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What’s Your Strong Tower?

whats-your-strong-tower The chemo was wreaking havoc on his body. He wasn’t able to eat and was weakened to exhaustion. Where do we go from here? We may be killing cancer cells, but at what personal cost?

It’s not easy to hear this from almost seven driving hours away. If I could teleport myself directly to Pennsylvania for these conversations, I surely would, but I was digesting my latest email update from my mother about my father, and God gave me this Scripture:

Psalm 61:3, ESV, King David speaking

For you have been my refuge, a strong tower against the enemy.

I felt strongly that we could substitute the word “enemy” with “cancer” because God had been sustaining my father on and off since 1981 through six different battles with this persistent foe. It had once again rented my father’s body and officially moved in. An unwanted tenant, it was taking more than major surgery to evict it, and at this point, we needed more than the words of doctors to sustain us.

We needed a fortress. We needed to seek a safe place to cry out.

Every fortress where we huddle in and regroup must have a tower, a high place that shows itself strong and imposing on the horizon— Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by Bonnie Lyn Smith on September 20, 2016 in Ministry Moments, Relationship with God, Renewing Our Minds

Tags: cancer, chemo, fortress, king david, my refuge, name of the Lord, place of safety, Psalm 61:3, refuge, relationship with God, safe place, speak life, Spurgeon, strength, strong tower, strong tower against the enemy, sustains, take cover, wisdom from kings, word of God, word of God is living

Dear Dad: A Letter to God

29 Jan

Dear Dad- A Letter to God

Do you ever write letters to people in your head—things you wanted to say, unfinished business, sentiments that pressed on your heart and didn’t let you go?

Sometimes I wake up at night and have a three-page letter downloaded straight into my heart.

Right now, for my father who is living* through cancer and chemo hell, parts of my letter would look like this:

Dear Dad:

I hate that you are struggling. If I could be with you in person more frequently, I’d just want to hold your hand. Pray silently. Sit at your feet. Watch you sleep. Bless you. Read you Scripture. Share a few memories. Make you smile.

I’d say I didn’t always respond the way I should have, that I often was too quick to react in my youth. I’d tell you if I had to do it all over again, I’d talk to you about your “corny” country music and be willing to discuss the different jazz artists you grew to appreciate.

I’d tell you I’m sorry I stuck my tongue out when I was 3 years old, that spitting out my peas onto your dinner plate wasn’t nice. I shouldn’t have made eating and the dinner table such a scene of drama.

I might state that I could have been more gracious when you taught me how to drive and more grateful when you would pick me up from a late theater rehearsal. While we were generationally farther apart than the parents of many of my friends, I wasn’t really embarrassed by you; I was just a teenager who thought that I was.

I would share with you that I watched you healing on that couch from radiation many years ago while you let me put barrettes in your amazing hair because that’s what you do when you have daughters. You play barbershop. I’d be less angry that you won UNO sometimes. I’d be more mindful of the times I got to “camp out” on the porch with you in the summers and wouldn’t make comments about your snoring.

I wrote a book, Dad. It wasn’t everything it could have been, but it was my first attempt. It was about God. I hope you could see the Presbyterian roots deep within my theology, Dad. How I really did understand Christ, the propitiation for our sins.

If I could just lay my head against your robe, Dad, like I used to rest it on your lap during the sermon, I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

I can be a spoiled brat, but my heart is trying to be more like Jesus, Dad. I hope you can see that in me. I hope I make you proud.

My letter would say so many other things, but I’ll stop there. You get the idea.

What about God, though? What about our Father in Heaven? Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by Bonnie Lyn Smith on January 29, 2016 in Ministry Moments, Relationship with God, Renewing Our Minds

Tags: cancer, chemo, conversations with God, Father in heaven, God the Father, God's child, God's presence, hallowed be your name, intimacy with God, kingdom of heaven, letter to Dad, letter to God, Lord's Prayer, matthew 6, Our Father who art in heaven, relationship with God, talking to God

Where Fear Tries to Tread

03 Nov

Where Fear Tries to Tread My 9 year old Little Man and I were out waiting for the bus, watching Bobo the Smith Lawn Chipmunk scuttling around in our front wooded area. He was eating and storing things in his little cheeks.

Little Man was fascinated for quite some time, but then he
said: “Mom, what if a snake gets him today?”

And isn’t that a sign of how we all mature from our innocence and learn the darker side of the world? When fear creeps in where we used to prance about with untainted optimism?

Don’t we all so quickly “go there” in our minds and hearts? Fear is always crouching. Darkness always wants us to think it wins.

2 Timothy 1:7, ESV, Apostle Paul speaking

For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.

It’s interesting that the King James Version uses the word “sound mind” instead of “self-control.” It suggests to me we are given the tools in Christ to put our minds where they should be. Our minds don’t have to be tossing about at the whims of our fears. We are given the power and love to keep them sound, safe from the torment of crippling “what ifs.”

What if:

The chemo doesn’t work?
We never work through this conflict?
S/he leaves me?
S/he never learns to read?
We can’t pay for college?
They never learn to live on their own?
I fail?
The car dies before we can afford to replace it?
We never sell this house?
There’s a car accident?
S/he never comes home?
I never get well?
We die before the kids are raised?
I lose this job?

Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by Bonnie Lyn Smith on November 3, 2015 in Anxiety/OCD/Depression, Drawing Healthy Boundaries, Relationship with God, Renewing Our Minds

Tags: 1 John 4:15-19, 2 corinthians 10:5, 2 timothy 1:7, abandonment, abides in God, abides in Him, anxiety, casts out fear, chemo, concern, eye on the sparrow, fear, fear of abandonment, fear of not having enough, fear of outliving children, God is love, he first loved us, healthy fear, Matthew 10:29-31, no fear in love, panic, peace, perfect love, Philippians 4:8, power in the name of Jesus, renewing our minds, self-control, sound mind, spirit of fear, take thoughts captive, taking thoughts captive, unhealthy fear, whatever is honorable, whatever is lovely, whatever is true, worries

Subway Vision

15 Sep

Recently, I was sitting on the Boston T staring at the feet of many people. Wow, her toenails need painting, just like mine. Cool wedges…wonder where she got them? He is dressed to the nines. I wonder what he does? Does he like himself at the end of the day? Oh my, that child needs a new pair of sneakers for school; I hope his family can manage that.

I’ll admit I wasn’t looking at the whole person. I just was gazing at feet. I wasn’t trying to make assumptions. As a writer, I visually see things and then have a nonstop ongoing dialogue with myself in my head.

I also receive snippets from God throughout the week as to what to write about, and “subway” came through crystal clear.

The next day, at the suggestion of a sweet mentor, I was listing so many questions I have for God. I truly have more questions than answers. I don’t imagine He was exhausted from my list, but I sure was. And then an area I had been praying about for a while came into focus on a day when I was troubled that my father was so knocked down by chemo that he couldn’t continue the treatments that week.

I was so scared to carry out the actions I felt God was telling me to take with regard to another person. It was an area of constant rejection and pain. Am I tough enough for the response, God? Maybe we should try this at another time?

And there it was, plain as day: Read the rest of this entry »