When the Lion Roars

I have a beef with the Thief. He’s still prowling around the perimeter thinking he’s going to have the last say about this long cancer and reconstruction journey, but I have news for him…the Lion has already ROARED!

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come so they can have life. I want them to have it in the fullest possible way.  John 10:10 (NIrV)

This weekend one year ago, my husband and I celebrated our 34^th wedding anniversary three weeks early because three days later I had a double mastectomy due to a second bout with breast cancer.

This weekend, one year later, that same husband and I were up to our eyeballs in cobwebs, dusty furniture you could autograph, and anything that was in the path of Hurricane Interior Painting. And this weekend was Round Two. We did half the house the weekend before.

So I say to Mr. Chief Thief, what do you think about that?!

You wanted weakness? My God has become my strength.

You wanted to steal my health? My Great Physician’s blood flows in these veins.

You wanted to kill me with cancer, again? My Healer has cleansed and purified this vessel, right down to my heavenly Father’s DNA.

You wanted to destroy me? My Warrior King will turn your destruction back on your own head!

While I was busy hand washing and drying collections of crystal, cherubs, and coffee mugs, I had plenty of time to think. Busy hands, empty mind…uh, perhaps I should rephrase that!

I thought about the past year plus, recalling different points in the journey. Pain and limited movement from multiple surgeries, and yet here I was stretching and lifting with no pain. Dining on ‘chemo diet’ less than a year ago; yet wolfing down hearty meals after all the physical labor these past couple of weeks. Oceans of tears over irreversible loss last August 31; this August, humming in harmony with the Judds while wielding a can of Pledge from which no dust bunny could hide.

A year later, my devotional and the calendar keep reminding me of various points of loss and surrender, while my Bible, journal and blogging refresh my spirit with how God came through for me and my husband, in the pain, time after time.

Saturday, while I was cleaning and putting Wayne’s freshly painted rooms back together, I was still simmering from Friday’s “thief prowling.” I have one surgery left to complete my reconstruction, scheduled in early October. I have been blessed with insurance, and after paying my out of pocket maximum two years in a row, any remaining procedures and lab work are being paid at 100%.

Since we are not independently wealthy people, it is a thankful thing to open up any EOB that has a zero patient balance owing. Now the enemy of our souls, Mr. Thief, is threatening to pull a fast one that would yank the insurance rug out from under our feet just days before my final surgery.

I happen to believe he’s barking up the wrong tree. My Jesus, the Lion who Roars, IS the Tree! He has declared that He came to restore, make whole, and give life – life in the fullest possible way. His “fullest possible way” means He will bring me through to the completion of my reconstruction. I have more than a year of His faithful fingerprints all over this house we painted and cleaned these past two weeks!

For a year I sat in a chair, lay on a sofa, and slept propped up on pillows while the Lion ROARED at the enemy on my behalf. And when He roars, the sound of His Voice contains the full delivery of His Word for the circumstance. I have not come this far on the deep vibrations of that roar to believe He will not finish what He began in me, for me, concerning me.

As always when I write, I’m not interested in merely keeping a journal for myself. There is Truth shared that is for every single one who may read these Wellspring postings. You have run-ins with the same Chief Thief. If you are a Christ-believer, you have the same Lion roaring on your behalf.

If you’d care to join me in reminding Mr. Chief Thief that the Lion of Judah came to give us life in its fullness, let’s declare all together now…

“…I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day”!  II Timothy 1:12 (NIV)

Be it the soon coming Day of the Lord and October 10, 2011…or in September, if I get a call that someone has canceled their surgery. I’m first on the surgeon’s waiting list.

The Lion knows how to put on the finishing touches. He already ROARED! I’ve been living in the echoes all year long.

Gracefully Free waiting for Faithful & True