do you need more?

How many times have you found yourself coming up short - being stuck in a place where you just need more? You are not alone. At some point we all get stuck and need more. More friends. More health. More money. More time. It’s easy to need more. 

Do you need more right now? 

There are countless times that I have needed more in my life, but by far the most all consuming and most memorable time was at age 22. Bryce and I were married just nine short months and I found out that I had cancer. With fewer treatment options, cancer thirty years ago was even more terrifying than it is now. In my mind cancer equaled death. It meant the end. My battle with cancer started with an innocent trip to the doctor. I had an enlarged lymph node at the base of my neck. She casually said it was probably nothing, but at my convenience, we should get an x-ray. Within 48 hours that x-ray quickly turned into a CT scan, which resulted in me finding myself post-surgery in Harrisburg Hospital, now known as UPMC Pinnacle Harrisburg, looking up out of my hospital bed staring into the eyes of Dr.  Thomas Andrews, an oncologist. In the kindest, gentlest way possible, he told me that I had cancer and that more tests would be needed to determine how far it had spread. I was devastated. At that moment, I needed more. More answers. More health. More love. And simply, more faith. 

Jody And Her Chemo Hat

I cried. Hard. For what seemed like hours. Exhausted and weak, I knew this couldn’t go on. That night, I told God that I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t cry anymore about this diagnosis. I needed him to take care of it. I needed more. I needed his strength and perseverance in whatever lay ahead. I told God that I wouldn’t cry again. And through the whole battle, I didn’t. It was in His hands and His will would be done. In the months that followed, I didn’t have any tears to shed as I fought and endured through chemo, radiation, anti-nausea meds, endless tests and needles, lots of needles. 

But I needed more. And I got more. 

We don’t always get what we expect and if you need more right now, give up. You can’t get it. At least not on your own. God didn’t create us to endure alone. 

This is evident throughout the bible, but especially starting in the very beginning when God created something out of nothing - creatio ex nihilo - and then woman out of man. 

The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him…..So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. - Genesis 2: 18, 21-22 NIV

God gives us relationships and community. And he created us to delight in Him. Always. In the Bible it says, 

Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. - Romans 5:3-5 ESV

Do you see this chain of events that the apostle Paul mentions? Our suffering produces endurance. Our endurance produces character. And character produces hope. When we are suffering and need more, our focus isn’t to be on what we are lacking, but what we have through our relationship with Christ. It is in that space where growth comes and the virtues of endurance, character and hope follow. 

Do you need more? Do what’s hard. Give God your worry, your fear, and your need. And then do what honors God. Give Him praise in the midst of your suffering. As you do this over and over again, it will create an incredible story of your life. A chronicled history that shows your family endurance, character, and hope. 

This is history worth saving. When our stories are retold, read, or watched our children learn from them. They get to see who we are and how crucial our faith is to everything we do and experience.

As we watch our children growing and maturing whether at age 5 or 50, they will always need more too. Wouldn’t it be amazing to let them see the chronicle of our lives and be reminded how the generations before them got more from God when they needed it? That’s what I want my children to be able to do, don’t you? 

Searching for wisdom and asking for grace,

Jody