Lately, the world around me has been crazy but calm. It has been so weird. cancer and all that belongs to it wants to scare you. Wants you to think that there is nothing that can save you or the opposite, makes you depend on so much worldliness such as medicine and doctors and statistic’s that you begin to loose sight of everything and hold on to fear; fear of the unknown, of the pain, of the amount of time left, of the future of your family without you. Yet, despite all of that, it is easy to look like you have everything in check. It would be easy, at least for me, to make dying look easy. People could say that my faith inspired them, that they wished they could have that same faith, that if in my situation that would respond the same. Yes, even though I do have a strong faith that is not what I want this season of life to be about. I do not want people to point to me. So from the very beginning of this cancer journey, I have prayed one specific prayer, that there can be NOTHING I can steal from this. No glory that I could possess, no fame that I could grasp. I wanted this to be all about God and his power. Power that sometimes is even too much for me to comprehend, much less grasp that it could actually happen. But that is the difference between the God I serve and all the other pseudo gods that are out there fighting for people’s hearts. My God has the power of the impossible. The God I belong to rose Christ from the dead and that power belongs to him and him alone. And because of Christ I can come to God asking for that same power over my life, cleansed of sin and unrighteousness, even though there is a lot of that going on in my life. From the beginning of this journey I have felt, prayed and had confirmation that I will not die from cancer. I never really believed in the power of Gods healing. Let’s face it, there have been so many times in all our lives that we prayed with all our might that a person we loved would not die and despite all the prayers, they did. So I prayed that God would use this to strengthen my faith in area’s of doubts. I believed that I had been healed and that I would never see the cancer again.
Then I did.
When I was told that there were two lymph nodes that looked suspicious and the doctors where using words like recurrence, surgery, positive for melanoma, it really shook me, but only for a few minutes. It started to think that if I really believed I had been healed then this certainly could not be cancer. I was sick when I had the PET Scan so it was very suspect that these nodes could have just been inflamed due to infection. I prayed, I asked and I heard that these nodes would indeed come back negative. Most everyone I told looked at me like I was crazy, in denial, or like it was cute that I believed in a miracle. Not many people believed me. But Ryan and I really felt like this was Gods time to shine to those that did not believe. That when those results came back negative there would be no doubt of the powerful and greatness of God. We were celebrating! I also told people that I would be out of the hospital three days before I was supposed to be released. God told me that it would happen so I new the recovery would be easy for me. I would have surgery on Thursday, be out of the hospital by Saturday and at church on Sunday. Again, people thought I was crazy.
Thursday came faster then I anticipated and I found myself in the holding room for surgery. Still holding onto those promises, still being looked at like I was weird.
To my doctor’s complete surprise he found me alert, and ready to go home on Friday when he made his rounds. Most people at this point are still hooked up to some sort of narcotics for pain and nowhere near ready to come home. I was only on Motrin, for the little pain that I was having. So to everyone’s surprise I was released on Saturday with little to no help from pain relievers.
Sunday I was at church.
I say all that not to brag about my strength, but to show you the power of prayer. I had so many people praying for a speedy recovery that there was no option for me to have a slow one! I actually felt great (despite a little pain) on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday… but by Wednesday I had gone down hill fast.
I found myself back in the hospital Wednesday night and stayed there until Friday afternoon. The most upsetting part about was not the fact that it sucked, but that those who thought I was silly for thinking that I could have a fast recovery, where in a way proven right. I was so frustrated. Every time I had gotten a chance to point to God, it seemed like there would be an earthly counterpoint to it. To make matters worse, while I was in the hospital I got the news that those two nodes had indeed come back positive for cancer. Bummer.
Up until now here is how my prayer life look like, every time I pointed to God, it seemed I was “proven” wrong. From an outsiders prospective, looking like I was silly for believing in Gods Power as well as the Power of Prayer:
Diagnosed with cancer → believing that I was healed → found active lymph nodes with scan → prayed and felt God tell me that those were not cancerous, remembering that I believed in healing → also prayed and believed that I would have a fast recovery → was out of the hospital by Sat and at church on Sunday like I believed God told me → back in the hospital by Wednesday → lymph nodes came back positive for cancer
By Saturday I had become speechless before God. I had prayed and felt and gotten confirmation about everything so why was I here? Why was I, to an outsider, looking like a silly girl with her silly faith? Why was God not answering his promises? I didn’t want my faith to look any magical but the desire of my heart is for people to understand that God is powerful, that prayers are answered and that medicine is not the only way to be cured of a disease. The only thing I had to offer God at this point was tears. As I was crying I began to think of three reasons as to why I was in this position.
a. God lied to me.
b. I really have not been hearing God, but instead been telling myself what I what to hear.
c. God is not done yet.
Well, obviously (at least for me) it cannot be option a: God does not lie. He is truth. So what about option b: it had been confirmed too many times by many different people that it had to be more then me. I was in the word and in prayer and the physical and emotional experiences that I had could no way be made up by me, even if I have the most overactive imagination. That leaves option c. God is not done. There is something more glorious out there that is beyond anything that I can scheme or dream. God does not break his promises to us. What it is, I have no idea and I am not going to try and guess. I had all these pictures in my mind of what the celebrating would look like when we got the news that the nodes were negative. I was planning what I was going to say to people, in other words thinking about me not the Gods Glory. He will give me the words when it is time and they will be from him and not my own mind.
We have been reading in the one-year Bible and right now we are on the story of Joseph (Genesis 37-46). God promises Joseph, through a dream, that he will be leader one day and that his family will even bow down to him. Well obviously when he told his family this they did not like it, espically not his brothers. So his brothers schemed to kill him but end up selling him into slavery where he ended up in prison for a long time. In the end, God remained faithful and his promise was fulfilled, but can you imagine being told that you were going to be a ruler and then ended up in prison for what seemed like forever. It would be so easy just to write off God and dismiss those promises.
I feel like I am in my own prison. I have heard God speak to me and those around me and heard in his word his promises to me, yet here I am feeling like I had this excitement ahead and now all I have are questions. I can choose to dismiss everything God has spoken to me, chalking it all up to desperation, denial or silliness. I can choose to believe that all this faith stuff is a lie. Or I can hold firm onto the God’s promises and power and believe that at the moment it may not look like God is there… he is and he is bigger then ever. He is getting ready to do something so amazing, so unimaginable, so undeniable, that it will be in his timing, perfect timing so there is absolutely no way I can steal any of his glory. So, for those of you who are reading this… hold on tight. I do not know when, where or how, but God is getting ready to reveal something that is bigger then any explanation out there.
