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 28

When You’re Not Really FEELING Thankful…

 

 

 

 

When I was getting chemotherapy, my friends at church usually were excited that I was being treated by a physician who had strong spiritual faith and they often asked me, “How did this little town manage to get a ­Jewish oncologist who believes in Jesus and is so well-trained and respected in his field?” I used to reply jokingly that God sent him here just for me.

Now I know there was much more truth to that statement than I could have fathomed at the time.

A diagnosis of cancer, or any difficult trial normally brings with it many emotions. Thankfulness is not usually on the list. When I found out my cells had gone awry and allowed cancer to grow inside me, gratefulness was the last thing I felt.

But I kept thinking about the admonition in the Bible to “give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thessalonians 5:18 NIV). I knew enough to ­understand that did not mean I had to be some sort of masochist and praise God for ­every­ awful thing that happened to me. Instead, I believed it meant I could have a thankful heart no matter how depressing my circumstances were.

So a few weeks after my diagnosis in 1990, I began to look for something for which to be thankful. It was one of those conversations between my head and my heart.

Let’s see . . . I have cancer at the age of 36 after taking good care of myself physically. No, ­can’t think of anything worthy of thanks there.

My three little girls may have to grow up without a mother. Nope, that ­doesn’t work either.

My husband already has buried one wife and now has a 60-percent chance he’ll outlive another. Naw, that isn’t inspiring any words of praise.

­I’m going to have to take toxic chemotherapy, when I ­don’t even like to take an aspirin. Not much there to feel grateful about.

Finally, it came to me.

Dr.  Marc Hirsh! I have a Messianic ­Jewish oncologist—who knows, maybe the world’s ­only Messianic ­Jewish oncologist—practicing medicine just seven miles from my home. I humbly bowed my head and heart and for the first time since hearing the dreaded news “you have cancer” and I thanked God in the midst of my circumstance.

“Father, you know I ­don’t feel any thankfulness about my situation, but I want to thank You for leading Dr. Marc Hirsh here to be my doctor.”

I can ­only imagine God smiling and saying, “Now you’re getting it. Just wait to see how ­really thankful you’re going to be for him when you see how I am going to use this doctor to change your life.”

After that prayer, the rest is history, as they say. (If you want to read the incredible story of Marc’s spiritual journey to faith in Jesus as his Messiah, you’ll have to read my first book, When God & Cancer Meet.) But the short story of our “doctor-patient relationship” is that my family became close friends with Marc’s family and in 1996 he and his wife Elizabeth offered me a position in his office as a patient advocate providing emotional and spiritual care to cancer patients and their caregivers.

“Having a patient advocate makes so much sense that I wonder why we ­didn’t do it sooner,” he told me shortly after I started working with him, adding that he “­can’t imagine” practicing medicine without having someone in a position like mine.

I ­can’t imagine what my life would have been like without being a patient advocate for nearly 20 years. It’s incredible to me what one small prayer of thankfulness produced.

If you or your loved one have a cancer diagnosis or are facing some other unwanted difficulty, I’m wondering if you have found anything for which to be thankful in the midst of your circumstances. You probably ­don’t have a Messianic ­Jewish oncologist (if you do, I’d love to know!), but I believe there is something or someone for which you can say a prayer of thanks today. It may be just the prayer God wants to use to begin to bless your life.

I think the Old Testament prophet Habakkuk penned a wonderful example of thankfulness even when everything around him was going wrong:

Even though the fig trees have no blossoms,
And though there are no grapes on the vines;
Even though the olive crop fails,
And the fields lie empty and barren;
Even though the flocks die in the fields,
And the cattle barns are empty,

Yet I will rejoice in the LORD!

I will be joyful in the God of my salvation! Habakkuk 3:17,18

Go ahead, be thankful in all things—even when the hair follicles have no “blossoms,” even though your strength “fails”” and even though your dreams “lie empty and barren.” Go ahead and rejoice in the Lord because a prayer of thanksgiving can unleash the power of God in our lives in truly amazing ways.

Lord, give me the strength to do as it says in Romans 12:12 “Rejoice in hope, be patient in affliction, be faithful in prayer.” Amen.

If the music video doesn’t appear below, copy and paste this link to play it : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lw9CcLGjouM

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

Dec 07

Missing Someone at Christmas

 

 

 

 

 

I thought it wouldn’t.

But it did.

It happened again this year.

Kenny G was belting out jazzy, holiday cheer. A burning candle wafted a delicious candy cane scent. I was home by myself happily decorating our house for Christmas. I  pulled a yellowed and torn rectangular box out of the large Rubbermaid storage bin and chuckled to myself. This box has to be nearly 60 years old.

