Category: miracles

Oct 13

Check-up Time: My Oncologist Has Cancer (Part 7)

Selfie with Elizabeth at the St. Lawrence River.

I haven’t posted anything since March about my oncologist/former boss/dear friend, Dr. Marc Hirsh, who was diagnosed 16 months ago with an extremely rare, large cancerous tumor behind his heart. Last month at his 6-month checkup with his Hershey Medical oncologist, Marc and his wife Elizabeth braced themselves for bad news, still clinging to hope that it wouldn’t come.

After all, when Marc was diagnosed in May of last year with a 12-cm neuroendocrine carcinoma of thymus origin, his future looked very bleak. Specialist after specialist shook their heads offering no chance of a cure or even a treatment with any real data to show it might help. They all thought he had very little time to live.

But God had other ideas.

Drum roll, please… CT scan showed NO TUMOR GROWTH! Here’s the actual text Marc sent me the next morning along with my immediate giph response of a dancing elderly woman (which I doubt he truly appreciated):

Obviously Marc was very happy with this news, although he’s not one to react quite as enthusiastically as some of us do.

“I just expected it (the tumor) would have modest growth the way some of these neuroendocrine tumors do,” Marc said in a recent phone conversation. “It still mystifies me with everything I know (about cancer). The way it presented and as sick as I was–everything pointed to an aggressive, rapidly growing tumor.”

Instead, since recovering from the “debulking” surgery (which reduced the mass to 8 cm), Marc has been feeling better. He devised his own treatment plan– radiation, oral chemo and hormone injections–which further shrank the tumor to 6 cm when he finished a year ago.

“I’m feeling good and I really feel stronger these last couple of months,” he said. “It makes me feel really grateful.”

My husband and I spent Labor Day weekend with Marc and Elizabeth at their beach house and we marveled watching him jog at a park and swim in the ocean, activities he couldn’t manage at the beginning of summer.

Image by Oleksandr Pyrohov from Pixabay

But even before he got the good report at Hershey, Marc said he “took a leap of faith” and made some plans for the future by buying a season skiing pass. He and his wife also purchased a small RV and have travel plans to sightsee.

Marc, 70, says he is even enjoying retirement, forced upon him when his diagnosis and poor health necessitated the immediate closure of his 31-year-old solo oncology practice.

“Up until a few months ago I really missed work and felt like a fish out of water, but I’ve kind of adjusted to it,” he said. “I find myself enjoying more leisure time reading, playing music, traveling and (being with) family.”

When I asked Marc how he explains his amazing recovery and the tumor’s stability, I could hear Elizabeth in the background yelling “God! God! God!”

“Yes, God,” Marc chuckled and added, “And I certainly don’t discount all the prayers, letters, support and love that was shown me in the healing process.

“I personally think it’s good to be open about what’s going on (during trials) so people can be supportive,” he added. “You have to be willing for people to help and care about you.”

LifeHopeandTruth.com

And as always, the scripture that keeps Marc grounded and “focused on the here and now” is from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:31-34):

“So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’  These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need. So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”

Amen to that.
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Whenever I write about Marc, I close with a song by Rich Mullins, his favorite Christian artist: “Where You Are.”

Nov 11

Hope is the Thing with Feathers

 

If you had asked my friend Carollynn Supplee what gave her hope throughout her cancer journey, she would have smiled and quickly answered: Feathers.

She loved Emily Dickinson’s poem “The Thing with Feathers” which begins:

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all.

When she was first diagnosed with a brain tumor at the age of 46, Carollynn discovered a Bible verse that quickly became her favorite:

He will cover you with his feathers.
He will shelter you with his wings.
His faithful promises are your armor and protection. Psalm 91:4

Even though medical doctors and treatments at that time gave her no hope of surviving more than a few months, this verse gave Carollynn incredible hope. It also started a real fascination with feathers and the number 914.

“Whenever I see a feather it reminds me of God’s protection for me,” she told me shortly after moving to the area and joining my support group. “And I like to look for the number 914 on signs to remind me of God’s constant care for me.”

I had to chuckle when eight years after her initial diagnosis Carollynn held her first grandchild, born on her birthday and weighing 9 pounds, 14 ounces! When Carollynn passed away a few months later at 4:19 p.m., her husband Ed said he smiled at  Carollynn’s last gift to remind him of her special verse.

“One final example of her fabulous humor,” he wrote in an email to friends and family. 

Probably the most amazing, hope-filled story of Carollynn’s life under God’s wings happened in 1995 shortly after her diagnosis when she and Ed traveled to Chincoteague Island, VA, for the annual Wild Pony Swim & Round-up. The couple planned to buy a wild pony and donate it back, but when they arrived all the turn-back ponies were sold.

