Sweet.

Not the eight pies I just made for tomorrow’s festivities, but God. That’s how I’ve been describing Him lately anyway.

I love words, and so I’m always Googling definitions, synonyms, and even etymologies. When I searched “sweet” this is what I found…

pleasant, delightful, nice, good…kind, gentle, sensitive

Yes, all of those things. God has been all of those things to me in the last month and a half. And really, He is always those things, but lately He’s just seemed so personal, so specific, so intentional with His sweetness.

Reminds me of this verse…

You scrutinize my path and my lying down and are intimately acquainted with all my ways. Psalm 139: 3

Intimately acquainted.

That word choice? That is why I love the NASB translation of the Bible. No other version says intimately acquainted, and the other word choices ~ aware, familiar ~ just aren’t….well…as intimate.

Its Hebrew word connotes the type of familiarity you have with someone you live in the same home with. It means something like “cherishing those you live with and acting in kindness and service toward them.” It reminds me of the handful of times I’ve pulled back my bedcovers to go to sleep at night and found a little note or small gift from Robert or one of my kids on my pillow – usually because they had gone out of town or just wanted to encourage me.

So, I guess you could say that God has been leaving me a lot of very thoughtful pillow notes lately and all throughout a small health scare I recently experienced.

I say scare, because though it was serious and needed to be dealt with immediately, I am doing just fine. My health is good. I ran six miles this morning, made 8 pie crusts, and look forward to having about 25 guests for Thanksgiving tomorrow, but last month I was diagnosed with advanced squamous cell carcinoma.

I’d noticed a very small area of reddish, dry, patchy skin on my left thigh just above my knee sometime in the winter or spring of last year. I thought it was just that: dry skin. But it just never went away.

This last summer, I was looking up a funny spot I noticed on Robert’s neck. Google was giving me absolutely no photos of the place on Robert’s neck (which disappeared overnight) but lots of photos of the spot above my knee. (Probably God’s first and very specific sign.) Still, I thought I was leaning toward hypochondria, and so I never went to the doctor about it.

Then, on October 10 I heard (felt?) what was about as close to an audible voice as you can get, and here is what it said: “You need to call the doctor TODAY, Melanie.”

I can only count on one hand the times in my life I have felt that strongly compelled by God to do something. I knew it was Him, and His message was clear. “Melanie, TODAY.” I did not wait another second, but called my doctor and got an appointment that very afternoon. Robert was at Amherst College for his weekly lunch there and Kayla was at Classical Conversations all day. I didn’t tell either of them what I was doing.

Upon examination, my doctor also thought it was a probably just a tiny spot of eczema, but since I don’t really ever get eczema, she asked me to come back the next day for a biopsy. After the biopsy (not fun, but not terrible), I drove to the Hartford airport to pick up my dad who was coming for a visit from Texas. Kory and his girlfriend would arrive the next day in Boston, and we’d all go pick Cooper up from Gordon College and spend the weekend together in back in Amherst.

It was a wonderful weekend together (see here) and a good distraction from anticipating the lab results. On Monday, Robert and I went for a run before our houseful of guests woke up. Now, we always start our runs together, but we don’t always end them together, and that morning we ended up having distance between us on the bike trail where we run. It was just as I turned to start back home that I got the call and heard these words: advanced squamous cell carcinoma, cancer cells in the margins of the biopsy, second biopsy required, appointment in two weeks.

And here’s where the sweetness of God toward me only intensified, because it was sweet of Him to bring it to my attention months ago, sweet of Him to compel me to go to the doctor when I did. But it was especially sweet of Him to lead me not only to tears as I ran back toward my house, but to prayer…for healing, yes, but also for my doctor who would see me walk through this and who knows me fairly well, for my family, and for the Lord to be somehow glorified in it all. Left in my own fears and selfishness, the tears would have just kept rolling and the prayers would have never come. It was sweet, the places He directed my thoughts and desires on that return trip, and it was not of myself.

Kory and Rebecca left that morning. Cooper had gone back to school the day before, and my dad would be here two more days. I only told Robert the results not wanting to end everyone’s time at home together with this bad news. Plus, I didn’t really have time to think or process or research, so I didn’t know quite what to say.

By Friday, we decided I should tell Kayla, so I did, and she cried. Later I called my boys on the phone, each one expressing sadness and fear. Then, I thought it best to just let our church staff and elders know, so I emailed them. Robert offered to do it for me, but I didn’t want them thinking they couldn’t talk to me about it.

