Category: faith

Jul 12

A Prayer for Healing

 

 

 

 

A Cancer Patient’s Prayer for Healing
 (Ed. note–substitute any disease/trial for “cancer.”)

          Father God, I choose to believe that you are the same yesterday, today, and forever.  I believe that you healed people in the Bible, that you have healed people in history since then, and that you are still healing people today.  You are all-powerful.  For you, cancer is very easy to heal, if you so choose.  And your love and compassion for your people is very great.

God, I confess to you that I have fallen far short of your demands for my life.  I have sinned in thought, word, and deed.  I have not given you the thanks and praise you deserve, nor have I treated my family and neighbors with the love they deserve.  Show me, God, if I have an unforgiving heart.  Give me the grace to forgive those who have wounded me.  Show me if there is any other bad attitude or habit in me that you have wanted me to deal with.

Thank you, Lord, that you are a God of forgiveness and compassion.  Thank you, too, for being a God who loves to bless the unworthy.  I ask you to send your supernatural power to destroy my cancer.  I believe that you work through doctors and medicine, and I pray that you will fill the doctors and nurses and technicians who work on my case with wisdom and love.  But I also ask you to do what doctors and medicine cannot do.  In your mercy, immobilize and paralyze the cancerous cells in my body that medicine cannot reach.  Dry up whatever is feeding those cells with life.  Put a stop to the spread of cancer in my body.

God, I trust that you will do whatever is best for me.  If it is your will, you will heal me.  Give me the strength and ability to keep trusting in that truth.  And if I am not healed, please give me the power to trust you then, too.  But most important of all, bring me closer to you.  Open my eyes and heart so that I may come to a deeper experience of your love for me.  Help me to do whatever is necessary to draw closer to you and to know you as my heavenly Father.  AMEN

Reprinted by permission from A Medical and Spiritual Guide to Living with Cancer by William A. Fintel, M.D. and Gerald R. McDermott, Ph.D.  Published 1993 by Word Publishing.

(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=Yzejd6r9DwE )

Jul 05

An Amazing Story of the First Survivor I Ever Knew

 

 

 

 

“There is something you must always remember.

You are braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”

Christopher Robin to Winnie‑the‑Pooh in Pooh’s Most Grand Adventure

I love these words of encouragement from one best friend to another. They were the sentiment of a life-changing pep talk given to me in high school by my dear friend Cecil, who is the first person I knew who survived cancer.

We met in a speech class in the fall of 1968. I was a junior and he was a sophomore at Victor Valley High, where he was without a doubt the best orator. When he chose me to be his debate partner, I was thrilled. I didn’t know that the year before he had been diagnosed with fibrosarcoma (a rare cancer of the soft tissue), only that he always had a large Band-Aid on his forehead and that its self-described “flesh” color did not match his black skin.

I’m not sure if either one of us ever used the “C” word. In the sixties, cancer was something adults whispered about and doctors tried to keep from patients’ knowledge.

“Why do you always wear a Band-Aid?” I naively asked him one day.

“Because I’m very embarrassed about my scars” was his quiet reply.

The scars were the result of multiple surgeries—beginning when he was fifteen—to try to cut away the cancer and extend his life.

“The fibrosarcoma was eating through my skull,” Cecil explained as we chatted on the phone about this chapter.

Back then chemotherapy was in its infancy, and radiation therapy couldn’t possibly be safely aimed at a patient’s head, so his doctors simply sliced away, waited for the cancer to grow back, and then cut it out again.

By the fall of 1968, doctors were so pessimistic about Cecil’s future, they recommended he drop out of high school. “Once it hits the optic nerve, it will go right to the brain. Go home and don’t even worry about school anymore,” they advised.

But Cecil had other plans.

“Not only am I going to go back to school, I’m going to graduate,” he told them. “And not only am I going to graduate, I’m going to go to college. And not only am I going to go to college, I’m going to go to the best college!” he defiantly added.

His equally strong-willed mother approved, saying, “If you want to go back to school, it’s fine with me. I don’t want you to just lie down and die.”

So Cecil went to school, ran track, and played basketball and football, wearing a customized helmet to protect his forehead as he darted downfield with the ball. (Bet that wouldn’t be allowed these days!) Just about every Saturday for the next two years, we were together at a speech meet or a debate competition, eventually becoming the first students from our school to make it to the speech state championships.

But in the summer of 1970, right after I graduated, Cecil’s cancer came back, and more surgery ensued. The hole in Cecil’s forehead was getting rather large, so doctors stitched his left forearm to his forehead for six weeks in an attempt to graft skin there. However, in the fall of 1970, the relentless cancer returned.

