Sep 13
Done any “internal jogging” lately?
That’s the phrase some researchers use to describe the therapeutic benefit of laughter because it increases our heart rate much like physical exercise does. I don’t know about you, but I like the idea of “yucking” it up much better than the notion of taking a run.
When I was first diagnosed with cancer as a young wife and mother, I honestly wondered if I would ever really laugh again. Life felt so very serious and it was hard to imagine having a really good belly laugh over anything.
That’s why when I came home from the hospital; I sent my husband directly to the video store (remember them?) to get me every “Pink Panther” movie he could find. You may not enjoy Peter Seller’s slapstick comedy as the bumbling Inspector Clouseau, but I always have found it impossible to watch and not laugh.
So I watched them all. I laughed through them all. And it was very good medicine.
Now I am not one who believes laughter always can cure what ails you, but I definitely believe the proverb that tells us “a cheerful heart is good medicine.” My Bible footnotes say the literal translation is “a cheerful heart causes good healing.”
It is a real understatement to say that cancer (or any other serious illness) isn’t very funny. But it’s not an overstatement to say that we can find joy and even laughter in the midst of theses trials. You have to look for it and sometimes you have to even create it for yourself (go ahead and rent some funny movies!).
If you can’t think of anything funny or a reason to be cheerful, try this one from Psalm 118:24: This is the day the LORD has made, we will rejoice and be glad in it!”
Every day is a gift from God. The fact that you are alive is reason enough to rejoice. You can show love and be loved. No matter what else happens–or doesn’t happen–go ahead and be glad in today. It will be good medicine. And here’s a prayer you may want to pray today (based on Nehemiah 8:10 and Numbers 6:24-26):
Lord, I pray that You will give me a cheerful heart, in spite of all I’ve gone through and all that still is ahead. I know I don’t have to just smile, pretend I’m happy and that everything is all right. But I do want to feel Your quiet joy in me and even hear laughter from my lips. I want to remember that there is life after and even with a serious illness.
Please help me to heed Nehemiah’s words not to be dejected and sad, for the joy of the Lord is my strength. And Holy Spirit, please develop in me the fruit of joy—a joy that’s not based on my circumstances, but on my relationship with my Father. Let it be a joy that is simply grateful for the gift of another day to love and be loved.
I pray, Lord, that You will bless me and protect me. That You will smile on me and be gracious to me. And that You will show me Your favor and give me Your peace. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
Today’s Tip: Remember it’s impossible to tickle yourself, so get some help to tickle your funny bone—watch a comedy, browse a store’s humorous greeting card section or hang out with a funny friend. Laughter, like yawning is contagious! (Check out today’s “Laughing Song”–no amazing lyrics, just puppets yucking it up 🙂 )
(This blog is adapted from a devotional I had published in the book Praying through Cancer:Set Your Heart Free from Fear, copyright 2006 Susan Sorensen and Laura Geist, W Publishing Co., a division of Thomas Nelson Inc.)
(If the music video doesn’t automatically load, please copy, paste and insert this link to enjoy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5V-I5Wy334&list=RDq5V-I5Wy334#t=1 )
Sep 06
These halls are quiet on a Sunday morning with only the sound of monitors to echo in the silence of large emergency room.
Not this again. I am tired of this place.
It’s been a while since I’ve stood here, and yet it comes right back as if it were but a minute past. The too quiet of suppressed discomfort and fear, the too still of exhaustion, all mixed into the smell of sterility and latex.
“Are they going to do anything that hurts me, Mom?”
“No, son.” I hope not, son.
Chase is seven now. He’s five whole years past the first minute we heard the awful words “There’s a large mass”. He’s five whole years into his aggressive, malignant brain and spine tumors and his eye problems and his heart and hearing issues, and every other issue that seems to walk hand-in-hand with that cancer word.
Every time he is wheeled into the MRI, the news comes that his status remains “No Evidence of Disease”, but the magnetic resonance can’t quite pick up on the evidence of pain, suffering, brokenness, and exhaustion.
This Sunday morning, the rest of the family is at church and Chase and I, we sit in the darkened ER room not because he’s had a seizure, or a relapse, or even a headache. Oh no, we sit in this space because his face is swelling and it needs to be stopped. The doctor explains in matter-of-fact tones that the airways are crucial and swelling is sometimes bad for breathing.
And my balding boy’s face swells and grows some more against cheeks tinged pink with fevers because when you’ve had ten different chemotherapies and radiation and everything but the kitchen sink thrown at your body when you could barely walk, well, sometimes your immune system decides to go A.W.O.L. over a cavity. One little cavity that goes rogue and becomes an abscess and then suddenly we are sitting in the ER on a Sunday morning instead of going to church. Again.