It was really such a weird and confusing thing. It felt weird to just go around telling people, and also weird not to. You hate to say the word cancer, knowing it will burden people for an appropriate response, but you also don’t want anyone feeling isolated or excluded because you didn’t let them know what was going on.

After my email to church leaders, I started getting the sweetest responses via text or phone call or email….or flower delivery. Meghan, our new staff associate, and a recent UMass grad replied with an encouragement from a passage of Scripture we had gone over in our small group last semester. It was from John 9 and about the man born blind…“but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.”

Meghan added, “Praying this is exactly what happens for you as well.”

I’ve already told you God’s sweetness began to intensify with the lab results phone call on Monday and the responses of friends and family on Friday and Saturday, but if I had missed those evidences of God’s kindness and intimacy, He was going to make sure I knew He was dwelling very near come Sunday morning.

Sunday mornings are always the same. I get up before everyone else, shower, get dressed for church, and cook breakfast for Robert and Kayla who leave around 8am. That Sunday was no different. When I finished cooking, I sat down at the kitchen table to wait for the two who would soon eat and run. I was so tempted to just sit there and scroll through the various social media apps on my phone, but the call to read my Bible and pray was tugging at my heart as well. Problem was, my Bible was in the basement, since we’d been sleeping down there while we had family in town. Somehow the trek to the basement felt like such a long, hard journey, and mindlessly scrolling through Facebook felt so easy in comparison.

(And yes, I know I can read the Bible on my phone, but I just really prefer real pages. NASB pages.)

Miraculously, Bible reading and prayer won out, and I sat back down at the kitchen table with tools for the trade. I pulled on the burgundy ribbon in order to open up to the place in my Bible I had left off reading the day before, and there it was: John 9.

And though the tears were brimming, through them I could still see this phrase highlighted on the page…“but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in Him.”

I don’t know how much more clear…or sweet God could be.

pleasant, delightful, nice, good…kind, gentle, sensitive

A pillow note of encouragement left right there in His Word after leaving the very same one right there in an email the day before.

I had lots on the calendar between the first and second biopsies – speaking engagements, retreats, women’s events at church, seminary homework, coffee dates, my small group, and more. They were sweet distractions and meaningful times of ministry.

One weekend I spent over seven hours driving to and from northern Vermont for a retreat. The idea came to listen to a sermon from a pastor and friend in Boston as I drove – and detour from my usual slate of podcasts. It was on 2 Corinthians 4: 7-18. Hope in suffering. Light and momentary affliction. The weight of suffering’s glory in eternity. The meaning in our trials – for us and for others.

All I did was click on the most recent sermon. I had no idea. It was such a sweet gift, and I listened to it all over again on the way home. (You can listen to it here, and I highly recommend it.)

The second biopsy was not fun either – bigger, deeper, seven stitches, a nice scar will always mark the spot – but the results showed no more cancer cells in the margins. Such sweet news.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and I’m kind of overwhelmed with things to be thankful for this time around. (Did I mention the sweet and unexpected note I got in the mail? Yeah, I’ve left several things out.) God knew the news would be good. He knew that I would not be facing major surgery or radiation or chemo or worse. And still He chose to meet me so sweetly along the way. He taught me to what to pray, how to see the situation as an opportunity for worship, that there is meaning in each bit of suffering we face. He was a patient, loving, kind, and sweet Father all throughout.

His works were indeed displayed in me, but more than that, they were displayed to me.

This trial was a very small one in comparison to the suffering I’ve watched others experience, and that made the nearness of God all the more sweet to me. Larger trials, greater suffering is certain to come. Somehow His sweetness in this one makes me fear those less.

And I can’t help thinking about this old hymn…

‘Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus,
Just to take Him at His Word
Just to rest upon His promise,
Just to know, “Thus saith the Lord!”

Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him!
How I’ve proved Him o’er and o’er
Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus!
Oh, for grace to trust Him more!

I’m so glad I learned to trust Him,
Precious Jesus, Savior, Friend
And I know that He is with me,
Will be with me to the end.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends!

May He open your eyes and heart to His sweetness as you celebrate.

(And thank you so much for reading this much-too-long post, but I wanted to share and also have it recorded in a place I also could revisit and remember His faithfulness. As always, I’d really love to hear from you, but I really fear being a spectacle on Facebook as well, so if you could refrain from mentioning the specifics of the diagnosis in the comments there, that would be so wonderful. The weirdness of knowing how to share this certainly carries over to social media platforms! But feel free to comment as much as you like right here on the blog. Many thanks!)