Setbacks

Jeremiah’s prophet quill scratched some raw words when he wrote—I cry out, “My splendor is gone! Everything I had hoped for from the Lord is lost! The thought of my suffering and homelessness is bitter beyond words. I will never forget this awful time, as I grieve over my loss.”

While that wasn’t the end of his writing, it’s easy to relate to the feelings that drove his pen—especially when you hit a major setback.

We hit one of those setbacks Friday and felt brief similar feelings that Jeremiah felt. Right before chemo was set to start, Nicole and I requested she get a scan because of some discomfort she was experiencing. The scan showed her tumor had returned. Quite shocking, as three weeks ago her scans looked good.

She was already set to receive the most aggressive of chemo regimens, so her prognosis hasn’t changed. Our prayer right now is that chemo works.

While the news hits hard—we embrace that, “Everything I had hoped for from the Lord is lost!” is simply not true. For Jeremiah, one verse later wrote, “Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this: The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is His faithfulness; His mercies begin afresh each morning. I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in Him!‘”

No setback can set anyone back from the cross. The only threat is that of our current brokenness being fully healed.

The night before this setback, I awoke from a dream with the words, “When darkness feels most near, Jesus will always meet you here.” It could be God preparing me for the news, or my mind just dreaming of some amateur poetry I was attempting earlier that day. Either way, we won’t be distracted from Jesus’ nearness. We won’t stay in Jeremiah’s first feelings—we choose to live in his follow-up words. The faithful love of the Lord never ends, His mercies never cease.