WHAT REMAINS

“So, exactly how big is the tumor?” My voice shook, along with every other part of me, but I needed to know what we were dealing with now that Mom was sick.

The doctor’s reply sucker punched me in the most tender part of my soul. 

“It’s her entire breast,” she said. I stared, waiting, but there was nothing more she could say.

The walls collapsed, faces blurred, and I found myself back in the waiting room where a young woman sobbed, trying to find comfort in her own arms. I watched her rock back and forth, faintly humming a hymn I recognized - one my Momma used to sing to me. 

“Peace, peace,” her melody faltered as I realized the sobbing young woman was me.

Dad’s voice rose clear above the confusion, ministering to my broken heart from Mom’s open Bible in his lap.  

“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts higher than your thoughts,” declares the Lord. 

Isaiah 55:9 amp

The news never got better that day, yet a peace entered that remained.

The heartbeat of our family’s faith lay slashed wide open beyond the wall of a future we could not see, but here-in the Rock of Ages, in words spoken by the Ancient of Days - we would take our final stand and rest in His faithfulness.

Dad closed God’s Word with a gentle thump, then rested his forehead against the well-worn leather, inhaling the scent of its strength, exhaling a continual prayer across a thousand generations of those that love Him.

Heaven. Earth. Mom.

We would all one day pass away.

But the Word of the Lord would endure forever.