Category: families

Jul 29

“Just to Get through This!”

When Layne Lebo recently was diagnosed with cancer, his plan was “just to get through this.”

But he quickly realized God had a much bigger–and  better–plan in mind.

The journey actually started routinely enough.

“I was combing my hair and discovered a lump on my arm,” recalls Layne, then 58, and the lead pastor at a large church in Mechanicsburg, PA.

He felt fine and had been exercising quite a bit, so Layne didn’t really think it was anything of concern. At his next primary care physician check-up he casually mentioned the lump.  The doctor wasn’t particularly concerned either, but recommended an MRI just to be sure.

The ensuing biopsy results were delivered Feb. 6.

“The good news was I didn’t need surgery to have the cyst removed, but the bad news was I had non-Hodgkin lymphoma,” Layne explains.

The normally optimistic guy was reeling, but had to go home and share the report with Greta, his wife of 32 years. Together they “processed” the life-threatening diagnosis, including how best to share it with their three kids, ages 21, 25, and 27.

That same day Greta promptly wrote a list of six commitments she hoped the family would embrace:

Armed with that simple plan, Layne began chemo in April with his family–near and far–cheering him on.

Around that time, one of the pastors on staff at his church sent a text saying that as she prayed for him, she “strongly sensed” God would use this cancer journey to give him “more compassion for the suffering of others.”

“I think I’m a pretty nice guy,” says Layne, “but I find it challenging to relate and show compassion to others (facing) things I haven’t experienced.

“My life has been pretty easy…I probably have ‘compassion deficit’,” he adds with a smile.

But it wasn’t long before Layne began to see God softening his heart toward others.

Layne before chemo

He started reaching out to patient families at the cancer center and trying to encourage them by gifting a copy of 50 Days of Hope. (Layne admits that when he first was given that book, he didn’t plan to read it because he often finds “devotionals to be cheesy and shallow.” But eventually he did open it up and instead found God inspiring him through the pages.)

He also shared the book with his oncologist, a Christ-follower, who now has multiple copies in his waiting room for patients to read or take home.

Layne is especially excited to share his journey and help others find hope. He sends out personal updates, not only to his congregation, but to pastors in a large network of area churches he leads, as well as the school board on which he serves.

“I’m understanding scripture in a new way and feel like God is giving me insights for myself and for others,” he explains.

“God told me ‘I want you to look for armies of people who don’t know Christ’,” he adds.

Layne finished chemo a couple of months ago and radiation therapy last week, but won’t know for certain until next month’s PET scan whether the cancer is completely in remission.

Still “whatever happens my life is in God’s hands,” he declares. “I choose to place my trust in God whether I’m experiencing the sunshine of life or encountering storms.”

Sounds like Layne’s “compassion deficit” is no more.
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Open in your browser to hear one of Layne’s favorite songs: “Firm Foundation (He Won’t)”  with Maranatha Music.

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Jul 15

Rescued by God, Granddaughters (& Maybe an Angel)

I am certain that God and my granddaughters rescued me…but I think an angel might have lent a hand, too.

The date was Memorial Day 2024. All three granddaughters had spent the night and were downstairs in our large, finished basement. My husband was in the backyard. Because the girls, sisters Izzy (11) and Callyn (9) were happily playing with cousin Abby (9), I decided to walk on the treadmill located in a small, basement backroom.

I closed the door so I wouldn’t bother them as I did a brisk 5K while watching an old NCIS episode. A few minutes into my exercising I remembered something I forgot to do, so I paused the treadmill, stepped off and went upstairs.

Returning a few moments later, I stood by the treadmill and put my right foot on the belt. I have done this many times and know exactly what happens next: I carefully straddle the running deck by stepping onto the raised sides, attach the safety clip, hold on to both handrails, press start, and wait for the machine to countdown 3-2-1. As it quickly restarts, I step down onto the belt, tightly holding the side rails until my pace matches the treadmill’s.

But that is not what happened.

Instead, without me touching the control screen, the treadmill started up on its own at the 4-mph speed I had been walking. I was thrown backwards and slammed against the wall, which was only a foot from the rear of the machine.