Carefully wrapped inside was a slender, shiny tree topper that graced my parents’ Christmas trees for decades. It wasn’t the original which came in the now-yellowed box, but a replacement topper that my folks must have decided to store in there after the original one broke. ( I can just hear my Mom saying: Why throw away a perfectly good box?)

My Dad passed away in 2010 and my Mom in  2013, so afterward my only brother, my three girls and I divvied up their ornaments. I gave my brother the raggedy little cloth Santa figurine we both used to fight about hanging on the tree every year.  My poor Mother used to keep track of whose turn it was. I have no idea why we thought that was the best decoration–I stopped believing in Santa as a 2-year-old when I easily recognized one of my Mom’s brothers dressed up in the red and white suit handing me my gifts. After that my parents apparently didn’t even bother trying to fool my little brother.photo

But he and I  both remembered the tree topper–Dad always put it on because he was the only one who could reach the top of our freshly cut tree. My brother said I could have it–after all, I’d sacrificed the Santa.

So this year, for the second time since my last parent has been gone, I pulled out that shiny green ornament. I  didn’t put it on our tree, but instead lovingly placed it in an antique glass pitcher filled with a bunch of my parents’ old, brightly colored ornaments. I added a strand of beads which used to encircle their tree, stepped back and surveyed my decorating work.

Perfect. Classy. Very antique-looking and out of the reach of our six grandchildren under age six. And then it started. A lump in my throat. I swallowed hard, but it grew. I felt my eyes misting and then quickly hot, tears began to sting as I tried to hold them back. Within seconds I went from happily satisfied to sadly sobbing.

I miss my Mom and my Dad. I don’t want their ornaments…I want them! 

I sat down on the couch and wept. Big tears and loud sobs followed by necessary nose-blowing.

And that’s what grief does to us. It sneaks up on us when we’re not expecting it and it won’t let go until we’ve allowed it to have its say.

**********************************

Have you experienced grief sneaking up on you this season? A sound, a smell, a word, a photo–something– triggers a memory and you come undone.

There’s someone special you are missing this Christmas. 

Maybe it’s the first Dec. 25 that a certain smiling face won’t be in your home or maybe it’s the second or third year you can’t buy them a special gift. Or maybe it’s been 20  or 30 years, but you still yearn for just one more holiday with that loved one around your table.

I get it. I had my parents until they were in the 80s and I was in my  late 50s and somehow I thought it would be less painful to say good-bye. But my love for them wasn’t lessened because of their ages–it just kept growing. And actually now that they’re gone, it keeps growing even more as I realize anew all the things they did for me and I come to truly appreciate the gift of their love. I expect to keep grieving them for the rest of my life.

And if I am feeling such intense grief over my parents, I can only imagine the sorrow some of you face while missing a spouse this Christmas or the deepest, most unnatural pain of all experienced by those of you who have buried a son or daughter.

Or maybe the person or persons you’re missing haven’t passed away, but miles or circumstances are separating you this year. As hard as you try,  it just doesn’t seem right with them not here for the holidays. That’s grief you are feeling, too.

Maybe you can’t even get out the Christmas decorations this year. It’s just too painful. That’s OK.  My friend Connie whose husband Brad literally dropped dead of a heart attack at age 47 recalls that she didn’t feel like celebrating Christmas just three months after his passing.

“I felt horrible because I did not want to celebrate Jesus’ birth because of Brad’s death,” admitted Connie.

But a good friend gave her some insight which really helped her ease that holiday pain.

“Do you know what Jesus is doing this Christmas season?” the friend asked Connie.

Connie shook her head “no.”

“He’s weeping. He’s weeping with you.”

Connie said that mental image of Jesus shedding tears with her helped her to stop worrying about all the holiday celebrations. Instead, she prayed: “Just for today, I need to see Jesus. Just for today, I need to seek Jesus. Just for today, I need to serve Jesus.”

Are you missing someone this Christmas? Jesus–yes, the whole Reason for the season–is weeping with you. Go ahead: acknowledge and feel your grief. Remember that Jesus understands your sorrow (Isaiah 53:3) even if no one else on earth really does. And then join Connie in her prayer that today you will see Jesus, that today you will seek Jesus, and that today you will serve Jesus. It’s a prayer He longs to answer for you.

“The LORD is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed.” Psalm 34:18

I’ve included two music videos of the same song below because I really loved both very different renditions. The first is a beautiful harmony by Vocal Point, an all-male a capella ensemble and the second is an angelic sounding a capella boys’ choir called Libera.

(If the music videos don’t show below, please  copy and paste to listen at:

 

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