taleof2trees.com

I listened to a message recently by Graham Cooke, a favourite of mine, where he talks about being able to ask God, in the midst of a spiritual attack or difficulty, “Who do You want to be for me in this situation?”

I like to walk early in the mornings before breakfast, to pray and have a conversation with God, committing my day to Him. I use the time to listen…quiet my mind and just listen. After a blustery weekend with winds that made walking in bushland dangerous, this particular morning was sunny and still.

I have found a track into the bush near our home with a small clearing that has become my sanctuary under the open sky, surrounded by scrubby bush and frequented by finches that observe me from the branches. It’s beautiful.

This morning, I was feeling a bit down. Things I’d been praying for just had not eventuated and in my humanness, was struggling to contain my disappointment. I asked God who he wanted to be for me today and what aspect of His character, His nature, did He want me to meditate on. As I began to pray quietly The Lord’s Prayer, I saw myself as a little girl…in checked woollen pants 6 inches too short, an old misshapen knitted jumper, my hair cut short and untidy, my front tooth not quite yet dislodged and jutting out…a dishevelled, awkward little soul.

In this image, I was running towards “Papa”….His arms wide and welcoming, a broad smile on His face and kind laughing eyes. He bent and swooped me up into His arms, laughing, and I snuggled in for comfort. He sat me on His knee and held me close while we talked together.

I began to weep, tears flowing down my cheeks, soaking my shirt. I didn’t bring enough tissues. I wasn’t prepared for this at all! I felt so overwhelmingly loved in that moment…that gawky kid who had been shuffled off to relative’s places to stay for extended periods. One of 6 kids at that time it has been told that these times away were in my best interests.

That was who He showed me this morning…The Loving Father…my loving Father and a heart-place no earthly father could fill.

It was not a distressing time. My tears were healing tears in a realisation of my deep childlike sadness for a father who was incapable, because of his own brokenness, to love me as a father ought and a forgiveness towards him. The peace that flowed from that was the sense of God’s unconditional and overarching love and acceptance. I was held in absolute joy as my child self. I felt safe, seen, free.

I walked home feeling God had my hand…that warmth and security to take me through the day. I recently heard a song called “You matter to me” sung by a father & daughter duet. I heard that song in the context of this blog post. To know that I matter to The Almighty and that the Sovereign God loves me, is extraordinary and on those days when I’m not feeling it, I sing this to remind myself.

“How deep the Father’s love for us…how vast, beyond all measure”

Ephesians 3:18 “And may you be able to feel and understand, as all God’s children should, how long, how wide, how deep, and how high His love really is, and to experience this love for yourselves, though it is so great that you will never see the end of it or fully understand it. And so at last you will be filled up with God Himself”.

I did not want to let this momentous day go by without honouring my mothers, both amazing women of faith for whom I will be eternally grateful for having been loved by them. Here they are…my tiny Mum and my mother-in-law with my talented son, Benjamin, as The Mad Hatter.

My Mum was a small woman and considered her life small, her contribution to it small. A quiet, behind-the-scenes girl, living in the shadow of her husband: a stay-at-home Mum caring over the years, for 8 kids, with few friends and contacts outside of her Sunday church going. She lived caring for her family in her quiet faith. She was oblivious to the impact she had on those around her.

She was a card giver. When Mum went shopping for greeting cards, she was relentless in her search for just the right card for the person she was purchasing it for and testament to that, even as her daughter, I have kept every card she gave me. They were always beautiful. She could write in a card what her confidence would not allow her to say in person and she wrote words of great wisdom and encouragement and could touch someone’s life in a deep and personal way through that gift she did not recognise in herself.

 Mum loved her things. They were important to her. She had a cabinet of collector’s porcelain dolls, a doll’s house she had been given to assemble and decorate, meticulously done and everything fastidiously ordered and clean. Her home was her pride. To visit her, the fine china and beautiful supper cloth were formally set on the table with several treats and biscuits, sweet and savoury ready for tea. She had a gift for hospitality yet seldom invited anyone in and rarely called anyone on the phone yet was thrilled when any of us took the time to visit or call her.

