When I look back on photos of myself after my previous surgeries, I often think, “I remember feeling better than I look in these pictures.” So, if you come see me in the hospital, don’t be alarmed by a black eye or swollen side of my head. While my body will be healing for a while, and in the process I may be a little more difficult to look at than normal, my spirit is soaring.
As I write this a couple of days before surgery, I obviously write without knowing the outcome. The doctors have given us many reasons for confidence about a certain outcome, but our confidence doesn’t ultimately rest on an outcome, it rests on a Person. And His name is Jesus. Therefore it is a sure and certain confidence.
Satan comes only to “steal, kill and destroy” (John 10:10), but through faith in Jesus, Satan’s plans for this tumor have been destroyed. Rather than the theft of our joy, Jesus has increased it! Rather than the death of our hope, Jesus has continually renewed it. Rather than the destruction of life, Jesus has made ours more whole.
I don’t sit here two days before surgery writing in confidence about a certain outcome, but I do write with an abundance of confidence and joy and peace. It is a confidence that says that our Lord is good, and He is with us. It says that no matter what happens, He will walk through that outcome and make something good from it.
We are experiencing right now Jesus’ promise to give us abundant life (John 10:10). It is so much fun to possess something that Satan can’t touch (Romans 8:37-39). I thank you for walking with us with this same confident joy in our Lord.
