Kara - Mundane Faithfulness

I'm not sure if you are familiar with Kara Tippetts.

HERE is a link to her blog, Mundane Faithfulness.

Kara is a young mother of four and she battled breast cancer for two and a half years.

On Sunday, Kara received the healing she and so many had desperately prayed for.  Her Healer met her at the gates of heaven.  

I do not know this woman.  And yet my heart aches for her and for the family she left behind.  Her children are young.  Will they grow up realizing how desperately their mother's heart ached for more time with them?  As the years go by, how many memories of her will remain in their minds?  And her husband.  Oh my goodness.  How do you go on when your soul mate is no longer here?  How does a man raise four young children on his own?

Their faith in God remained strong throughout Kara's illness.  Oh, did they have moments of thinking "why is this happening to us?"  I'm quite certain they did.  They were, after all, human.  But Kara decided early on in her illness to seek the peace of God.   I am reading her book The Hardest Peace now, and I can tell you it has stirred up my soul.

We are never promised that life as a Christian will be easy.  Christians have really bad things happen to them.  Christians get sick.  Christians have children who turn their backs on God.  Christians lose their jobs and their homes.  But Christians know that God is always with them.  Even in the valley of the shadow of death.  God met Kara in the deepest despair imaginable.  And He never let her go.  

Kara was forced much too young to face what most of us deny.  That this life is temporary.  This life is short.  I think of all the time in my life I have wasted on things that absolutely do not matter, and I am ashamed.  Kara was able to, through the help of our Lord, savor every single second with those who mattered the most to her, her family, and her friends.  

Several years ago there was a song called "Live Like You Were Dyin'" about a man who found out he had a terminal illness.  And one of the verses of the song says "Someday I hope you get the chance to live like you were dyin."  

Friends we are all dying.  Every day is one day less that we have on this earth.  Are we living like it??

Are we telling those we love the most just how much we love them?  Are we sharing the Good News that Jesus saves?  Are we being the hands and feet of Jesus?  Are we making the most of every single moment?  Are we making a difference?

No, I do not think we need to go around in sack cloth and ashes.  I believe God wants us to live an abundant life.  But an abundant life focused on Him and what is important in His kingdom.

Today I am praying for the family and friends of Kara Tippetts.  I hope that as her story is shared others will see Jesus through the legacy she left behind.  And they will see that Jesus loves them as he loved Kara.  And I am praying for God to open my eyes to the reality that my time here on earth won't last forever.  I want to be all that He wants me to be.  I want Him to use me to help others.  I want to be faithful, as Kara was faithful.

Hebrews 12:1-2

Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,  looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.