My head kept banging against the wall and I felt like I might pass out. As I lay pinned on my left side, I could feel the skin ripping off my shoulder and my thigh. I tried to move, but couldn’t budge or make a sound.

I honestly thought I was going to die.

In desperation, my spirit cried out: Help me, Jesus! Immediately, a thought came: Get on your right side. Turn onto your right side.

I was sure I couldn’t move, but somehow I turned enough that my head was no longer banging and my flesh was no longer ripping. However, I still couldn’t get up from the fast-moving belt.

I was able to yell “Help!” and after a few muffled screams, the girls came into the room. I was hysterically hollering: “Turn it off! Stop it!” I couldn’t even explain how to do it, but Callyn later told me: “Grandma, I just looked for a button that said ‘STOP’ and I pressed it.”

There are photos of all my wounds, but will spare you. Bottom line: I sustained a fractured rib, several bruised ribs, a swollen ear, plus multiple friction burns, including a 3rd-degree one which has taken a year to heal, leaving a nasty scar.

I shudder to think what might have happened if my granddaughters weren’t in the next room…I truly believe they saved my life.

How I turned onto my right side is a mystery to me. Perhaps an angel? Maybe in Heaven I’ll get that answer. In the meantime, I’ll be eternally grateful that my precious granddaughters were close by and came to my rescue.

And I never will stop crying out to Jesus–even when I can’t utter a word.

Are you or someone you love in a “helpless” situation? Or do you feel “helpless” when you hear the news in our country and our world?

As the song “Cry Out to Jesus” promises: “There is hope for the helpless.”

It might even include an angel.
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Open in your browser to hear “Cry Out to Jesus” by Third Day.

P.S. For those with questions...My treadmill model had almost 900 reports of suddenly starting or stopping, including about 70 with injuries. My injuries were much worse because the rear of the treadmill was too close to the wall, pinning me there. I intended to join one of the lawsuits against the company, but discovered it was extremely unlikely I would ever see a dime. Instead the company reimbursed the full price of the 3-year-old machine and carted it away, along with my rights to any claims against them. I bought a new treadmill with a different operating system and no registered complaints. There’s more than 6-foot clearance behind it and I no longer ever pause it to get off. Also I wear an Apple watch, which detects falls and summons help if needed.

So in the words of radio broadcaster Paul Harvey: “Now you know the rest of the story.” ++++++++++++++++++++++

Nov 12

“I just felt really called into loving people with cancer”

When Tom Wilkinson* was diagnosed in 2008 with stage 4 head and neck cancer, he never imagined that God soon would use him to encourage his oldest daughter on her own cancer journey.

“He’s my hero,” says Joanna Dennstaedt, second in a family of six born to Tom and Dee Wilkinson.  “He was the voice of reason and wisdom for me through it all.”

Joanna–“Jo” to her friends–was devastated in 2014 to get the diagnosis of stage 3 melanoma at the age of 34. Her four children were only 7, 5, 3, and 15 months. Two surgeries, including a complete groin lymph node dissection knocked her off her feet before she even started chemo.

The scheduled treatment was a year-long, weekly immunotherapy drug called Interferon, which had such tough side effects patients were normally hospitalized for the infusions and few could tolerate it for 12 months.

“I made it almost 10 months before it was killing me,” Jo recalls. “My liver was shot, my thyroid was shot and I started panicking.

“I was probably rock bottom and I kept thinking ‘I’m not going to get to raise my kids”,” she adds.

Me speaking at the 2024 Radiant Hope banquet

About that time she met a woman named Ivelisse Page who through her nonprofit Believe Big https://www.believebig.org/ helped Jo find a naturopathic doctor and get complementary treatments to help heal her body. She also gave her a copy of my book 50 Days of Hope.

And then one day a beautiful “sunshine” package showed up from an anonymous person in another state, who had been reading Jo’s blog.  The enclosed note explained that the sender and her co-workers “put this box together and prayed for you.”

That’s when Jo knew.

