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Remembering Kara Tippetts: A Living Story of Grace

On March 22, 2015, Kara Tippetts’ dying ended; she now lives forever with Jesus.

The 38-year-old wife of a church planter and mother of four, a vivacious and truly gracious woman by all accounts, Kara Tippetts was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer in 2012.

She and her husband Jason chose to live their story of grace in front of a watching world. On her blog, Mundane Faithfulness, and in her compelling book, The Hardest Peace, Kara wrote out her wrestling, beckoning us to join her in the journey.

Cancer and life threw her and her beloved its worst, but she kept rising again (by God’s grace alone, she would say). Through this war, Kara, her husband, and her community kept pointing us to The Story — the painful, joyful reality of the Cross we celebrate in this season (SPOILER ALERT!) –

Because of Christ, agony and suffering don’t win. As Sally Lloyd-Jones puts it in the Jesus Storybook Bible, one day “everything sad will come untrue” (Revelation 21).

The ministry of Living Story is about training our eyes to see God’s story of grace – in Scripture – and in real, raw, lived lives. Kara Tippetts was such a living story to many. Today, I share excerpts of one of her pieces that informs us of what it means me to live the gospel in midst of suffering.

When Kara heard that 29-year-old Brittany Maynard had opted for doctor-assisted suicide in the face of a terminal diagnosis, her heart ached. So she composed a letter. From a place of faith, hope, and love, she urged Brittany to hear the possibility of redemption.

  1. Faith is based on remembering God’s rescue in the past to trust God’s goodness and redemption in the present.

Kara’s faith:

Brittany, I love you, and I’m sorry you are dying. I am sorry that we are both being asked to walk a road that feels simply impossible to walk.

As I [prayed] for you, I wondered over the impossibility… that one day the story of my young daughter will be made beautiful in her living because she witnessed my dying.

  1. Hope. Christian hope is based on a memory of the future, the day when Christ will return and restore all broken things.

Kara’s hope:

Dear heart, we simply disagree. Suffering is not the absence of goodness, it is not the absence of beauty, but perhaps it can be the place where true beauty can be known.

Brittany, when we trust Jesus to be the carrier, protector, redeemer of our hearts, death is no longer dying. My heart longs for you to know this truth, this love, this forever living.

  1. Love. Christian love takes the grace that God has extended to us and extends it to others.

Kara’s love:

More importantly, will you hear from my heart that Jesus loves you. He loves you. He loves you. He died an awful death upon a cross so that you would know Him today [and] no longer live separate from Him. He died and His death happened, it is not simply a story.

 

He died and He overcame death three days later, and in that overcoming of death He overcame the death you and I are facing in our cancer.

Brittany Maynard did not change her mind. But Kara left a legacy for us. I thank my God in my every remembrance of this living story I never actually met.

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