After a time in hospital following cancer treatment, she was returned home only to find she had lost the capacity to manage her own care in independent living. We had to return her to hospital with plans to arrange ongoing care.  As we drove out of the retirement village she just said, very quietly, “Goodbye house”. She knew in that moment that she would not return. It broke my heart, yet she was not distressed. Sad obviously but not distressed. It was a simple realisation that she was “going home” and suddenly all that had once seemed important wasn’t anymore.

After Mum passed away in 2012, we stored her furniture for a time. A year or two later I found her bedside table drawers, covered in our garage, exactly as she had left them. Her drawers were filled with her KYB study notes, her Bible and a huge selection of cards at the ready for any given situation. Her Bible was well worn and inside the front cover were 2 handwritten notes. One was her handwriting, a note of God’s faithfulness and encouragement she had written to remind herself in her last months of life. The other, in a hand I do not know, was a poem called *His Plan*, stating God’s perfect plan for us, executed to the finest detail. She had absolute confidence in the God who would sustain her. She has left a legacy of faith, quiet determination and unwavering trust in God. Quite a footprint for someone so small.

What more can I say! Amen.

Now my husband’s mum..and my second Mum from the age of 15.

Almost the opposite in stature on all levels, Mum was outgoing, proud, adventurous, a force to be reckoned with if you dared stand against her truth on any matter. A migrant from Holland, Mum came from a very conventional faith and upbringing to Australia with her then fiance and his brother to make a life here. They knew no English. She a dressmaker, Pap a baker, and they made their way as pioneers , doing it tough but revelling in the freedoms and adventure of it all. Friendships were forged with surrounding neighbours, many of them fellow migrants and lifelong relationships were laid, with Mum being the driving force. She worked hard, honoured her friendships always, was loyal and independent.

Their beginnings in half a house, was heaven to her. She had a fierce pride in what was hard won. They didn’t have the best but it didn’t matter and she readily shared whatever she had.

Mum had a solid faith in God but unlike my mother, where nothing was ever questioned, after church on Sundays, the sermon was debated, discussed and sometimes debunked, usually at Pap’s hand. Mum would tolerate this to a point and then make it abundantly clear if the boundary was crossed. The basis of her faith in God was not to be questioned. However there was no fear in calling to question another’s interpretation or delivery of their faith.

Mum had 3 rounds of cancer. When asked the first time if she ever asked God “Why me?”, she answered matter of factly, “Why not me?”

Each time she faced her health dilemma head on, no fuss. Do what had to be done and get on with it. That’s not to say she didnt struggle but her life had not allowed for any self pity…. A Stoic. Not having had the luxury of allowing herself to be emotional, much of her struggle was never voiced or written.

Her last months were demanding on her reserves of stoicism. She was weak but not beaten. Ever practical, we would sit in the evenings and sort through her belongings, labelling artwork, listening to the stories that went with each piece of jewelry, laughing at memories . Other residents from the village would come and sit with her during the day but walk away having been encouraged rather than being the encourager. She carried herself with poise and an inner strength that came from her faith.

She knew when her time had come. She looked around her unit as she was being taken to hospital and declared she had no regrets. She had been happy and grateful for her life.

We, as a family, have a wealth of Mum’s art and handiwork as reminders of her giftedness and her memoirs of her amazing life. My kids always referred to their physical makeup , coming from their Dutch heritage, as being “built by Smeg”…solid, dependable, immovable. Their Oma’s faith was undeniably in that category, as well.

Do I draw a long bow to try and refer to the two trees in this blog? Both of these women were anchored in their belief in God. In many storms here in the mountains where the soil is shallow and the root systems of tall trees are only a shallow basin, it doesn’t take much of a storm to uproot them. When the roots are deep and strong, the tree can withstand the storms and stand strong. So, I will leave you with this verse from Colossians 2:7

“Let your roots grow down into Him and let your lives be built on Him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught and you will overflow with thankfulness”.

