Category: faith

Jan 25

Praying when You Just Can’t

 

 

 

 

 

It’s pretty easy to thank God when ­every­thing’s going well in your life. When you feel good. When you have your health. When your loved ones are doing fine.

It’s a lot harder to praise Him when things—sometimes most things—are not going well. Before I was diagnosed with cancer, I always enjoyed singing in worship, praising God and thanking Him for all my wonderful blessings. Prayers came easily to my lips, especially prayers of thanksgiving, because I had a lot for which to be thankful. In fact, if you had told me there would come a time in my life when I ­wouldn’t be able to pray, I would have laughed at the suggestion and insisted it could never happen.

But it did.

In those first dark days after my diagnosis, I literally ­couldn’t pray. When I would read my Bible and then try to pray, the words simply would not form. Instead, tears rolled down my cheeks, sometimes just a trickle and sometimes turning into heavy sobs. The ­only thing I felt like I wanted to pray was a desperate cry for healing. What else was there to say?

And then I read a verse in the Bible—one ­I’m sure I’d read many times before, but it never had seemed that significant:

And the Holy Spirit helps us in our distress. For we don’t even know what we should pray for, nor how we should pray. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will. Romans  8:26-27

Two wonderful verses about how to pray when you feel you ­can’t pray. They were right there in the Bible, sandwiched between Paul’s discussion of suffering and his explanation of how we can be victorious even in difficult times! (Read the whole chapter and you’ll see what I mean.)

It was okay that I felt I ­couldn’t pray. The Holy Spirit would pray for me. He would take my “groans” that were too deep for words right to God Himself. And even better than that, the Spirit would know what to pray for me. He would pray accord­ing to God’s will. I love how The Message renders Romans 8:26: If we ­don’t know how or what to pray, it ­doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans.

That’s one amazing God! He knows that at the times we need Him most, we may not be able to express ourselves to Him, so He has His own Spirit do it for us! After I found that verse, I would often just sit, my hands on my lap, palms toward heaven, tears rolling down my cheeks . . . praying.

I never said a word. I ­couldn’t even form cohesive thoughts in my mind, but I prayed. I ­didn’t worry what or how to pray. I simply allowed God’s Spirit to take my innermost thoughts, my deepest fears to God and pray for me.

In time I was able to pray again myself, but sometimes even now I still practice the kind of prayer I learned when I had no other way to pray.

Another amazing thing I learned about prayer during my cancer ordeal is that God has given us prayers we can pray when the pain is too deep.

I spent the entire six months of my chemo in the Psalms. I ­don’t think I opened my Bible up anywhere except to the middle, where my eyes would fall upon a psalm that expressed my need to God.

I remember one day telling my husband how much the Psalms were blessing me as I dealt with the struggles of chemo treatments.

My surprised husband reminded me that in years past I had commented that those who wrote the sorrowful psalms seemed to be “a bunch of whiners.”

“Well, now ­I’m a whiner, too!” I explained.

It was true. For the first 36 of my life I had it ­really easy. A wonderful, loving home growing up; a good education; a great marriage; super children—nothing to whine about. Life had been so good that I had never needed God the way I did after I found out I had cancer.

Quite to the contrary, the psalmists had plenty of trouble in their lives, plenty of times they desperately needed God’s help. So I read the Psalms. Day and night I read the Psalms as my prayers to God.

To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul; in you I trust, O my God. Psalm 25:1-2 niv

I am worn out waiting for your rescue, but I have put my hope in your word. Psalm 119:81

However you pray, your prayers are reaching the Father’s ears. The scriptures tell us that in Heaven there are “gold bowls filled with incense, which are the prayers of God’s people.” (Revelation 5:8; 8:3-4) Your prayer is a sweet fragrance to God. Here’s one more from the Psalms you could pray today: Lord, sustain me as you promised, that I may live! Do not let my hope be crushed. Amen. (Psalm 119:116)

Don’t miss the INCREDIBLE song here. If it doesn’t load automatically for you, copy and paste this link to enjoy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Te0hy2YcLgg

 

 

Jan 18

Why not start a HOPE collection?

 

 

 

 

 

Not many 77-year-old women are upset about having cancer because they won’t be able to tap dance, but my friend Linda sure was.

The lively great-grandmother was diagnosed with primary peritoneal cancer (a rare female cancer usually treated similarly to ovarian cancer) in October 2010 and faced major abdominal surgery and chemotherapy. She knew those treatments were going to put a crimp in her active lifestyle.

“I was a bit disappointed I was not going to be able to attend my once-a-year visit to my daughter’s first-grade classroom and help the students make applesauce and tap dance for them,” explained Linda, who started tap dancing when she was about eight and in her mid-60s still performed with a local group of senior ladies—ages 50-something to 80-something—called “The Glitter Bugs.”