“Why am I not doing this for others?” she asked herself. “I knew I needed to get outside of Jo.”

And the vision for Radiant Hope was birthed–months after Jo’s dad encouraged her not to “waste” her cancer and instead believe God could use “all the good and the hard.”

God confirmed Jo’s idea while at the cancer center one day He spoke to her heart: “You’re not here for you; you’re here for Me.”

“I just felt really called into loving people with cancer,” Jo explains.

And that she has.

In the nine years since the nonprofit https://www.radianthope.com/ was established in Mechanicsburg, PA, it has:

  • Served more than 7,000 people in 387 Pennsylvania counties
  • Given away 5,000+ “HOPE” boxes, which include a copy of 50 Days of Hope
  • Handed out 2,000+ water bottles at cancer treatment centers
  • Provided respite care, scholarships, holiday gifts, one-on-one mentoring, celebrations, family photos and a cancer support group

“I never really wanted to start a nonprofit,” Jo admits. “I didn’t take a single business class in college, so I was wondering what was God calling me into?”

But now she realizes that “cancer has prepared me well to serve others.”

“Radiant Hope started out of my healing journey,” Jo explains. “All I did was say ‘yes’ and God did all the rest.”

“Cancer itself is not a gift, but there are so many little gifts that come out of it along the way,” Jo says. “I thought when my Dad had cancer that it was going to be the worst thing ever, but instead we could walk through my cancer journey together.

“Now I walk with others and encourage them just like he did for me.”

*(If you missed Tom’s story, read my last blog on 10-29.)
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Open in your browser to hear “Wings”  (based on Psalm 91) by Lauren Daigle.

Oct 29

Not Your Average Survivor

It’s no exaggeration to say that Tom Wilkinson is not your average survivor.

For one thing, he’s a 16-year survivor of stage 4 head and neck cancer. And secondly, he believes he knows exactly how and why he received that diagnosis.

Rewind to 2008 when Tom, then a 56-year-old brewers grains company vice-president was plagued with earaches and a sore throat.

“The antibiotics would knock it out for a while and then it was back,” he recalls.

In August of that year, Tom was ready to lead a team of mostly young people to Germany where they would minister to the locals through a “sports and English camp.” But the day before  departure, Tom’s  new Ear, Nose and Throat specialist called with his imaging results.

“He said I needed to come in the morning for a biopsy, because he saw a tumor and I probably had cancer,” Tom remembers.

But Tom was a man on a mission–literally–and told the ENT he would get the biopsy when he returned. Ten days later he arrived for the procedure, but while he was away, a lump appeared on his neck and grew to golf-ball size.  A biopsy confirmed stage 4 tonsil cancer.

The first surgeon Tom and his wife Dee saw was pretty discouraging, so they sought out a doctor-acquaintance at their church–even though they had no idea what kind of physician he was.

The doctor said Tom “absolutely” should get a second opinion and offered to get him an appointment ASAP at the hospital where he just happened to be head of the ENT department!

An evaluation led to intra-oral surgery, a technique which uses a laser to cut through soft tissues without the usual scalpel trauma. It took 18 painstaking hours to remove his tonsils,  resect both sides of his neck and extract 43 lymph nodes.

Tom spent nearly three weeks in the hospital, followed by radiation and chemo which left him “pretty spent.” He lost 30 pounds in a month, but never needed a feeding tube thanks to Dee’s excellent management of his liquid nutrition.

At Tom’s 5-year appointment in 2013, his doctor pronounced him cured.

Like other cancer survivors, Tom is extremely grateful for “extra” time to have seen all six of his children married, 15 grandchildren born and celebrated 47 years of marriage.

Doctors said Tom’s cancer was a sexually transmitted one caused by high-risk HPV (human papilloma virus). Nearly all people are infected with HPV soon after becoming sexually active, but most infections are cleared by the body’s immune system. Studies show that multiple sexual partners increases the risk of HPV-related cancers.

“I had been wild and crazy in college (at Virginia Tech) before I came to know the Lord a few years later,” Tom acknowledges. “I had many years of indiscretions as a young man and it came back to haunt me.

