Compare and Contrast: God’s purposeful plan

No matter how I try to begin this entry what first comes to mind is I cannot compare and contrast God’s purposeful plan in the lives of His people.

“Who has understood the Spirit of the Lord, or instructed him as his counselor?  Whom did the Lord consult to enlighten him, and who taught him the right way?  Who was it that taught him knowledge or showed him the path of understanding?”  Isaiah 40:13-14

In this blog we are following Pastor Bob Jennings’ journey of his last days here on earth.  He has been faithful in sharing with us how a Christian dies.  The day I posted this article, Mike Fechner also made a post to his blog , Building Bridges of Christ’s Love.  I was dumbfounded as I read his story of healing.  I thought God is a God of contrast yet at the same time I realized we really cannot compare Bob’s story and Mike’s story, Bob’s dying and Mike’s healing.  Is God so small that the human mind can compare and contrast His purposeful plan for our lives?  No.  God is God and He will do as He pleases.

This shouldn’t unnerve us nor rattle our faith but bring a certain security in knowing that as our sovereign God, He knows all things and has a purposeful plan in every individual’s life.  What brings a great security and comfort to me is, “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”  (Ps. 139:16b)   Not one of my days is a mistake; I am cancer free because there is a purposeful reason for my remission.  There is not one mistake in Bob’s life nor Mike’s life; both have purpose and this purpose ultimately is to bring glory to God’s character and name. (I am secure in stating that both of these men with their arms around one another would share a hearty, “Amen!”.)  I don’t think I need to wrestle with the question why God calls one believer home and heals the other; I rejoice in both cases.

Here is Mike’s story:

Awakened to Pray

Posted on September 11, 2012

Does God still do miracles? Is He truly the same yesterday, today, and forever? The answer is emphatically YES! We have become like the early church, whose members prayed for Peter’s deliverance from prison yet struggled to believe their prayers had been answered. While Peter stood at their door knocking, they argued with the servant announcing his arrival. They dismissed her as crazy rather than believe their prayers had been answered! (Acts12:13–16)

Over the next few weeks, I will attempt to share the many miracles the Lord has done in direct response to your believing prayers. My prayer is that we may know that God has so much more that He wants to do in this generation if we will pray by faith the Word of God in the power of the Holy Spirit while trusting in our Sovereign Lord for the answer! Miracles are awaiting the church in this season of awakening if we will believe our Great God and pray His Word by faith.

When I was diagnosed thirty-eight months ago with stage 4 non-smoker’s lung cancer, I believed the diagnosis and accepted as truth that I was a dead man walking. I planned my funeral, arranged my affairs, and prepared for death to take me within eight months—eighteen months at the longest—anticipating seeing God face to face. “To live is Christ and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21) was ever on my heart.

As I waited for death, a group of intercessors came into my office, among them, Kay Boleman, who had been assigned to be my intercessor while I was on the staff at Prestonwood Baptist Church. These prayer warriors prayed as the Bible instructs us to do:

Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. (James 5:14–15, emphasis mine)

They prayed a “prayer of faith.” The Greek could be translated “a prayer of believing” or “a believing prayer.” That is, they prayed believing that I was already healed.

That was a critical ministry they performed on my behalf. People in the pit of despair simply do not have the capacity to believe. I needed Kay and the others to pray over me and for me. Their prayer of belief lifted my eyes from this death sentence to see my great God and to hear His promises. And I believed, that day, I was healed. I began to walk daily in this confidence, no matter what men would say. I do not ignore science; I simply give more credence to the Word of God. I did accept the best course of medical treatments offered, but I placed my trust in the Great Physician to heal me.

Let me be clear. “Praying in belief” is not our attempt to bring God around to our way of thinking or to get His approval for our desires. God is sovereign and He calls us to trust His character. Trusting in our Sovereign God for the answer to prayer means that if He tells me it’s time to suffer greatly and then go home to be with Him, I should rejoice knowing that this will bring Him Glory. (I will explain this further in a later post.) Jesus is King and we must surrender to His sovereignty.

The week before surgery, the pastors and elders of Prestonwood Baptist Church held a prayer service on my behalf. The elders anointed my head with oil and prayed believing God for my healing. My mother prayed in the power of the Holy Spirit proclaiming that I was healed. On that day, I believed, by God’s grace and mercy, that this surgery would be the final chapter in my battle with cancer. Click here to listen to her prayer now.

Before surgery, Dr. James Batiste, a Neurooncologist with U.T. Southwestern Medical Center, warned that removing a tumor the size of a golf ball from my brain would likely cause balance problems, which would take anywhere from two weeks to six months to resolve. He mentioned that I should expect nausea, headache, impaired speech, sore neck, and muscle spasms during my long recovery.

When I was taken back to surgery, I remembered the last words of my oldest son Michael, who prayed, “Thank you, Lord, for entrusting this to our family.”