There is a kit for everything these days, all neatly packaged, all inclusive, with a predetermined end product. We have been trained to expect a set outcome. Follow the instructions and you can be assured of a perfect result.

Life is not like that. I had a cancer diagnosis. The packaged treatment plan was laid out before me with the timeline, the guaranteed delivery and percentage likelihood probable outcome, the expected manifestation of treatment effects and all presented with the expectation that compliance with the stated instructions would give me the desired results.

The other side of the coin was the road less travelled. There were no guarantees, there were many different packages and faith in my body’s ability to respond to healing influences of fresh food, positive outlook, supplementation, rest and laughter.

Then there was the belief in supernatural healing. Many accounts of God’s miraculous intervention into the lives of believers and even people with no expectation or belief, are written and told.

 So, I went to New Zealand for 2 weeks with my husband to try and make some sense of what was happening to me and what my response to this crisis would be. The crushing reality was I had breast cancer and I needed to respond quickly.

I had shunned and rejected God up to this point because of a personal trauma, my trust in a God of love shattered. I had turned in a health crisis, first of my mother’s, then my husband’s mother and now my own, to alternative therapies and by association, to alternative beliefs…still in “Source” but in the “Self-Help “aisle. My initial cries for help were from this place to an impersonal “deity” who spoke through channelling or angels…but I, for reasons inexplicable to me at the time, always substituted their title…for God. God heard me amidst all the YouTube noise, talks and podcasts on manifestations of my heart’s desires and I found myself on the floor before Him in tears and anguish. That was how I spent my weeks in New Zealand…on the floor in hotel rooms, weeping in parks, walking for hours in prayer and petition for the miraculous, a sign, yes God, an eagle so I would know I could trust Him and my judgement on what to do…and an escape from the reality I now faced.

Fear won! On coming home, because the cancer was threatening to rupture through my skin…the way Mum’s had done, I commenced conventional medical treatment, a combination of chemotherapy and immunotherapy for 12 weeks, to be followed by a mastectomy.

My head and heart still railed against the treatment. I became well acquainted with the floor. I spent countless hours in prayer and Bible study, searching for direction, guidance, wisdom with regards to continuing treatment. We were living in a caravan behind our house, which was being completely renovated. The bush was close so I would take my Bible and notebook and sit on a rock on the edge of the gully early in the morning and journal my unfolding relationship with God.

My Bible dusted off, I was drawn to the story of the haemorrhaging woman who dared to reach out and touch the hem of Jesus’ cloak as He passed by and was healed. She hadn’t intended to be noticed or seen. She just had a hope that if she could just get close enough and brush his clothing, she would be healed. She believed it was possible.

It was with that story from Matthew 9:20…a few short verses, that something in me wanted to take God at His Word. I just wanted to reach out and be healed. His response to that woman when he realised, amongst the crushing crowd, that someone had taken healing power from him was to say to her “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. Your disease is healed.” Could I believe that? Could I trust that He would do that for me?

In the throes of treatment, I attended a Hillsong Conference. Following a healing service in which many were prayed over and healed, I found I was not, or at least I had no physical manifestation of the healing I had hoped and prayed for. Sitting outside the stadium I was questioning my husband about a comment made at the service about sometimes needing to do something more. It didn’t make sense but I had to hold to my faith and belief that God had a plan.

A stranger approached me at that moment of thought, introduced himself and told me God had told him to come and speak to me. He said, “God has heard your prayers and seen your faith and said to call you Daughter”. In disbelief I asked this poor man…was there more? Where was the rest of it?? Your faith has made you well? Apologetically, he confirmed those were the words given. We wept together, hugged and he left.

To not drag this out, I made certain choices about treatment…there are those trees again…2 trees, that took me to decide for myself before God would bless me but bless me, He did. Sometimes we have to take the step of faith first. I got my eagle! Not in New Zealand, where eagles fly often, but walking into my property in the mountains in NSW and it circled above my head for 10 minutes with me weeping underneath.

