she simply received

The end of March marks the second anniversary from my last treatment for breast cancer. This week when reading my journal from that time, I was reminded of how some days, I couldn’t make my body rise from the sofa. Some days I couldn’t eat anything but bland foods. Some days I merely had the strength to color “The Lord is my Shepherd” in my coloring book.

Before the year of increased weakness from chemotherapy, I had always felt like I needed to work harder for God, for others, for myself. I had been given so much in my life. I had spent years convinced that gratitude looked like effort. I thought that the right response to a full life was to pour myself out in return. Rest felt like ingratitude. Receiving felt like weakness. My gut had a perpetual feeling that I wasn’t praying enough, wasn’t helping others enough, wasn’t being a good example of my faith. But paradoxically, in my weakness, for the first time, I had never felt so loved. I couldn’t do anything for anyone, and yet, my community surrounded me with meals, prayers, and sometimes just sitting with me in quiet support. I was forced to humble myself and just receive.

One day I watched a male cardinal bring a seed from our bird feeder to his tan colored mate in a nearby shrub, and transfer it to her beak. I didn’t know birds did that.

This week, I have been sitting with the idea that God has done this for me all my life. He has always been darting back and forth, bringing me what I need—a meal left on the porch, a friend’s prayer, the comfort of being loved without having to earn it. I used to think faithfulness meant that I had to perpetually work harder. Now I watch for ways He feeds me.