Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Beautiful Hedges

  
  Cindi and I have been waiting a little bit on this post, because this beautiful girl is close to our hearts.  We wanted to make sure we did it right, we wanted to make sure we conveyed the strength, the peacefulness, the joy that makes Christy beautiful. We finally realized, though, that there's just not enough words.  So here's our post about Christy, just take what we say and add more strength, more peace, more joy, and more beauty.


  Many months ago, Christy heard her doctor say the words all women dread...breast cancer.  She was about to embark on that difficult journey so many women have to take.  Through treatments, sickness, waiting, hair loss, more sickness, and surgeries.  Unless you've been through it, you don't understand the difficulty.  You don't fully understand the loneliness, fear, the utter frustration of having to rely on others when your own body is too weak.  You, and I, don't understand how hard it is to 'fight' something that is attacking you from the inside.  


  Christy knows the fight.  But she also had something that many women don't have.  She had hedges.  


  Job 1:10- Have You not made a hedge about him and his house and all that he has, on every side?


  The Lord has been building up hedges around Christy most of her life, and she's worked on cultivating those hedges.  He gave her a strong, faithful husband...she cultivated her marriage.  He gave her three beautiful children...she cultivated their values, their faith foundation and their education. He put her in circumstances where she met new people...she cultivated strong friendships. 


   He gave her Himself...she cultivated her relationship with him through prayer and meditation of His Word.  


  So when the cancer struck, Christy's hedges were high and deep.  Her children saw her come through it, and they commented on her strength.  Her friends saw her come through it, and they commented on her peacefulness.  


  But her husband, the one on this earth who knows Christy best,  wasn't surprised, because he's worked on those hedges around his beautiful wife, too. 


  Work on your own hedges, Beautiful Girls!  Cultivate them now and you'll have protection in the battles of life!