Be Strong and Take Heart: Sunday Devotion #12

Psalm 27: 1-3 The Lord is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life—of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked advance against me to devour me, it is my enemies and my foes
who will stumble and fall. Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then I will be confident.

Psalm 27: 13-14 I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.

It is so hard to be always strong, no matter how deep is your faith. Dark days occur, and with them come fears and doubts that can unsettle us. Yet, I have found that in those moments I seek to find how God can be glorified in the situations. I remind myself that God’s goodness never ceases, and that because I am confident of this one thing, His light and salvation will be there for me.

When I was informed that I had colon cancer in 2008, my first instinctive thought was that I was going to die. Laying in the hospital bed after surgery, I could find no peace, feeling that as a good person, I didn’t deserve this suffering and the chemo that was to follow, thinking, “Why me?”

But, then, I had to ask myself if anyone deserves cancer, especially as I remembered the children at St. Jude’s Hospital. So, I asked instead, “Why not me?” I started to think of ways to identify God’s goodness to me in the land of the living, and it occurred to me that many people die of colon cancer because it is hard to diagnose before it’s in an advanced stage.

But, my cancer was found as the doctor’s tried to find the reason for another pain I was having. I was actually very blessed that it was found early. I was going to live through this incident, and I have been cancer-free for 12 years.

In honor of God’s goodness to me, I started to tell everyone, especially black women and men over 50, to have the tests done to check for colon cancer. I wanted to save lives, just as I had been blessed.

So, it is in the hardest times of our lives, when our greatest fears come into fruition that we must be strong and take heart, depending on the Light of the world, Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, to extend His goodness to us in the land of the living. We need that attitude today in the midst of a pandemic that is getting worse, not better. Let us believe, as the psalmist did, that we will wait on the Lord and see His goodness while we are stilkl in the land of the living.

Amen!