Death is not dying

I landed on this website somehow one night last week. I clicked on the video and thought I might watch a few minutes of it before I went to sleep. Well, 55 minutes later, it was way past my bedtime and I was better for having stayed up, too wrapped up in this woman's words to dare click "stop." Rachel Barkley was diagnosed with terminal cancer in February of this year, and this moving video captures her words only a month later. Her words are honest and moving, funny and hard to hear. She speaks out of a really humble place that welcomes you in and invites you to learn some of what this awful and tragic ordeal has forced her to grasp.

I'm still trying to process much of what she said (and I'm going to have to forfeit a little sleep to watch it again I think), but I wanted to share in case you might be blessed by her words. One of the things she said that has stuck with me over the past few days is "serve with joy." That resonated most with me as a mother; I think most mothers find themselves serving for the better part of their days, weeks, months, . . . and it goes one. How we look at that though might make all the difference in the world. Is it a burden? Is it too much to ask? Or is it a gift that might bring us a little closer to knowing the God who created us? There is truly so much more in her words, but I'll leave it at that (for this morning at least). Even if you don't have 55 minutes to sit down and watch right now, I encourage you to come back to it when you do. It will be worth even a little bit of missed sleep.