“So I never struggled over why I had this: I knew why I had it,” Tom explains. “It was a consequence of my sin. I don’t believe it’s a punishment; it’s just a consequence,”

When I asked Tom what got him through the treatments and recovery, he quickly mentioned Psalm 145.

“Three or four people shared that psalm with us and it became our mantra,” he says. “I memorized it and still recite the first ten verses every day.”

I will exalt you, my God and King,
    and praise your name forever and ever.
 I will praise you every day;
    yes, I will praise you forever.
 Great is the Lord! He is most worthy of praise!
    No one can measure his greatness.
Let each generation tell its children of your mighty acts;
    let them proclaim your power.
Psalm 145:1-4

Perhaps not the average way to start the day…but then, Tom Wilkinson is not your average survivor.

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Open in your browser  and click on  the “Watch on YouTube” arrow  to hear “Praise the Lord (Psalm 145)” by Bishop Jos Tharakan.

 

Sep 10

Wrapping People in God’s Love

Kelley & Rick with Connie’s quilt

When her best friend was diagnosed with cancer,  Kelley Carson stitched a lap quilt so Connie could be “wrapped in my love and the love of Jesus.”

But neither woman ever imagined that 20 years later nearly 9,000 more cancer patients also would be wrapped in that love.

“We started giving away a few quilts to people getting chemo with Connie,” Kelley recalls. “And then it just took off from there.”

Connie passed away in 2007, but in 2004 the two women formed Cozy Quilters Ministries https://www.facebook.com/cozyquilts2017/ at their small, country church in western New York state.

A few church ladies prayerfully stitched the quilts, which along with a note of encouragement and a copy of my first book, When GOD & Cancer Meet, were placed in a matching tote bag.

“Once word got out about what we were doing, the names starting streaming in,” Kelley says.  “And they still do. As long as we have a name and an address, we will send a quilt.”

The CQ volunteers even have sent quilts to celebrities facing cancer including former Jeopardy host Alex Trebek, singer Olivia Newton John, and actor Beau Bridges –all of whom responded with thank-you notes.

The quilters didn’t hear back from former Buffalo Bills’ quarterback Jim Kelly, but did see him in a TV interview sitting with his red, white and blue Cozy Quilt draped behind him on his recliner.

“We vowed that if we heard of a person with cancer and had a way to get a quilt to them, we would,” Kelley explains. “We want to wrap the arms of Christ around everyone that we can.”

Today there are seven CQ chapters in western New York and one in northern Pennsylvania. At the 20th anniversary celebration last month, the groups announced they had given away a total of 8,871 quilts! (No wonder When GOD & Cancer Meet just had its 20th printing!)

Quilts have gone out to all 50 states and 18 foreign countries. There is no charge to the recipient or the person requesting the quilt as all costs for fabric, postage and my books are covered by donations.

Earlier this year a quilt was called for, but Kelley didn’t need the recipient’s address.

Her husband of 38 years was diagnosed with colon cancer, so Kelley made 6′ 4′ Rick (whose nickname is “Animal”) a Sasquatch (Big Foot) patterned quilt. In May, the 63-year old retired union laborer had robotic surgery at Roswell Cancer Center in Buffalo to remove the tumor and resection his colon.

Rick with his Big Foot quilt!

“Doctors tell me that basically I’m cured,” says Rick, who especially is thankful to have been able to walk his only daughter down the aisle last month.

But even before he got word that the cancer was completely contained and removed, Rick says he “felt at peace.”

“I just felt there was no reason to worry about it because it was out of my control,” he explains.

Kelley describes Cozy Quilt Ministries “as an evangelism ministry that just happens to use quilts” and vows that “as long as God continues to provide what we need to do this, I will keep doing it.”

“None of us are in control of this ministry,” she adds. “The Holy Spirit goes with each of these quilts and touches people at just the right time. I never could have imagined what God would do.”

P.S. (For info on making a donation or starting a CQ group, email cozyquiltministries@gmail.com)
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Open in your browser to hear “O the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus” with Reawaken Hymns.