Surgeons wanted to operate again and now sew his right arm to his head, but his mother refused. She moved him to another hospital, ignoring the doctor’s warning that if she did he’d be “dead in two weeks.”

Physicians at the new hospital did the same kind of surgery, without stitching his arm to his head. At Cecil’s first recheck, they were pleasantly surprised the cancer had not returned. Three months later, they were shocked to find no sign of it. Three more cancer-free months later, they were speechless.

“We can’t take any credit for this, because we didn’t do anything different from the other doctors,” they told the then-eighteen-year-old Cecil. “The fibrosarcoma was like a runaway freight train on a dry, straight track, and it just stopped. In medicine we call it a spontaneous remission.”

Cecil finished high school, serving as student body president, and went on to graduate with honors from Harvard University, where he played football, ran track, and coached the debate team. As I write, he is a sixty-three-year-old longtime university law professor with many accolades and former students across the country who say his teaching expertise and friendship changed their lives.

“Despite all the dark predictions, I’m alive and doing just fine,” he says. “I believe to this day that God healed me despite all the gloom and doom. And it has never come back because He had other plans for me.”

 

I’m so grateful that meeting Cecil was part of God’s plan for my life. Before we participated in our first debate meet, I was scared and not at all confident in my speaking and writing abilities. I felt insecure because I was the youngest in my class (I graduated at sixteen) and because my father’s job had forced me to twice move midyear to new high schools. But Cecil shared words very similar to Christopher Robin’s with me, and I took them to heart. And as they say, the rest is history.

 

When we face the trials of life. including cancer, we discover the incredible strength of the human spirit as we do things we never thought we could. But I hope you also are discovering that the greatness of God is the reason you are braver, stronger, and smarter than you realized.

 

Find a mirror, look straight into it, and tell yourself: “I am braver than I believe. I am stronger than I seem. I am smarter than I think. God is much greater than I can imagine.”

And then share those words today with someone else who needs to hear them. You never know how God may use them to change a life.

(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=V0ynr-qAhUY )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0ynr-qAhUY

Jun 21

The Language of Cancer and the Language of God

 

 

 

 

 

Tumor markers. Monoclonal antibodies. Angiogenesis inhibitors. Stereotactic radiation. MediPort. Neutropenia. Micrometastases…So how are you doing with learning the cancer vocabulary?

Or how about the alphabet soup of acronyms?

CEA, PSA, KRAS, ER/PR, Her-2/neu, VEGF, and BRCA just to name a few.

Yikes! Someone please get me an interpreter or at least a dictionary! (Never mind the dictionary—I just hit spell check on my computer and it didn’t recognize most of the words in the first paragraph!)

I remember after my diagnosis I felt as if I was thrown into a whole new world I hadn’t even known existed and I would have been just as happy to stay oblivious about it! So many terms and phrases were tossed around and basically all I heard was: “You need chemo and radiation, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.”

But after a while I was forced to stick my head out of my shell and start to learn this foreign language. I discovered my colon cancer was classified back then as Duke’s C-2, meaning it had spread locally to more than three lymph nodes. I found out that 5-Fu was short for fluorouracil, a chemo drug that had been around for many years and no one in Marc’s practice but me had been allergic to it.

By the time I started working for Marc six years after my diagnosis, I had mastered a few of the oncology terms, but was still in for a real education as I worked for the first time in a medical office. I constantly had to ask the nurses for explanations of medical jargon I heard: What’s a DVT? I thought he had a blood clot?

“He does. DVT stands for Deep Vein Thrombosis.”

Why not BC for blood clot?

One day I noticed the nurse Ruth had written the initials “SOB.” next to a patient’s name on the daily schedule. I was curious why she would make such a disparaging remark about the gentleman as he didn’t seem that cranky to me.

Afterward I asked her and when she stopped laughing, she explained that “SOB” stood for “short of breath!”

My personal opinion is that doctors and nurses aren’t all that much smarter than the rest of us—they just have their own special foreign language so we patients don’t feel as bright! (To all my doctor and nurse readers—that was a joke!)

Anyway, I spent almost 20 years learning medical terms and especially oncology phrases so I could throw them around the evening dinner table with my husband: “So, we thought there was nothing we could do for the patient, but the immunohistochemistry showed KIT positive and it’s a GIST and we can use a tyrosine kinase inhibitor!  Isn’t that great news?!”

