The last two years of Kara Tippetts's life have been tough. It was back in July 2012 she received the news that she had breast cancer and although she has fought bravely against it, it has continued to grow and spread throughout her body, and is now terminal.
Kara discovered her cancer not long after moving to Colorado Springs with her husband Jason Tippetts to plant a new church.
While she could have just given up on life and God's work, or allowed herself to be overwhelmed by sorrow, bitterness or frustration, she has chosen to keep living every day in the love and grace of God.
In fact, the mother-of-four has learned to "expect" grace in the difficult place – hence the title of her new book, The Hardest Peace: Expecting Grace in the Midst of Life's Hard.
The book, out from David C Cook on October 1, draws from posts over the last two years to her personal blog, Mundane Faithfulness
On her blog, she writes that the book is more than just her story and journey with cancer, but a resource for all people to help them deal with their own "bitter edges of life", whatever they may be.
The back cover states honestly that Kara doesn't offer all the answers for when life is hard, but what she does do is invite readers to move away from fear and control, and towards peace, grace and an assurance of the God who is with us in the mundane and the suffering.
In an interview with World Mag, she elaborates on her heart behind the book.
"I am not trying to win at having the hardest story. I'm trying to get us all to look for God's grace in the midst of any 'hard'," she says.
"Though my hard is cancer, each of us face hard every single day. We have an expectation of what life would be, and yet it becomes unmet."
After a summer break from Colorado last year, she returned to the news that she had stage four metastatic cancer, meaning it had spread to her blood and organs. Despite aggressive treatment and a hysterectomy, her cancer has "just been growing and growing and growing".
"The story is cancer growing, and Jason and I just looking for Jesus in the midst of it," she explains.
Despite having to wake up every day to the difficult reality of an incurable cancer, Kara is remarkably positive.
"When you have the horizons of your days shortened, you can either curl up in a ball and cash yourself out and just wait to die, or you can begin to really live," she says.
And the practical aspects of life still go on, despite how she's feeling. The daily routine still includes getting up and making pack lunches for her kids, nursing their cuts and scrapes, and sorting out the sibling rivalry.
"I have to still keep going, and so while I still have this breath, I'm planning on using it faithfully."
At the heart of her book is the hope that people would no longer be afraid of the hard things in their lives "but allow those hard things to be the things that make us see how much we need God".
"I think so much of our culture is about winning … In the losing by this world's standards, I'm seeing how kept and how loved I am and I want other people to see that, because everyone, everyone, everyone has hard in their life," she says.
"Like I said, mine is cancer, but everyone has something, and some people are hiding it and not realising that God can use it in a unique way."
Read the full interview on World Mag here
