Let There Be Light

I'm going to be raw and honest in this one. Life is hard, harder than anyone can ever anticipate. When you say those wedding vows it sounds nice and wonderful. You never really expect to be hit by the "for worst" part of life, until you are. Until you are wondering if you will ever get to hold your husband again. Until you realize how quickly life can change within a split second. Life wasn't meant to be talking about funeral plans at the age of 35 or deciding where a loved one should be buried if death does come knocking sooner than later. I've said it before and I'll say it again, we're all going to die but it's what we do with that statement that matters. Life wasn't meant to be this way, we were meant to live forever in a perfect world but sin happened. It wrecked everything, yet God already knew and had a plan; a beautiful plan to save us.....Jesus.  We're so thankful that we can call on His name any time of any day and know He hears us . ...

For the past two weeks we have been busy with appointments and some changes once again in our lives. Jesse saw a Natural path Doctor in Burlington at the beginning when he was diagnosed. We hadn't seen her since then and had a visit with her in early March. She encouraged us to see another Doctor in Toronto who specializes in cancer care. We contemplated going but decided to do the paperwork and schedule a visit to see what he had to offer. Last Thursday we went to Toronto for a consultation. At this consultation Jesse had bloodwork done and a thorough visit by the team who works at Medicor Cancer Center. We were impressed by the team and went home to think about all the information we had gained. It's been on our minds to forgo chemo but is a really difficult decision to make. This doctor articulated what we had been feeling and thinking for a while. He shared that chemo is a short term solution and that eventually it would ruin Jesse's body. He was floored that Jesse had ...

 March, it’s a month of many events and emotions in our lives. From Jesse’s birthday(35 this year), to the month he got diagnosed and also the two year marker since that diagnosis; to say the least, there’s lots of ups and downs in the month of March for us. If I’m honest we’ve both been in a season of struggle lately. I don’t have words to say and my prayers are few words and more crying out for His help. There is a sense of exhaustion as we come up to the two year mark on March 31st. Don’t get me wrong we’re very grateful for this milestone but in the back of our minds we ask the question, Lord, how long can we keep doing this? The appointments on the calendar, watching Jesse feel terrible every other week, and the everyday grind of life….it can all be a lot. I don’t want to depict a picture of sunshine and strength all the time because it’s just not true . Everyday is a battle to keep abiding in Jesus and some days we don’t. Some days fear and things of this life get the best of...

  The Christmas season is upon us once again and there’s many emotions that take place. It’s a time of joy and giving yet a time of grief and sadness for many. If I’m honest in the past I haven’t been a Christmas lover, it’s always felt commercialized with to many expectations. But this year it feels different as we’ve let go of expectations around the holidays and put our attention towards Jesus. Christmas was never meant to be a crazy stressful time of year, it’s meant to be simple like the birth of our Lord was. In a humble manger surrounded by those shepherds who were the lowest of low in society yet God chose to tell them first. As we watched “The Nativity story” with our kids this year, I was humbled again by the story of Jesus coming to the earth as a baby for the purpose of dying on the cross for our sins. We can get accustomed to the story but to slow down and think about it, what a wonderful story it is!  As Christmas approaches quickly I’m reminded to embrace it ful...

Whoa, how did we even get here? Was it not June 1st yesterday and here we are Thanksgiving weekend. As we started to harvest soybeans this week, it caught me by surprise how fast time goes. It feels like yesterday we planted those little seeds and started to watch them pop up in rows; now here we are starting to harvest them. It's kind of like our life isn't it? We are born full of life, we sway in the wind full of growth and energy but as time passes we see that we aren't so young anymore. We start to change from a young vibrant plant into a brown more brittle plant, time has worn us down and left marks on us. One day we will return to that ground just as that seed will return to the ground. Our life is a vapor "Yet you do not know what your life will be tomorrow. For you are just a vapor that appears for a little while, and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that." - James 4:13-15 I don't k...

 Recently we had the privilege of being beside a dear friend as she passed away.  I sat with this friend and we talked about our fears and hopes. She was a mentor and fellow farmer who we dearly loved. After being re-diagnosed with cancer, we watched her body fade and our life perspective was again refocused. That will be us one day , our body fading away from this life into the eternal life with our King.  How quickly we forget what this life is about and jump back on that hamster wheel, just doing the motions of life. I’ll be honest, life has gone back to a somewhat normal state for us and I tend to forget what the Lord has taught me. I can get side tracked with money, our business, the next to do or about myself. I thank God for the opportunity to be beside this dear friend and have our focus narrowed down again to what really matters.  I wonder how often we forget the things that Christ did for us. Thinking back to the initial months after we found out Jesse had ...

God has been teaching me lately about His character of never changing. Our lives are uncertain; whether it’s the economy or our health things are always changing. The only thing that stays the same is God. I may lose my husband to cancer one day, I may lose all that I  own or my country may one day not  be "glorious and free" but one thing remains; God will always  be, He will never leave me nor forsake me (Hebrews 13:5). I’m so thankful for these truths in our lives as we continue to walk the unknowns. We can rest in the immovable Rock and find our strength in His everlasting arms. His grace is sufficient for us each day, one single moment at a time. God doesn’t promise to take our suffering away. He doesn't promise that I’ll  always have a husband but he does promise “my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.” ‭‭Philippians‬ ‭4‬:‭19‬ ‭NIV‬‬ Our circumstances in life will continue to change but they will never alter the un...