Meanwhile two little girls with $500 were desperately trying to buy a pony to take home, but the price always was too high. Carollynn noticed one of the girls had feathers on her shirt so she introduced herself to the family, shared her recent brain tumor diagnosis, God’s promise to cover her with His “feathers,” and her desire to give back a pony. It took some convincing, but finally the girls’ parents allowed the Supplees to buy them a pony.

They all thought Pony #42 was solid brown, but as he turned, a lone white streak resembling a jagged feather became visible. The girls named him Sea Feather.

For the next eight summers the Supplees traveled to Chincoteague and gifted a pony, including the final year when a wheelchair-bound Carollynn purchased “Chincoteague Miracle” for a sobbing little girl whose dad had recently passed from cancer. (A nonprofit “Feather Fund” established to continue the couple’s work has since given away 45 wild ponies including the 2004 recipient pictured below. https://www.featherfund.net )

When I see feathers today, they remind me of my beautiful friend Carollynn, but they also remind me of my God whose “wings” shelter us in our trials.

Because you are my help,
I sing in the shadow of your wings.
My soul clings to you;
your right hand upholds me. Psalm 63:7-8

Can you feel those “wings” over you—protecting you, shielding you, drawing you close? Have you trusted God enough to truly let Him cover you? He longs to do that for you.

“How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen protects her chicks beneath her wings,
but you wouldn’t let me.”
Jesus speaking over Jerusalem in Matthew 23:37

Please let the Lord love you today. Let Him hold you under His “wings” and give you hope.
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Be sure to open this blog in your browser to hear the music video “Psalm 91 (On Eagles’ Wings)” by Shane & Shane

Sep 16

Do You Need to Hear from God?

I hope you have someone who is praying with you during your cancer journey or whatever trial you’re facing—not just for you, but right with you so you can hear your needs lifted to Heaven. Even though I have been privileged to pray with cancer patients and their caregivers for the past 30+ years, I never cease to be amazed when I see God answer. It’s always especially exciting when patients tell me it’s the first time they really heard from God.

Maureen was one of those patients.

It’s easy to remember when I first met Maureen and her husband—the first anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

9/11 National Day of Remembrance, September 11, 2001. Vector illustration

What a rotten day to have to start chemo, I thought as I talked with the couple in my office. Maureen was forced to reschedule this first treatment because the week before she had had to go to Nebraska where her mother took ill while visiting relatives.

As I explained my job of offering emotional and spiritual support, I could see that Maureen was especially anxious. She said that she and her husband had gone to church early that morning to pray. I thought perhaps their visit was prompted by the day’s special significance to our country, but she said they made the same visit most mornings before work.

But Maureen admitted that she didn’t feel she heard from God the way other people seemed to hear Him. Her husband concurred that the amazing spiritual moments others described never seemed to happen to them.

I didn’t have any answer to their dilemma but asked if I might pray for them before Maureen’s treatment began. They readily agreed, so we held hands and I prayed a blessing over them.

When I finished, Maureen had a shocked look on her face.

“I can’t believe what you just prayed!” she said.

Oh dear, have I made some theological mistake? I wondered.

“Why? What did I say?” I asked her.

“You prayed that I would have ‘strength, courage, and peace’,” she said. “Those are the three things I have been praying for, in that exact order, every day since I was diagnosed with cancer!”

“So much for not hearing from God!” I responded with a smile. “I don’t think there’s any doubt now that He heard your prayers!”

I was pretty excited at God’s amazingly fast response, but He wasn’t done with them yet that day

Maureen went to the chemo room, and I stopped to talk with a patient named Dee. She said she wanted to give my first book to her next-door neighbor’s daughter who was recently diagnosed with cancer. Dee added some details about how her neighbor had become ill while she was in Nebraska.

“Wait a minute,” I said, stopping her story. “What’s your neighbor’s daughter’s name?”

“Maureen,” she replied.

Within moments introductions were made between the two women who had heard much about each other but never met. The veteran patient, Dee, hugged the novice patient, Maureen, and assured her she had been praying for her.

“I am so excited,” Maureen kept saying. “Things like this never happen to me!”And that’s how Maureen learned for sure that God really did hear her prayers and that His amazing power wasn’t just something that happened to other people.

I don’t know if you hear from God everyday or if feel you’ve never really heard from Him, but I promise you that He wants you to draw close and hear His voice.

Oh, that we might know the Lord! Let us press on to know him.
He will respond to us as surely as the arrival of dawn or the coming of the rains in early spring. Hosea 6:3

You faithfully answer our prayers with awesome deeds, O God our savior.
You are the hope of everyone on earth, even those who sail on distant seas. Psalm 65:5

If you have someone who will pray with you, ask that person to help you hear from God. If you don’t, please allow me that privilege right now: Father God, My friend needs to hear Your voice today. Will You please some how, some way speak to my friend in a way that will show You do faithfully answer our prayers. In the Name of Jesus. Amen.

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Be sure to open in your browser to hear the music video below “My Little Prayer” by David Archuleta.