My husband barely could contain his excitement as he asked me to pass the salt.

Even though I may have gone a little overboard with learning the medical language, I have been amazed to learn about the human body’s intricacies. Our bodies are so complex that, in some ways, I’m not as surprised they break down, but am more surprised that they don’t break down more often!

The Human Genome Project completed in 2003 identified the 20,000+ genes in the human body and sequenced the 3 billion chemical base pairs that comprise our DNA or hereditary code of life. The head of the project, Dr. Francis Collins explains that the DNA in each human is 3 billion letters long and written in a “strange and cryptographic four-letter code.” The code is so complex, Collins says, that if someone were to read it out loud at three letters per second, it would take thirty-seven years!

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body
and knit me together in my mother’s womb.
Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!
Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it! Psalm 139:13, 14

Collins is one of the world’s leading scientists and also a man of Christian faith who calls our DNA “the language of God.”

“We have caught the first glimpse of our own instruction book, previously known only to God,”[1] Collins said when the genome project’s completion was announced.

He later wrote: “Science is not threatened by God; it is enhanced. God is most certainly not threatened by science; He made it all possible.”[2]

You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,
as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. Psalm 139:15

So just maybe the next time you hear some multi-syllabic medical words that seem overwhelming, you can allow them to remind you that you are “fearfully and wonderfully made” by the Creator of the Universe and that your tomorrows are safe in His hands.

You saw me before I was born.
Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. Psalm 139:16

Lord, Thank You for doctors and nurses and researchers who are trying to cure cancer and continue to write the new language of cancer. And thank you that our very DNA is “the language of God’  and speaks to us about how wonderfully we are made. In Jesus Name. Amen.

[1] Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, pg. 3, Francis S. Collins, Free Press, 2007

[2] Language of God, pg. 233.

(If the music video below doesn’t automatically load, please copy, paste and click on this link to enjoy ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5eMMmKpJCo&list=RDz5eMMmKpJCo#t=51 )

 

 

Jun 14

Finding Peace When You Didn’t Think You Would

 

 

 

 

 

 

Everybody reacts differently to the diagnosis of cancer or any other life-threatening condition. Your reaction or your loved one’s reaction and mine probably had many things in common, but no doubt there were differences as well. You might have feared this illness for years because other relatives already had been diagnosed. Maybe you checked for lumps and watched for telltale signs, knowing for certain your turn was next. Or you might have thought, like I did, that you had taken such good care of yourself you would never have to face such a diagnosis.

I’m guessing that neither of our reactions was completely peaceful. I’ve met literally thousands of newly diagnosed cancer patients and I’ve yet to hear one say: “As soon as I heard it was cancer, I felt total peace.” (Go ahead and write me if you said that!)

But even though peace is not a natural response to a life-threatening illness, it can be a supernatural one.

Over the years my dear friend Prudence let me bring hundreds of cancer survivors to her country tearoom for free or really inexpensive tea luncheons (with the world’s best scones and clotted cream). And then endometrial cancer struck her.

“That upset me,” she says. “I didn’t want to have anything inside me that wasn’t supposed to be there.”

But shortly after her surgery, despite the fact no one was guaranteeing a cure, Prudence says she amazingly “was at peace with it.”

“Christ gave me a wonderful release from worrying and obsessing about it,” is her explanation of the unexplainable.

In 1998 when forty-five-year-old Chrystine was diagnosed with late-stage ovarian cancer, she was shocked and afraid she would die because she’d never heard of any survivors in her situation. But as she describes: “God showed up right away.”

As she was heading into surgery, a female anesthesiologist came over to Chrystine’s gurney and started prepping her.

“She told me she had ovarian cancer four years before and I felt such hope that she had survived,” Chrystine recalls.

What’s really incredible is that a few minutes later a male anesthesiologist came over to her gurney and told the other doctor that Chrystine was his patient and he took over her care.

“I went into surgery feeling totally at peace because God sent me hope in the ‘accidental’ meeting of an anesthesiologist who had survived,” Chrystine says.

It is one thing to read the Apostle Paul’s description of  “the peace of God, which transcends all ­under­standing.” It’s quite another thing to see it on the face of cancer patients and their caregivers.

It is a peace that makes no sense.

It is a peace that cannot be explained.

It is a peace that goes beyond our human understanding.

It is a peace that ­only God can give.

It is a peace I hope you’ll feel today.

I’d like to share with you the rest of the verse from Philippians 4 where Paul writes about this peace because I believe it shows us clearly how to get it.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in ­every­thing, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all under­standing, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ ­Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7 NIV

We get peace from God when we take our worries to Him in prayer, all the while thanking Him for all our blessings. He replaces our worries with His peace and it is enough to fill our heart and our mind.

