{"id":15972,"date":"2017-09-20T09:08:37","date_gmt":"2017-09-20T13:08:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/debmillswriter.com\/?p=15972"},"modified":"2020-09-20T09:17:10","modified_gmt":"2020-09-20T13:17:10","slug":"worship-wednesday-the-faith-to-believe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/debmillswriter.com\/?p=15972","title":{"rendered":"Worship Wednesday – the Faith to Believe"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Photo Credit: Flickr<\/a><\/p>\n

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.<\/em><\/strong> – Ephesians 2:8<\/a><\/p>\n

For the first twenty years of my professional life, my great privilege was to have close encounters with people in deep crisis and five life-changing realities. It was a season of caring for cancer patients and their families – when their diseases were raging and in the final days of life. These experiences galvanized my faith in God and how his image is embedded in us – his creation. These realities are:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Courage in exceedingly hard places<\/strong><\/li>\n
  2. Deep enduring love across a harsh illness and when time is fleeting<\/strong><\/li>\n
  3. Hope mingled with humor<\/strong><\/li>\n
  4. Death isn’t final…our spirits go somewhere (for sure, they leave the body)<\/strong><\/li>\n
  5. Faith to believe<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Caring for patients receiving chemotherapy and other treatments for life-threatening complications can prompt an intimate caring relationship. To watch patients (and families) deal with such hard and to be in a position to help them through it gave me a window to extend love and honor to dear ones in crisis.<\/p>\n

    Was there always courage? Was love always expressed between us all? Was humor or hope or faith a constant?<\/p>\n

    No…but remarkably, more often than not, this was what I observed… especially in those sustained by a relationship with God.<\/p>\n

    In the last couple of years, I have personally experienced a cancer diagnosis and a couple of respiratory emergencies that brought those same realities into my life. In such times, much in life gets clarity…a sharper focus, a deeper understanding.<\/p>\n

    Breathe<\/em> has been a theme in my life for over a year now<\/strong>…put that together with the title of a film starring Andrew Garfield<\/a>…and it caused me to NOT “skip the ad” on YouTube.\"\"<\/a>Photo Credit: Breathe<\/em>, YouTube<\/a><\/p>\n

    The film Breathe<\/a> tells the story of Robin Cavendish<\/a>. He was a Brit who developed polio at the young age of 28. He was paralyzed from the neck down and required a ventilator to breathe. In those days (1958), he would have been confined in a hospital for the remainder of his days. However, he nor his wife, Diana, would hear of it. After a year in hospital, he went home and adjusted to this very different life, as only Robin would. They had a child and he would be able to see him grow up (in fact, son Jonathan Cavendish produced this film). Robin was a pioneer in advocating for the disabled, especially those like him needing more extreme measures to live a more normal life. He died at 64.<\/p>\n

    [Since my years in graduate studies in rehab and cancer nursing…the courage I saw in so many patients and families…courage in struggle…has never ceased to inspire me.]<\/p>\n

    “Based on a true story” films are intriguing. Reading up on Robin Cavendish’s story<\/a>, my heart soared and then sank…fullstop at the short statement below:<\/p>\n

    Cavendish was an atheist.<\/em><\/strong> – Wikipedia<\/a><\/p>\n

    I have never understood atheism. Even during spiritually flat and confusing times in my life, the existence of God put me to puzzling but ever so briefly. In a matter of moments of reflection, the fact of His presence blew past the questions.<\/p>\n

    Especially watching beloved believing patients at the moment of death…their faces relaxing and their bodies emptying of who they really were. We don’t just stop existing…life here stops and starts at exactly the same moment…There.<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Now that I know Robin Cavendish, he has my admiration and respect at how he took back his life and helped others do the same. I wonder if, before his life was done…he had the faith to believe. One line in his obituary reads:<\/p>\n

    It is a strange irony that, though professing to be an unbeliever himself, he had a capacity for making other people feel closer to God.*<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

    *<\/em>Obituary – Robin Cavendish<\/em> – Alice and Tim Renton<\/a><\/p>\n

    What a great gift is faith to believe<\/strong>. We don’t conjure it up. God Himself presents us the faith to believe…it is ours to reject or receive.<\/p>\n

    Worship with me.<\/strong> Below you will find two songs – Faith to Believe<\/em><\/a> by Shane & Shane<\/a> and Jesus Is Better<\/a> by Austin Stone<\/a>. Choose either or both in celebrating the God who gives us the faith to believe. [Then scroll down to the prayer at the end.]<\/p>\n