you for being a perfect piece of this beautiful mess of love.

…because love wins.

Job had gaping wounds and no family left.

I can make it through poison ivy, right?

God is good. God is good all the time. All the time.

All the time God is good.

Thank You, for that.

…because love wins.

It’s quiet in this house for the first time in days. Clothes are ironed. The phone finally back on the hook. Lists are printed. What do do. Where to call. What to pack. Airline tickets are ready to be printed. Cash is in hand, and it’s all happening.

My mind settles back on the sixteen year old me. Three years ago. I know. Really, three years ago? I was a little more wild, but a lot less able to understand. I was learning to drive, and wondering with that, how long I’d hold my daddy’s hand. I had friends I thought would be forever, and dreams that sometimes scared me to the bone. I was learning the definition of “cancer”, and had to learn to let go. I opened the Bible only when I had to, and really didn’t know much of love. Thought a lot, but didn’t let my heart just explode. I made a lot of choices, that at the time I thought were huge, and I thought I’d take on the world, with everything that I knew. I had just gained a new brother and they got not long after, their first home. I was a terrible employee, and still liked to spend a lot of time in mom and dad’s abode. I wanted that car, and thought it could be mine. I had the world at my fingertips, and yet, still wanted to be inside the lines. There was a depth about me that gave me hope, and even when I convinced myself, I really didn’t know.

I got on a plane then too, for something I was told had been a big deal. I found passion in my heart there, and let go of so many fears. I watched speakers and evaluated, and couldn’t help but give my life away. I cried and cried and cried, well, because I needed things to go another way. I came home 5 days later and wanted to explain. I knew though, that I wouldn’t, I’d just give my life away.

“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” -1 Peter 2:9

I remember the chants and the explaining, and all the nights that I sat in awe. I remember those words of Jesus, because for that week, they were my all.

I saw things change in me those days. In a way that still cannot explain. That depth became my heart, and the hope was no longer just in my mind. I listened to Him speak, and I became every day, more alive. The world I live in now probably can’t believe, but there was once a day, that I was far from who they know as me. I still have friends I want forever, and know Jesus will be the best. I’m still one who loves to be home, and I’ll always hold my daddy’s hand. I love to drive the car, but my freedom there doesn’t lie in. We laugh about how I know to work, but probably would never choose so to do. I fear less by not holding things in my hands, but never forget that I am only human too. I open the Bible a lot more, and always because I have to, eat the Word of life, and there’s life wrapped in the one I got there still. I still generally live between the lines, but there’s a freedom to them now, I didn’t lay them down; no, that was the higher Power. I don’t always care to figure it out, and I don’t want a thing to do with concern, and the hope that lives inside me has become my entire world.

So I get on a plane again, and this time on the wings of answered prayer. I’m a little deeper, a little wiser, but always just a little child, being made aware. I don’t know what the days will do, but I’m sure there are things that will change. I know that my voice won’t be my own, and every whisper I beg one of praise. Maybe I’ll cry, and I’m sure I’ll laugh to tears, just as it was, even back three years.

“So take a step little one, and forget not that it’s about Me. You have the time of your life, and I’ll set the captives free.”

Then I learned I was chosen. And here, I’ll proclaim I believe.

I love you Jesus.

Come, be with me.

…because love wins.

You probably don’t know, but I wrote about you at the start of this. Together. There was something that facinated me about it. Something more like a research projec than anything. When He told me we’d be like this, well, how could I ever understand what He meant? How? I didn’t know. And yet, we became, and about you, I still write. That place became a home in those days, because of you. And this beauty still astounds me. You still make it home here, the same. But that year, with every night, I would bottle and put in a trophy, and keep it to adore forever, if the moments could only be held and shown to feel what the air was there in 208. It would. It would be something to make me remember, always.

Only to remember, that we lived, and we still live.

I love you.

…because love wins.