But even worse than not being able to dance was Linda’s worry that she wouldn’t be well enough to take care of her 92-year-old husband, who was on hospice care.

“My husband always thought of me as a ‘spring chicken,’ who would be there to care for him and when all this happened, he realized I might need some care, too,” Linda recalled.

So from the start of her cancer journey, Linda realized how much she was going to need her faith, her family and her friends. Fortunately, she was surrounded by hope—literally.

That’s because several years ago she started collecting items with the word “hope” on them–books, plaques, candle holders, Christmas decorations, flowerpots and garden stones all proclaiming hope. In fact, everywhere she turned in her house or her yard, she saw hope! Four freestanding, silver letters—H, O, P, E—about five inches tall became her favorite decoration because she could easily move them to any area where she wanted a visual reminder not to give up.

“I can’t remember exactly when I started collecting, but I know there came a time when I realized our HOPE in God is what allows us to believe in something we do not see,” Linda said.

And Linda didn’t just collect hope; she studied it, too (and capitalized it when she wrote about it!).

“I had a ladies’ Bible study on HOPE,” she recalled. “Before the ladies came, I asked them to write down a list of things they HOPE for. We shared some of our hopes and kept others to ourselves. Inevitably somewhere on each list was the HOPE of Heaven.”

At the end of the study, Linda gave each participant a handmade bookmark with her acrostic on HOPE:

Heaven
Offers
Peace
Eternal

“If we believe that, fear is diminished and even wiped out!” she said. “What peace we find in that HOPE!”

I agree completely with Linda that the promised hope of Heaven for all believers is what gives lasting peace. I love how The Message describes this hope in Hebrews 6:18:

We who have run for our very lives to God have every reason to grab the promised hope with both hands and never let go. It’s an unbreakable spiritual lifeline, reaching past all appearances right to the very presence of God where Jesus, running on ahead of us, has taken up his permanent post as high priest for us.

That is the hope in which Linda continued to walk on her journey with cancer. When I wrote about her in my 50 Days of Hope book, it only had been seven months since her diagnosis, but follow-up tests showed her cancer-free. She knew the odds were not in her favor, but thanked God “for my remission time however long it may be.”

Perhaps you might want to embrace Linda’s hobby and start “collecting” hope? Look for it and listen for it each day. You’ll probably be amazed at how often it pops into your life. And I hope like Linda you have grabbed on to the promised hope of Heaven with both hands and that you never let go. Then you will be able to pray today as King David did: No wonder my heart is glad and my tongue shouts his praises! My body rests in hope. Amen. (Acts 2:26 quoting from Psalm 16:9)

P.S. I’m happy to tell you that Linda did tap dance again the next year after her diagnosis and made applesauce with her daughter’s new first-graders. In 2016 she passed away and is now tap dancing on streets of gold!

If the music video doesn’t appear below, please copy and paste this link to enjoy the song “There’s Hope”

 

Jan 04

How to Have a Close Encounter of the Divine Kind

 

 

 

 

I don’t know if this cancer diagnosis is the first one your family or friend has faced or simply the latest in a string of such bad health news. Lucky me…I was the first in our large extended family to find out my DNA had “slipped up” and allowed cancer to “slip in.” At the time, we had plenty of relatives with diabetes and heart problems, but always thought cancer wasn’t something lurking in our genes.

So, while some folks might suspect they may get a cancer diagnosis some day, I never did. Instead it seemed as if my cancer just came out of nowhere and struck when I least expected it. I hear many cancer patients say the same thing—some of them are even in their seventies and eighties, but have enjoyed such good health, they felt rather immune to cancer.

And then there are those whom I meet who already have had cancer knocking at their family’s door too many times—they’ve watched parents, spouses, grandparents or even their children wage cancer battles and now are discouraged that it’s their “turn.”

I think it’s hard to be the first in your family with cancer and it’s hard to be the latest one diagnosed. Either way this disease is a very unwelcome intruder.

I know that’s how my friend Guy felt when he was diagnosed in December 1993 with what his surgeon later would describe as “Stage D” prostate cancer (and yes, this story has a happy ending!). In 1991, Peg, Guy’s wife of thirty-four years, died from a rare, inoperable cancer, and his middle son, Mike, endured chemo and radiation for testicular cancer in 1992.

Now it was Guy’s turn.

“I ­didn’t get angry,” he recalls, “but I felt very empty and I said, ‘Why, Lord, why?’”

Even though Guy had a strong faith in God before his diagnosis, it ­wasn’t easy for him to face cancer without Peg at his side. But he was about to find out that this unwelcome intruder was no match for the Creator of the Universe.

