The Big C: All’s Well

When I heard the word cancer back in November, I had no idea what kind of a journey the Lord had in mind for me. Would I suffer terribly? Be incapacitated for my work and studies? How much would it alter my family’s holiday plans?

Now, here in February, I know the answer: not much.

The Lord has us living within ten minutes of a top-notch breast center. They are dedicated to treating the whole patient. Not once was I made to feel like a body on the production line. Not once did they brush past my feelings and concerns. Every staff member was so wonderful.

The surgery was so easy—the day after, I didn’t even need Tylenol. I cruised through Christmas prep and activities with no problem. Then in January, I began the radiation treatments. My team was outstanding—I actually cried a little when leaving them for the last time this week. (I brought them cookies and gave them each my book in gratitude.)

And now, with the exception of a few follow-up appointments, this girl is done.

After hearing I was sick, I wrote a post promising to keep you all in the loop. I would write all about what God was teaching me. All the times I was able to see Him in the crisis or terrible difficulty. But everything went fine. No trauma. No suffering. I felt His presence and involvement for sure. But as for any eureka moments, those dramatic realizations I was expecting? None. Kind of embarrassing, really.

That’s how I was thinking, anyway, until I read a story sent to me by my friend, Kathy Howard. Her family was in a dangerous, desperate situation. She cried out to God for rescue. It wasn’t long before someone appeared to lead them to safety. But later that day, she realized: the man who so unexpectedly came to the rescue was not the hero. It was God, who answered her prayer by sending the man to them.

I’m so glad she sent the story to me. Because as I read her bottom line, the Lord nudged my heart. There was a reason everything went so easily in the past few months. God sent every wonderful person on the oncology team, my excellent surgeon, oncologist, and radiologist that gave me such wonderful care. He provided friends and family that uplifted me in prayer, sent encouraging notes or phone calls to cheer me on.

It doesn’t always go that way. In fact, trials and hardship are two of God’s most effective tools in moving us toward maturity. Life is a classroom for us all. He loves us too much to allow us to stay the same.

It could have gone badly. Sometimes it does for people, even those who love Him with all their hearts. I could have died. But this time around, the Lord did something different. Rather than allow great struggle or misery, He used positive things to reassure me of His presence. I had no doubts, no fear. He enabled me to trust Him completely.

And in my eagerness to have discoveries to tell my readers, I missed all that. Until today.

The Lord reminded me of another time I was looking for Him, during one of the biggest crises of my life. My mother lay dying in a hospital bed, and I was on a cot next to her, unable to sleep, knowing she had just days to live. At one point, in the middle of the night, I sat up and began to sob my heart out. It was a terrible, overwhelming grief.

Just then a nurse came in. She saw me falling apart. She went into the bathroom to run a washcloth under warm water for my face and swollen eyes. She sat down next to me and put her arm around me. We didn’t say much. But her presence was everything to me at that moment.

In the days after the funeral, I thought about how much I had cried out to God through my mother’s whole illness. How much I yearned to feel Him in discernible ways. I felt my prayers had been shouts into the wind. He had stayed silent. For all of my prayers, I got nothing.

But then I remembered that nurse, whose kind compassion carried me through the worst night of my life. I didn’t even know her name. But God did. And at just the right moment, he sent her to me.

Why is it I forget to credit Him when things are going well? Why don’t I tend to appreciate what He is silently doing to carry me through?

In the past few months, it was His loving care, His people in the right place, His provision of encouragement through friends and family.

He was there. Always. Carrying me right through all of it. Giving me peace that passes understanding. Allowing me to sing in all the uncertainty: it is well with my soul.

So thank you, dear friends, for your beautiful support and concern. Thank you for allowing yourself to be used by God for this girl. I consider each of you a gift from the Lord. I only hope I will pay it forward, by being sensitive and obedient to the Lord’s leading when He gives me opportunity to encourage others. I want to be the hands and feet of Jesus, truly. Just as you were to me.

All I have in my heart this day is gratitude. I cannot thank you enough. And I give the Lord all the glory. He is faithful.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. Isaiah 43:2 NIV