Hard To Get

Sep 4

2 min read

Years ago, my dad pointed out that I’m still trying to emulate my favorite musician from childhood. While I’m not musically talented, like this artist I drive a Jeep, grew my hair out, have an affinity for white t-shirts, and enjoy walking barefoot.

Touché, dad.

Rich Mullins’ music has resurfaced in my Jeep lately, like a soundtrack to the journey we’re on. One song that some claim is “raw,” as if it’s somehow edgy, is “Hard To Get.” Mullins writes about his frustrations of feeling like God is sometimes far off, yet toward the end of the song he concludes:

And I know that I am only lashing out

At the One who loves me most

And so You’ve been here all along,

I guess it’s just Your ways and You are just plain hard to get

Cancer or not, those feelings are shared by us all. Sometimes God feels hard to get—to reach and to understand. Our house has felt its good share of them.

Candidly, I sometimes feel guilty when people encourage me by how well it seems we’re walking this hard road. The encouragement is kind, but I just don’t feel deserving of the words.

While we continue to hold fast to the goodness of God, there’s been some weak moments of real doubt and frustration of why God allows such things. But as Rich concludes, so do we: “you’ve been here all along…” Though sometimes it’s been some messy work to make it to that conclusion.

Round 4 of chemo was kinder to Nicole as she was able to recover quicker from the exhaustion. This last week we’ve been able to get out more than just about all summer. The fevers have held off longer than they ever had!

Unfortunately, Wednesday night invited the fevers return. Most likely she’ll be fighting high temperatures until chemo begins Tuesday. While it’s a bummer to say goodbye to a fever-free week of energy, we’ll hold onto the memories we made and enjoy the moments in between fever spikes.

I’ll end with one of my favorite lines in the song above, as it has been relevant to our home in this season:

And I know You bore our sorrows

And I know You feel our pain

And I know that it would not hurt any less

Even if it could be explained