A radical prostatectomy was scheduled for late January 1994 and Guy remembers the anxious moments before he went ­under­ the surgeon’s knife.

“Before I went into the O.R., they prepped me, and Mike’s minister was up to see me and he asked me if he could pray with me,” Guy says. “Then they took me out of the room and down the hall. Before we got to the [operating room] door, I said, ‘Stop!’” Guy recalls. “The guy pushing me said, ‘What’s wrong?’ but I just told him again to stop.

“I looked up and pointed up and I said, ‘Lord, You know me and I know You—do with me what You will,’” he remembers. “Once I said those words, I was so at peace and I said to the guy that was pushing me, ‘Let’s go!’

“I left [my cancer prognosis] up to God and I ­wasn’t afraid of anything. I had a peace that I can’t really describe.”

I would describe what happened that moment as a close encounter of the divine kind.

As Guy reached out to God, he said a simple prayer of surrender, giving the Master of the Universe permission to have His way in Guy’s life. He did what I believe we all need to do: agree to let God simply be God.

Let Him be the unfaltering, faithful God, willing to strengthen us for any and ­every­ circumstance.

Let Him be the incredibly sovereign God, wise enough to know how and when to answer any and ­every­ prayer.

Let Him be the mighty awesome God that He is, powerful enough to heal us at any and every­ level—powerful enough to heal my friend Guy, body, mind, and spirit.

Have you ever had a divine encounter with the Lord before? If you have, you’re probably already praying for another such special moment. But if you haven’t, you may be a little wary (maybe even a LOT wary!) Personally, I don’t think you have anything to lose—and a great deal to gain—by reaching out to God and saying a simple prayer surrendering your situation to Him. You could pray something like this: Dear God, You know me and I want to know You more. I surrender this situation to You and ask You to have Your way in my/my loved one’s life. I pray this in Jesus’ Name. Amen.

P.S. If you want more of the happy ending to Guy’s story, you should know the surgery (which did not remove all the cancer) was followed by radiation and hormone treatments after which he was cancer-free until his death more than twenty years later. Up until that time, he sually could be found spreading cheer as he volunteered helping the “old folks” at a local nursing home!

(If the music video doesn’t appear below, please copy and paste this link to enjoy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgsqfjRslzA

Dec 21

Be Sure to Celebrate Easter this Christmas!

 

 

 

 

Shortly after we moved last year we heard a guest preacher at our new church say that he and his wife had recently retired and moved to Pottstown to be near their grandchildren. I ran up to him after the service, introduced myself and asked if they wanted to join my husband and my new club: “Retired People Who Moved to Pottstown to be Near Their Grandchildren.”  He said yes and our fantastic club has been meeting regularly ever since! (Haven’t found any more eligible members, but will keep looking.)

At one of our December club meetings (the one after visiting Longwood Gardens for the Christmas lights), Lee gave us a Christmas present of a frameable copy of his original poem which wonderfully ties Christmas and Easter together. (Kind of trumped the homemade oatmeal I gave them.) I’m sharing it here with all of you as my Christmas gift to you. (If you were hoping for oatmeal, you’ll have to pick it up at my house.)

The birth of Jesus is really nothing special unless we fast-forward to the death of Jesus and see how He redeemed–saved–us from death when we become Christ-followers. 

“So the Word became human and made His home (encamped, tabernacled, pitched a human tent) among us.” John 1:14 (Italics mine)

ENCAMPMENT
                           by Dr. J. Lee Magness

So God stopped time for thirty-three years
And He pitched a tent of flesh
Which He unfolded one night
And enfolded the next

And that moment in which God tread time
Lasting from the darkness to the darkness
From the sunrise to the sunrise
Was called Jesus Christ

In great pain Mary labored over God
And suddenly in merciful agony
A man burst forth from the courtroom
Into the yard filled with a vicious mob

The mother knelt down
To wrap the baby in swaddling clothes
And they ripped them from his body
And kneeling down gambled them away

And because there was no room in the inn
She gently laid him
On the wooden beams of the cross
Where they nailed his reaching hands

And the animals heard the baby
And drew near hoping to be fed
And they bleated and bawled
Crucify him, crucify him

And the shepherds on the hillside
Came to see this thing
Which they thought would soon be past
And asked, Are you the King of the Jews?

And the wise men came to see Jesus
One brought spices, another perfumes
And a third removed his golden crown
And jammed its thorns into his brow

And in that dark Judean night
The new-born baby cried out
Wanting protection from the cold wind
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

And as the star stopped over the manger
There was darkness over the whole land
And just before the baby fell asleep
He softly cried, It is finished

And in that moment of ghastly glory
When Mary lay exhausted with an empty tomb
He said, I am the resurrection and the life
And in the next moment he redeemed the time

If the music video doesn’t appear in your email, please copy and paste this link to play it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_U2G8wsbXBo

Nov 30

How Anyone Can Beat Cancer (or any other disease!)