Would you allow me the precious privilege of praying for you to feel God’s peace that passes understanding today?

Lord, I have no idea what is troubling my friend today, but You do. By the power of Your Spirit please let Your peace come and settle down on her/his life as she/he trusts in You. In the Name of the Prince of Peace. Amen.

If the music video below doesn’t automatically load, please copy, paste and click on this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTDRjqVIyVY )

May 31

Are You Wearing Out or Falling Apart?

O, Mr. Tentmaker
(Author unknown) 

It was nice living in this tent when it was strong and secure

        and the sun was shining and the air was warm.

But Mr. Tentmaker, it’s scary now.

You see, my tent is acting like it’s not going to hold together;

        the poles seem weak and they shift with the wind.

A couple of the stakes have wiggled loose from the sand;

        and worst of all, the canvas has a rip.

It no longer protects me from the beating rain or stinging fly.

It’s scary in here, Mr. Tentmaker.

Last week I went to the repair shop and some repairman

        tried to patch a rip in my canvas.

It didn’t help much though, because the patch pulled

        away from the edges and now the tear is worse.

What troubled me most, Mr. Tentmaker, is that

        the repairman didn’t even seem to notice that

        I was still in the tent;

        he just worked on the canvas while I shivered inside.

I cried out once, but no one heard me.

I guess my first real question is: Why did you give me such a flimsy tent?

I can see by looking around the campground that some

        of the tents are much stronger and more stable than mine.

Why, Mr. Tentmaker, did you pick a tent of

        such poor quality for me?

And even more important, what do you intend to do about it?

 

O, little tent dweller, as the Creator and Provider of tents

        I know all about you and your tent, and I love you both.

I made a tent for Myself once and

        I lived in it on your campground.

My tent was vulnerable, too, and some vicious attackers

        ripped it to pieces while I was still in it.

It was a terrible experience, but you will be glad to know

        they couldn’t hurt Me;

        in fact, the whole occurrence was a tremendous advantage

        because it is this very victory over My enemy that

        frees me to be  a present help to you.

 

O, little tent dweller, I am now prepared to come and

        live in your tent with you

        if you’ll invite Me.

You’ll learn that as we dwell together that real security comes from

        My being in the tent with you.

        When the storms come, you can huddle in my arms

        and I’ll hold you.

When the canvas rips, we’ll go to the repair shop together.

 

Some day, little tent dweller, some day

        your tent is going to collapse;

        you see, I’ve designed it for temporary use.

But when it does, you and I are going to leave together.

        I promise not to leave before you do.

And then free of all that would hinder or restrict,

        we will move to our permanent home together, forever,

        we will rejoice and be glad.

Think about it…Jesus, the very Son of God, took on an earthly “tent” in order to identify with us who live in bodies which fall apart and wear out.

  “The Word became ·a human [T flesh] and lived [made his home; pitched his tabernacle; C God’s glorious presence dwelt in Israel’s tabernacle in the wilderness] among us.”  John 1:14 (Expanded Bible)

But Jesus’  tent didn’t just fall apart or wear out, it was ripped apart while He was still in it. Whatever physical ailments we or our loved ones are facing–however poorly our tents seem to be holding up…Jesus understands  And to all of us who are Christ-followers, He promises to live inside our tents and to one day come and take us to a new Home which will never decay.

“For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” 2 Corinthians 5:1 New American Standard Bible

Today marks four years since my mother, a two-time cancer survivor, left her earthly tent at the age of 82. The last non-relative to visit with  her was a 97-year-old woman named Ruth, who lived at the same assisted living residence. The two were lifelong attendees of the same church and had enjoyed many Bible studies and women’s groups together.

Ruth sat on a chair near my mom’s bed and they held weathered hands, reminisced about decades of friendship, and giggled like school girls. I heard my mom tell Ruth: “Lynn just reminded me that we get new bodies when we get to Heaven.”

Ruth giggled again and replied; “Oh, won’t that be wonderful!”

Two days later my mom passed away and two months later, right after turning 98, Ruth’s earthly tent wore out too. I can only imagine them clasping hands once again and rejoicing together in Heaven!

I guarantee you that each of us is either going to wear out or fall apart one day. Aren’t you glad that these earthly tents are not our real home?

(If the music video doesn’t automatically load, please copy, paste and click on this link to enjoy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twL3v5r8s6o )