Has my experience been neatly packaged? No. Did God answer my prayers in a way I expected. No…no guarantee of outcome, at least not in any way I imagined. But faithful? Absolutely. The instructions? Read His Word…He will lead you. Trustworthy? Yes…when I give up control, let go and accept things will work out according to His plan and timing…not mine. And that is a work in progress…a daily standing before the 2 trees and having to choose.

My name is Naomi. I am not well known; I have a handful of social media friends and am pretty much a complete newbie to all thing’s technology.  While out walking and praying, as has become my habit these past months, I had a new experience of “hearing” God speak to me. I have heard lots of people say God “spoke” to them and I have always wondered what that meant and even now, I am not sure I could adequately describe it. It was not a voice per say but it was clear and audible to me on the inside…a strong sense of knowing. It was a strange phenomenon for me, but it was undeniably God. I know because He told me to write a blog! Had anyone else told me to do that I would have laughed out loud. I was not even sure what one was…and am learning here now as I go, so be patient with me.

Why the title of the blog? The concept of the two trees has come from a sermon I heard preached in 2019 by a well-known minister form the US, Bill Johnson, whom I heard for the first time at the Hillsong Conference. He spoke of our life of choices everyday as choosing between two trees, as it had been for Adam & Eve in the Genesis story of the trees in the Garden of Eden.

Why a blog? I had thought after the death of my mother in 2012 from cancer and then of my husband’s mother in 2018 that I would write a book. Both mothers had a strong faith that saw them through their cancer journey to their deaths. Each had a vastly different expression of their faith based on their upbringing, their life experiences and their confrontation with mortality. To have had the privilege of being loved by them both and to have been able to love and support them, along with all their children and grandchildren was one of God’s greatest gifts. Both were remarkable women and impacted their families, their friends and their caregivers in how they carried themselves through all of life’s challenges and triumphs. I felt their lives ought to be honoured in the telling of it and I hoped my observation and experience of them through the lens of that faith might be a help to others.

It was in the space between these two tragedies that my own health suffered and I thrust myself into all thing’s natural health. I read, I researched, I wrote copious notes. My list of subscriptions to health-related sites grew and as I “managed” my health challenges with the help of a range of health professionals, my supplements began to spill out and over much of the kitchen and my calendar was full of ongoing appointments. My faith was in tatters and I was increasingly led to more and more New Age material, all of which I drew on in my mother-in-law’s final months when the medical system said there was nothing more to do for her.

Then, the idea of the book took on a new perspective…my own cancer experience. Weeks before Mum passed away, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I was no longer the observer telling the story of another’s life…now my own hung in the balance. Now decisions I had advised against in discussions with my mother’s regarding conventional treatment, I was forced to contemplate and make for myself. This was my moment of truth and it involved, on any given day, choices. Do I choose conventional or natural therapies? Which doctor do I see? Biopsy or no biopsy? Diets? Supplements? God or “Source/Universe/Self?

Hindsight is a marvellous thing. I am so grateful God heard my cry. A year down the track and in great health, I can look back and see how God pursued me, how He led me, cared for me, answered my prayers with amazing grace and  brought me to an undeniable faith in His goodness and in His Word.

I hope in this blog to share aspects of my past year with you, the tears, trials and triumphs. This is not a cancer-survivor blog…even though that has been the outcome, thanks be to God. There are many inspiring stories of great courage and strength of character to draw upon.

I am not sure where God is taking you, the reader, and me on this journey. I have a story to tell. We all do. What I have been asked to share with you, I can only hope and pray that God will speak into your life through my story and will pursue you and then lead you to those places within you that He wants to change, as He has done me . He wants to help you, heal you, restore your wholeness. The question is, are you ready and willing to allow Him to take you into those deep places? It’s not a journey for the faint-hearted but if you approach Him as a child climbing joyously into His lap with the belief and expectation that He loves you as no one else could ever love you, it’s not risky at all.

Matthew 18:3 And Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the Kingdom of God”.

That is one of the trees! This may be your time to choose between the two trees He has placed before you.