I want to fight it. I don’t want this to be how the day goes.
And yet, isn’t this the way of it all too often when it comes to life and cancer? The big things are sometimes the easiest to accept because they just straight-up rob you of breath and heart beats and feel so inevitable in their “bigness”. It’s the little things like the port that occludes, the eyelashes that fall out, the random side effect or the ninety-seventh time to the ER that just wastes away at my patience and my faith. The little foxes in the vineyard of the faith marriage between my Savior and me [Song of Solomon 2:15] are beeping monitors, sticky IV needles, and the nurses who say “Okay, we just have one more set of questions for you here.” Make it stop, please Lord.
So many times I have prayed to be delivered from the awful repeat of the hospital day. So many times the answer is no. And quite a handful of times the answer is no and there’s more.
So many wild cards…
And yet, here’s the thing and don’t miss it…
Jesus is in charge of the wild cards. In truth, the wild is not wild to him. “To [God] the night shines bright as day. Darkness and light are the same to you.” It only looks upside-down and inside-out to us.
So where do you go when it’s the ninety-seventh hit in a row on your patience and faith is feeling really thin and worn?
I’m so glad you asked. Come sit in the ER with me – in these uncomfortable chairs – and we will review what we know to be true. Because I need to hear it again…and maybe you do too?
God is good even when He doesn’t do what we ask: “Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said ‘My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness’.” [2 Corinthians 12:8-9a]
God sees things we cannot see: “Now we see things imperfectly like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely just as God now knows me completely.” [1 Corinthians 13:12]
God is for us: “The Lord himself will fight for you. Just stay calm.” [Exodus 14:14]
And here’s why I lay these verses down again and again even though they hold no help for radiation-rotten teeth, and no cure for a 7-year-old desperately broken by a tragic disease. Here’s why: because I may never get the answers I want on this side of heaven. I may never see the healing I desire, the miracles I crave, and the next time I pray not to go to the ER, there’s a very real chance that I could end up with Chase admitted instead – because this is the way of the cancer world: two steps back for every one slow shuffle forward.
But this: God’s words are sharper than the sharpest scalpel and cleave through everything that holds us back from his love. And God’s promises are more tried and true than the best treatments the cutting edge of research has to offer. And sometime, someday, though the hair might fall, and the skin color fade, this word of the Lord is forever and ever, AMEN.
In Christ alone, our hope is found.
So wherever you are this week, whatever you’ve asked to be released from, whatever you just can’t possibly do one more time, actually, YOU CAN.
“For when I am weak, then I am strong”…IN CHRIST. [2 Corinthians 12:10]
Thank you so much for stepping into the ER room with me. Until we step into the throne room of our precious Jesus, and I get to meet you, we will take this life as it comes in grace… moment by moment.
TODAY’S GUEST BLOGGER is Ellie Poole Ewoldt, a wife, mother, daughter, sister, and friend. Her days are spent in the craziness of caring for four little kids, one of whom is a cancer survivor. www.chaseawaycancer.com
Aug 30
I know those of you who read this blog have many prayers on your heart. Prayers for yourself and prayers for those you love.
The song below is more than a wish–it’s my prayer for you, not just today, but every day. It’s an “old” song I love by Scott Wesley Brown and I’ve posted two different versions–the original with added beautiful photos from nature. And a remake from Scott’s “Out of Africa” CD with no video. Both versions have a long instrumental intro, but don’t give up, the lyrics are coming! (All that “waiting” reminds me that often we pray and don’t see the answers coming nearly as soon as we would like!)
So either enjoy some of God’s beauty or close your eyes and just feel His presence. Either way, please let me “wish”–and pray Jesus for you.
Aug 23
I remember back in 1990 when doctors told me I had about a 40- or 50-percent chance of surviving my colon cancer, which had metastasized to several lymph nodes. I felt as if someone were going to toss a coin: heads, I live; tails, I don’t.
I desperately wanted some kind of guarantee that if I was going to put myself through a year’s worth of weekly chemotherapy; I was going to be okay. But there was no such guarantee.
There were plenty of “helpful” people who offered me other kinds of “guarantees:”
Eat certain natural foods and you will be cured.
Drink a certain tea and you will be cured.
Take certain vitamin supplements and you will be cured.
But I am at heart a skeptical former newspaper reporter and I knew there was no way all these methods really could deliver what they were promising, especially since many of their recommendations were directly opposed to one another!
I wanted to believe that one of them really was the answer, but which one was it and what if I picked the wrong one? Which had the 100-percent guarantee that I could trust?
