So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.
I’m writing this story about a year and a half late. Twenty twenty-one was a bittersweet year for us.
Bitter because Cody was diagnosed with cancer and we lost two of our precious and amazing dogs…all within 2 months.
Sweet because if I retrace the steps of 2021, I will see the breadcrumbs, the provision, and the precursory steps that the Lord was walking me through in order to prepare me for a place where it was going to feel like my world was turning upside-down. I have never experienced God’s sustaining power and provision like I did in the Fall of 2021.
There are many stories and inspiring moments that already, only a year and half later, are beginning to desaturate with time so it’s time I write them down. As a memorial stone, these blogs will prove of God’s past faithfulness for the days when I doubt or question.
October 5, 2021
Cody was diagnosed with cancer just the week before. I’d received so many messages of comfort, support, and prayers along with a multitude of questions such as: “What did the doctor say,” “When will you know results,” “What’s the plan going forward,” “How long will it last,” “When does treatment start,” etc. Often, those questions were prefaced or followed with something along the lines of, “I can imagine you just want answers,” “I know the waiting is the worst part!”
But weirdly enough, I didn’t. It wasn’t.
Honest and innocent questions. Valid questions. And all questions I did not know the answer to. To be honest, I didn’t even think about a lot of those questions because I was still in sticker-shock that we were even here in this season at all! But the more unanswered questions I heard, the more anxiety manifested in me.
Were these questions I was supposed to be asking?? What if I don’t like the answers that I get to these questions? “Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answer to!” would flicker through my head and I’d shake it all off.
Let me be raw for a minute. If you isolated me from human contact and asked me what questions I needed answered, I would have just said, “Now what?” I didn’t CARE about all those other questions! “What’s the plan,” “how long,” “when,” “who,” or “why.” But I started to feel guilty and inadequate that I didn’t care about answering these innocent questions that many loving people were asking me. I wanted to be kind and considerate to the genuine hearts that cared for us, however it was creating anxiety in places where anxiety did not previously exist. It created a game of tug-of-war in my body as I tried to understand why I have the feelings everyone else thought I should have.
With that said, our story picks up one morning at the ranch.
We had our very first appointment with the farrier (the guy who trims and shoes horse hooves). He walks into the pasture, meets and greets our equine vet who had just finished up giving our new rescues a couple vaccines, and introduces himself as Aaron. This is the first time I’m ever talking to a farrier and being that we’ve only had our horses for a couple weeks, I have a lot to learn. Aaron was gracious and patient with my new herd and he spent about 3 hours educating, chatting, and working with me and the horses. Apparently, this type of farrier:client experience was not normal. To give you perspective, I’ve learned that most farriers are in and out. They come, they do, they get paid, and they leave. Relationship, camaraderie, and patience are not part of their usual job description. But God!
Interestingly enough, Aaron wasn’t even the farrier I had an appointment with! I received a text message from the guy I thought I was meeting and he said he couldn’t make it so he was sending someone else to meet me.
When Aaron introduced himself, one of the first things I noticed were his tattoos. Tattoos are interesting in that they usually tell a story. Much like visual emotions painted on someone’s body. However, I couldn’t make out any of his tattoos (without getting uncomfortably close to him or staring, and this was our first meeting so I errored on the side of not making myself look like a creep!)
As Aaron worked on the horse’s hooves, his shirt sleeved moved up and revealed “ERBS 16:9” on the back of his arm. I asked him if it said “Proverbs 16:9” and it did! “Ah ha!,” I thought. An open door to talk about our Lord almighty and with that the conversation took a more specific turn.
I don’t remember much of our spiritual conversation but as Aaron was packing up, there is one thing that he said something that will stick with me for the rest of my life. It went something like this:
“I used to be a man that needed reasons, explanations, and conclusions. I needed to know “why.” But one day, I thought about who we were originally created to be in The Garden. Adam and Eve were created to know only one thing: who God was and I realized our need for information, reasons, explanations, and closure are a result of the Fall.”
In that moment, I had more comfort than ever. It was like Jesus came through Aaron’s words and He stood beside me in solidarity that He was with me and the anxiety was indeed, unnecessary. The anxiety was the “death” that God mentioned to Adam when He said “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Genesis 2:17)
God was speaking His truth to me in a way that allowed me understand that it was okay to not think, ask, or need questions & answers. Asking all these questions was noise. Unnecessary noise that was taking my focus off God.
The only thing I needed to understand was who He was.
If the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is my quest to obtain as much diagnostic information as possible so as to confirm, deny, or predict the pathway and outcome of Cody’s cancer journey, I have just eliminated all need for faith in a good God, a God who can not only heal Cody but is capable to even take this cancer and turn it into something magnificent and wonderful!
I suppose this was the beginning of practically realizing what it meant to put my full trust in and complete dependence on the Lord. To not find my rest and comfort in the words and diagnoses of man, but to comprehend that God knows all and He is the only person, thing, or idea that can provide me true comfort and peace when my world has taken a screaming about-face turn. A peace that surpasses my understanding.