Deserving

We're just about the same age - born to bid the late 80s adieu and to usher in the great age of the 90s.  She grew up in California; I grew up in Wisconsin. Many states and a mighty wide river between our homes means I don't know my cousin as well as I wish I did. I can't tell you secret stories from her past, or her favorite color. I don't know if she prefers the beach or the mountains. But I do know a few things.

My cousin is beautiful. She is strong, and she is smart. She is a great many things that I wish I were.

My cousin is also struggling. She is strong, but she is fighting. Fighting an enemy that lacks the courage to present itself, one that hides away where only MRIs and doctors' speculations and bombardments of radiation can find it.

She doesn't deserve this. Her family doesn't deserve this. 

We're just about the same age; why her, not me? I could just as easily be the one lying in a sterile hospital room. Am I not more deserving than she?

No. No one deserves this.

I've never done a very good job of understanding who deserves what. My concept of how it should all work very rarely plays itself out. But I've discovered that I'm grateful my ideas aren't realized.

There's One who knows the end from the beginning and considers not who deserves what, but what goes to whom. And He decided long before the late 80s and great 90s to give us something we don't deserve: Grace.

And now I realize that grace is the gift of a beautiful person who shares a beautiful life with those who love her. Grace is the promise that we can ask for something, even something miraculous, and joyfully anticipate the outcome. Grace is the God-given ability to praise in the midst of peril. Grace is a hope beyond tomorrow, a hope that burns within our hearts.

I don't deserve the right to ask the Great Healer to attend to my requests. But I claim Grace, and He's on call.

Pray for Daphne.