And then I remembered.
“Some trust in chariots (food and drink) and some in horses (vitamins and herbs),
But we trust in the name of the LORD our God.” Psalm 20:7 (italics mine)
It wasn’t which had an ironclad guarantee; it was Who. My diagnosis, my treatment, my prognosis…and my future were in His hands and I had His guaranteed promise that when I put my hope in Him I would not be disappointed.
Then you will know that I am the LORD; those who hope in me will not be disappointed. Isaiah 49:23
Don’t stress yourself out trying to find the “magic cure” for cancer or some other serious illness—it doesn’t exist. If you do add complementary therapies to your treatment, discuss them with your physician and choose things that will strengthen your body, mind and spirit.
And here’s a prayer guaranteed to supernaturally empower you on your journey:
Heavenly Father, Please forgive me for rushing about trying to find something that will give me complete assurance and guarantees. I know better than that. I know that the things of this world are very temporary—even cures for disease don’t last forever. I don’t want to spend my time chasing after these things, but instead I want to seek You with all my heart.
Help me to remember that no matter how many times I am cured, I still am going to die someday and when that happens if I am a true Christ-follower, I really will be more alive than I have ever been! Please keep me from putting my trust and my hope in anything but You. I humbly ask these things in the name of Jesus, the One who died for my sins. Amen.
(This blog is adapted from a devotional I had published in the book Praying through Cancer:Set Your Heart Free from Fear, copyright 2006 Susan Sorensen and Laura Geist, W Publishing Co., a division of Thomas Nelson Inc.)
**Don’t miss today’s original song by California youth pastor, Jason David, who had most of his tongue removed because of cancer and yet continues to sing God’s praise http://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2017/july/cancer-took-most-of-his-tongue-but-this-pastor-is-still-singing-gods-praise ) **
(If the music video below doesn’t automatically load, please copy, paste and click on this link to enjoy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ga_m8wqg3us )
Aug 16
My cancer diagnosis in 1990 was especially upsetting to my husband because he had lost his first wife nearly 20 years before to ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) while they were still newlyweds. To watch me then face a life-threatening illness and an uncertain future was more than he felt he could bear.
One day as he was riding home from the hospital after visiting me during my post-surgical stay, he came upon a car with a bumper sticker that read:
As a seminary graduate, my husband theologically knew the right answer to that question. And as a longtime pastor, he often had preached the affirmative answer to that query. But that day he was so overcome with worry and fear of losing yet another wife that he wondered out loud: “Is He really?” “Is Jesus really enough?”
Have you asked that same question?
If I lose a breast…is Jesus enough?
If I get sick during treatments…is Jesus enough?
If I lose my hair to chemo…is Jesus enough?
If I have to quit work…is Jesus enough?
And worst of all, if the cure doesn’t come…is Jesus really enough?
My husband answered that question for himself two weeks later when he stepped into the pulpit on Sunday morning and preached one of his most powerful sermons ever, entitled “Jesus is Enough.” In it, he reminded all of us—and himself—that God doesn’t need to do another thing for us on this earth. He has given us His one and only Son, and in Him we have everything we need to cope with this life and every promise for eternal life. No matter what else does, or doesn’t happen to us, God doesn’t need to do another thing to prove to us that indeed, Jesus is enough.
Dear Jesus, It feels unfair to have to face this illness after I’ve tried so hard to live for You. And then I remember that You lived completely for your Father and life still was very unfair to You. I’m glad You understand what I’m feeling and most of all, I’m so grateful that Your presence living in me is enough for me. Please help me deal with the changes that this disease is bringing into my life/my loved one’s life. I pray they all will be temporary ones and that health will be restored completely. But even if it’s not, I pray that my soul will be satisfied in You alone. I pray all this in Your name. Amen.
Today’s Tip: Listen for the word “ENOUGH” in conversations and when you hear it, remind yourself that Jesus IS enough.
(This blog is adapted from a devotional I had published in the book Praying through Cancer:Set Your Heart Free from Fear, copyright 2006 Susan Sorensen and Laura Geist, W Publishing Co., a division of Thomas Nelson Inc.)
I know I included this same song recently, but I LOVE it and it fits better than any other I could find–please enjoy it again! 🙂
(If the music video doesn’t automatically load, please copy, paste and insert this link to enjoy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6fA35Ved-Y&list=RDB6fA35Ved-Y )
I’m a newspaper reporter-turned-author. And I’m a passionate encourager, but always a truth-teller. I worked for nearly two decades in a unique position as a patient advocate in my oncologist’s office and the Cancer Prayer Support Group I founded in 1991 is the country’s oldest such faith-based group.