 

Apr 09

What do you need today?

 

Why do you have needs? Why do you need shelter or food? Why do you need emotional connections with other people? Why do you need to feel a sense of purpose?

You have needs because God created you with needs. He could have made you so that your shelter is on your back, as He did the turtle. He could have made you so that you could live a solitary, isolated life. But instead, He made you with needs. The reason is so that your needs could be His entry points. Your needs will point you to His supply.

The Father wants to meet your needs. He encourages you to look to Him to supply every need that arises. He takes pleasure in supplying you with everything you need.

Give us today our daily bread. (Matthew 6:11)

“Meet today’s needs,” Jesus taught us to pray. “Whatever arises today, Father I look to you for provision.”

I hear the Father whisper to me, “Nothing will come into your life today for which I have not already put provision in place. Just be alert and watchful. Look to Me first, I will point you to the supply.”

What an adventure it is to live this way! How it frees me from anxiety and frustration! I am learning that everything, from the major to the mundane, has been provided for by my Father. As needs arise from day to day, instead of asking, “Father, do something!” I just say, “Father, what have You already done? Where will I discover the answer You have provided?”

Please understand, God does not meet every need in the way that seems convenient to me. If that were my measuring stick, then I would often be frustrated. But if I have given myself to Him as a living offering, then I am open for Him to meet my needs in ways that will further my understanding of Him or advance His kingdom. You will only live in a state of blessedness when you have aligned yourself  with His will, so that your desire is to know Him at deeper and deeper levels.

If your motivating force is to get God to perform for you–to see Him bring about your agenda–you will not find the blessedness that Jesus offers. Often, what seems an inconvenience to me puts me on the path to an encounter the Lord has arranged for me. Or, something that throws off my schedule actually provides me with information I needed–sometimes before I know I needed it.

Sometimes God waits for you to ask, because until you see your need, you will not recognize His supply. He waits until you have come to the end of your own resources. He waits for you to turn to Him as the one and only source.

Blessedness comes in trusting His love for you and His wisdom. Peace is yours when you know that He will never withhold from you something that would truly make your life more complete.

Today’s blog is an excerpt from Set Apart: a 6-week study of the beatitudes by Jennifer Kennedy Dean, pp. 160-162. Copyright (c) 201. New Hope Publishers. Used with permission.

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Be sure to open this blog in your browser to hear the music video below, “The Lord’s Prayer” by then 13-year-old Jackie Evancho https://youtu.be/qayluuujauM

 

Mar 25

Shaking Things Up

Don’t wait. Not a minute. Not a second. Instead, praise God now. If you and I wait to praise God until after something earthshaking and amazing happens, we’ve got the wrong order. Praise comes first. Doubt that?

Consider the classic praise story in the Bible–this scenario (in Acts 16) where Paul and Silas, bound in chains in the dungeon of a jail, their bodies bruised and bloodied by their jailers, still lifted their voices  to praise God.

And what an odd sound. Praise in a jail. Sung by two beaten, bloodied prisoners. It’s not logical. But as the book of Acts records, as they praised God, the earth shook. “And the prison was shaken to its foundations. All the doors flew open, and the chains of every prisoner fell off!” Praise is power, indeed. But praise comes first.

When we’re bound up by some situation, in the midst of that mess, it’s hard to remember that we should praise God first. Not after it’s all cleaned up. But, while it’s happening. That is the proper order of praise.

In fact, the word praise (which in Latin means “prize”) shares a root with the Latin word for preposition. As we recall from grammar lessons at school, a preposition is the word that comes before the main thing. Such words hold the “before” position–the preposition–setting up the main topic. In our spiritual lives, praise sits in the same place. It holds the preposition, setting up God’s power so it can follow, moving in our hearts and lives.

And no prison chains can tie down that power. So don’t wait for your chains to fall or your prison walls to crumble. Praise God first. Right now. Despite your circumstances. Praise Him for being God. For His mercy. For His deliverance. For His hope. For His blessing. For His empowering Spirit. Then stand back. Your prison walls are coming down! (Content taken from One Year God’s Great Blessings Devotional by Patricia Raybon. Copyright © 2011. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, a Division of Tyndale House Ministries. All rights reserved.)
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Today’s blog was written by Patricia Raybon, my friend and an award-winning, bestselling author. I love her writing, her teachings and that fact we both got our journalism degrees from THE Ohio State University (we even had the same favorite prof, “Mad Martha”!) You can connect with Patricia  on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/patricia.raybon or on her website https://www.patriciaraybon.com. And if you love daily inspiration, check out her One Year God’s Great Blessings Devotional–one of my favorites!

When you have about 15 minutes to praise God, please listen to the music video below of our church’s worship pastor Eric Sumpter and the worship band. There are three songs with the words on the screen so you can sing along. I promise both God –and you–will be blessed. https://www.facebook.com/christschurchofthevalley/videos/508513459834041/