St Francis de Sales on My Refrigerator Door

This week at "A Word in Season", I share how I was blest by the timely words of St Francis de Sales during a particularly difficult season in my life.

Here's a snip:

Diagnosed with breast cancer at age 36, I was a young wife and mother to three children under age 9. To put it mildly, I was a mess over the news. And having a writer's vivid imagination, the kind that often writes the end of the script in my head while the play is still the first act, I was tending toward pessimism. (I have since worked to suspend that habit, learning that God is the superior scriptwriter, and he already knows the end of the story.)

But back then, my pessimist's wild imaginings coupled with a volatile pathology report brought misery. My believer's heart needed a trauma intervention.

God's rescue squad arrived in the form of my loved ones, my church, and a 16th-century saint I had heard about but never took serious note of. Until I read his words:

Do not look forward in fear

to the changes of life;

rather look to them with full hope

as they arise.

God, whose very own you are,

will lead you safely through all things;

and when you cannot stand it, 

God will carry you in His arms.

Do not fear what may happen tomorrow;

the same everlasting Father who cared for you today

will take care of you then and every day.

He will either shield you from suffering,

Or will give you unfailing strength to bear it.

Be at peace 

And put aside all anxious thoughts and imaginations,

The whole story is here.