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What If

After years and years of reading Paul’s writing and hearing his stories taught, today, this moment, after reading 2 Corinthians 4:1-18— a passage I’ve read countless times before — today, I finally identify with Paul. Today, I finally feel these Words of God in my soul.  It’s completely overwhelming, but completely comforting at the same time.  Like Paul, I consider my temporary suffering worth it for the glory of God to be revealed through it.  What if God chose to manifest His glory through our suffering as a way to combat the enemy? The god of this age blinds the minds of unbelievers so that they can’t see the light of the gospel. (2 Corinthians 4:4) The enemy thrives on distraction and deception and loves to plant disbelief at every turn.  As humans we are a people that need to see things. We need to have tangible evidence in order to believe something to be real.  What if my suffering, our suffering, and God’s goodness to us through the suffering, was the “lig
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Surrendered

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 In 2015 God used a most unusual man to minister to me after my daughter’s Glioblastoma diagnosis.  Tucked away in the Old Testament, in a book just three short chapters long, is a man by the name of Habakkuk.  His name means “to wrestle”, and wrestle he did. The book starts out with Habakkuk asking God, “O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear?”  I very much identified with Habakkuk and his wrestling in 2015 and now,  at the start of 2018 I’m identifying with his story in a whole new way.  You see 2015 Habakkuk was questioning, crying out, he was trying to fix things. 2018 Habakkuk has surrendered his circumstances. He has come to God with his shava (Hebrew for “to cry out, to shout”) and now this simple farmer is standing by his watchpost (Habakkuk 2:1) singing to God and waiting for Him to speak.  And so it is with me... On Wednesday of last week I had my own shava moment when my daughter Kelsie had a seizure that lead to the diagnosis of not one bu
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The Battle

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No one has ALL the answers to why the hard days come. We just know that they come. Some more frequent than others. Some, seemingly unbearable. All, at least, uncomfortable.    Life as of late, has been identifying a little too closely with the life of Job. It leads me to wonder… Just how much sadness can one human heart hold? Is it even possible to gauge that? If so, I think mine would be a good case study. I know several hurting souls that would qualify. Every day that we draw breath on this earth we are in a battle. No one is exempt. We all have our daily positions on the battle field. Our family just happens to be on the front line right now. The question we have to ask ourselves is this… Are we equipped to fight? Full Armor of God Adapted from Dr. Charles Stanley One of the best habits you can develop is putting on the Armor of God every morning. This is spiritual armor, so you put it on by faith. The way to explain this is to wa
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Always Hope

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For the past month or so I've been trying to wrap my mind around everything that has taken place in our lives. It's like time stopped then someone hit fast forward and now here we are. Here on the other side of surgery. On the other side of diagnosis. Here in treatment.   I've come to a conclusion.   The reason I can't wrap my mind around this? Because who can ever wrap anything around  something God-sized?  Every detail of the past 42 days has been God-sized.  I'm humbled by the fact that God gave us the strength and vision to see His hand at work.  The last 42 days have been filled with more grace, mercy, and love than one would expect a lifetime to bring. God has shown us His love in more ways than we could ever explain, but one way that has been abundantly clear is through  you all. Your love and generosity has been overwhelming.  Normally people would say they thank their family AND friends, but to us, we consider our friends to be family. So we say thank you t
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Praise

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God is continuing to overwhelm us with his grace and mercy. Kelsie's MRI was clear! Yet another  thing going in our favor. Another step forward. She will begin radiation tomorrow. This will last for thirty days. Over the next six weeks we will be  praying  that Kelsie has NO ill side effects from this treatment. We pray that it will be the tool that God uses to heal her completely. And by completely we mean FOREVER. "This I recall to my mind, Therefore I have hope. Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed, Because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning, Great is Your faithfulness. The LORD is my portion, says my soul, Therefore I hope in Him!" Lamentations 3:21-24 Standing on His promises, Tracey <><
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An update...

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As most of you know, on April 10th our daughter Kelsie, had surgery to remove an egg sized tumor from the left occipital lobe of her brain. The surgery was successful and Dr. Rozelle was able to remove the entire tumor intact. Kelsie had surgery on a Friday, and was able to return home on Monday. For the past two weeks she as been home recovering beautifully. She is no longer suffering from headaches, vision loss or stomach issues. All huge praises! After surgery, Kelsie’s tumor was sent to pathology to be studied. Last week her report came back showing that her tumor was malignant. The tumor was labeled a grade four glioblastoma with rhabdoid features. Gliobastomas are typically found in adults not children. The rhabdoid features of her tumor make it extremely rare. There are only twenty-five reported cases of this type of tumor in children. The treatment plan for now includes six weeks of radiation followed by some form of chemotherapy. They must eradicate all the cancer cell
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A letter of gratitude...

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Wednesday started out like any other ordinary day. Alarm beeped too early, lunches got packed, sleepy kids asked for five more minutes. All things we take for granted as we walk through our overbooked, hurried, hectic days here on this earth. Wednesday’s agenda was fairly low key. Just a couple doctor appointments to be on time for (Promptness is not always our strong suit).  By the time Wednesday afternoon rolled around, life as we knew it had come to a screeching halt. “The MRI has shown a spot on Kelsie’s brain.” In an instant we went from planning our days to not knowing what to do with next second. Our instructions were to go straight to Birmingham, where a neurosurgeon would be expecting us. As we left the doctor’s office I just kept thinking about how we talk all the time about having faith in God, and how this was our time to live out what we profess.  With that at the forefront of our minds, we headed north. The five days that followed held more than we could ever ima
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