 

 

 

 

 

My friends Sandy and Ron Good are a fabulous example of “beating” cancer. Sandy was diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer in June 2008 and Ron has been her biggest cheerleader (and laughter “therapist”) along the journey.

“Losing my hair was extremely difficult,” Sandy recalls. “I knew it would come out and I thought I was prepared, but nothing prepares a lady to stare at her bald head. But I decided to look at the positive: showering was soooo easy. I didn’t have to shampoo hair or shave my legs or under my arms.

“My husband said I was so fast in the shower that one day I would meet myself coming and going!”

Ron likes to explain that he was “Good” before he met Sandy, but she wasn’t “Good” until she married him.

I love Ron’s quirky sense of humor and I especially love the fact Sandy bakes wonderful goodies for our support group. (One day she emailed me to say she had a whole Bundt cake, four dozen cookies and a pan of brownies for the next day’s meeting!)

And what I love most of all about this really Good couple is how they have refused to give in to cancer and instead are beating it with supernatural strength from God.

Would you be surprised if I told you Sandy’s cancer is not considered medically curable and doctors have told her to expect it will take her life?

Perhaps you’re wondering how she could “beat” cancer if she still has it in her body. Beating cancer is definitely about fighting this unseen enemy in an attempt to be cured, and I would urge you to do that with ­every­ breath in your body. But I also would urge you to enlarge your view of what it means to beat cancer–or any other disease.

When I was first diagnosed with cancer, many well-meaning friends told me, “You can beat this!” I know those words were supposed to encourage me, but they ­didn’t. Instead, I thought, Great! Now if I ­don’t live, it’s my fault I ­didn’t beat this because you said I could!

I felt such pressure to “do ­every­thing right” to make sure I beat cancer. I researched vitamins and herbs and natural healing techniques. I listened to tapes by alternative-medicine doctors promising cures for all. I read stories of miraculous physical recoveries. But nobody said beating cancer could be about more than just a physical cure.

For quite a while, I was “beating” cancer—there was no sign of it in my body—but it was beating me. It was controlling my mind, my attitude, and my relationship with God. It was the first thing I thought about each day and the last thing each night. It was hard to enjoy holidays and special moments because I wondered if they would be my last. My prayer time consisted of nothing other than self-centered pleas for my ­personal healing.

But God gradually began to enlarge my picture of beating cancer as He spoke to my heart: “Whether you live or die from this is up to Me, but how you live is up to you.”

The pressure was off. I would do my part to physically combat this disease, but I would not judge whether I beat it by whether or not I was cured.

I would beat it no matter what because I would refuse to let it conquer me and control my life.

And by the grace of God I did, and I continue to do so more than two decades later.

I believe the real victory Sandy has over cancer is that she has triumphed over it in her mind and her spirit. She lives as a person who has cancer, but cancer does not have her. She is held in the palm of God’s hand, not in the grip of a disease.

But beating cancer is not a one-moment or a one-day, once-and-for-all accomplishment.

Certainly, we beat cancer when we are declared in remission or cured. However, we also beat it moment by moment as we allow God, not cancer, to control our thoughts. We beat it hour by hour as we remember that God’s power within us is greater than the cancer. And we beat it day by day as we trust in God’s strength and not in cancer’s weakness.

The apostle Paul knew how to live in spite of his circumstances. He even wrote from chains in his jail cell, .Not that I speak from want; for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and ­every­ circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. ­Philippians 4:11-13

Paul beat his circumstances.

Sandy beat cancer.

I beat cancer.

You can beat cancer.

Anyone can beat cancer–or any other disease–because being victorious is much more than just being physically cured.

(Don’t miss the song below by one of my favorite artists. I’ve copied the lyrics at the bottom.)

Different Kind of Miracle
words & music by Shannon J. Wexelberg
c2012 Shanny Banny Music / BMI / International copyright secured
These prayers I’ve prayed
Beating down the walls of Heaven
So full of faith
And full of hope believing
That in a matter of time
God would send an answer
But it’s not gone
The way I had in mind
When He hasn’t come through
The way I want Him to
! Could it be God is doing
! A different kind of miracle
! Could it be He is using
! All this in my life
! Could it be this prayer I’ve prayed
! Is not quite what He’s after
! And I will find He’s done a different kind
! Of miracle in my life
It’s hard to wait
Peering through a glass so dimly
Anticipating
What’s just around the bend
If I had my way
Every time I called to Heaven
Would I know Him
Like I know Him today
While I’ve waited so long
He’s been working all along
He hears each prayer I pray
I’m always on His mind
And though it seems like only wasted time