When I woke, the surgeons reported that the tumor was completely contained and came out in one piece! My doctor said, “We all know that Somebody else had something to do with this.” I spoke freely and clearly, experienced no nausea, no major headache, felt no more pain than a sore neck. The next day, Dr. Batiste came to see my first attempt to walk; as he watched, I walked with no assistance. He said, “Please quote me on this: This is a miracle.” (Click here to see for yourself.) Less than forty-eight hours later, note the improvement.

By that afternoon my bodily functions were all normal and I needed nothing more than Regular Strength Tylenol for minor pain. In fact, I spent much of my time in the waiting room praying for families whose loved ones lay in the ICU. I was released from the hospital three days after surgery instead of the expected four to seven days, and I have been feeling great. A week after leaving the hospital, I began working out at Gold’s Gym .

I tell you this for two reasons. First, I want to encourage you. We serve a God who continues to work supernaturally for our good and His glory. (Rom. 8:28–39) Second, to proclaim that the Lord is calling all of us to be awakened, to know Him, and to experience Him in a fresh and powerful way! There are miracles yet to be experienced if we will, again, become a people who pray by the Word of God in the power of the Holy Spirit, trusting in the sovereignty of our great God.

As Jesus said to His followers,

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matt. 7:7–11)

mantle zones, purpose and don’t waste your cancer!

As soon as I was diagnosed with cancer, I knew I never wanted to waste this experience.

Dr. Greg grabbed some paper and began drawing a diagram of what mantle cell lymphoma is and what it looks like.  His explanation was a “foreign” language as he went on describing how there are mantle zones that surround our cells and “blah, blah, blah” and mine were cancerous.  The drawings were helpful but regardless, my mind had been shot with a stun gun and I was stuck at stage IV cancer and it was called mantle cell lymphoma, a rare cancer and there is no cure.

But even in that paralyzing moment, my core stood fast in believing there was purpose in my cancer diagnose and purpose in all of this confusing information.  The first test of purpose was my trust in God and could I, would I explicitly trust Him?  My belief is God is sovereign and He is purposeful and trusting in who He says He is, PURPOSE became my foundation.  Little did I realize the great deep and dimensional growth I was about to experience – those drawings and mantle zones have not been wasted but were building blocks to a richer and more meaningful relationship as my faith was tested and God showed Himself true.

Yesterday I was challenged with how far am I willing to go in continuing to remain involved in the cancer community which really is a world all in itself.  Truly, I do not lightly follow the cancer blogs listed on my right side bar.  I am invested in their journeys, both good news and bad.  When the author doesn’t write an update after weeks from their last post, I wonder what has happened.  Since following these blogs some authors were told by their medical team there is nothing more they can do and to go home, hospice is available when they are ready and that is the last I read of them.  I am sad and I feel a sense of loss.

Weekly I hear of another person being diagnosed with cancer and I am sad that they and their loved ones are now traveling this bumpy road.  This road includes a calendar filled with appointments; the onslaught of information and new terms and words never heard before; tests, tests, tests; awkward conversations with friends; finding the right doctor; where to be treated; second opinions; distancing friendships and new friendships; tears and more tears and decisions that feel uneducated and second guessed.  I feel and empathize with their loss as they leave their familiar and controlled world behind and walk into this fast paced, anxiety-ridden, not knowing what is going to happen next world, a world that is out of their control.

Why do I remain in this often depressing sphere?  I don’t need to do this.  I can get out now, I am cancer free and I feel great.  I can leave this miserable and often fatal world and get on with my life as a cancer free person forgetting what is behind me and look forward to what is ahead.

Yesterday I asked a question, is there a purpose for why I remain connected to and involved in this realm?  Has God purposed me here?  Do I have a role and a place even as a cancer free survivor?  I don’t want to waste my cancer.

This Tuesday night, May 22nd, is the introductory meeting of F.A.I.T.H., Firm Anchor In The Hope, the first in this valley Christian cancer support group.  The idea for a Biblically-based cancer support fellowship simmered for nearly three years.  My friend Joyce, who is a breast cancer survivor and lost her sister to breast cancer, and I have talked about this need for a setting to discuss the spiritual side to cancer supported by the hope and encouragement in Jesus Christ and through the promise and comfort of Scripture.  Through the culmination of separate events in our  lives, we feel this support premise is needed more than ever before and now is the time to offer such a group.

I don’t want to waste my cancer and neither does Joyce.

In John Piper’s article, Don’t Waste Your Cancer, he states ten challenges.  When I first read this article at the start of my cancer journey, a few points were convicting and even offended me.  But in maturing through my experience, there is truth within each point.

1. You will waste your cancer if you do not believe it is designed for you by God.
2. You will waste your cancer if you believe it is a curse and not a gift.
3. You will waste your cancer if you seek comfort from your odds rather than from God.
4. You will waste your cancer if you refuse to think about death.
5. You will waste your cancer if you think that “beating” cancer means staying alive rather than cherishing Christ.
6. You will waste your cancer if you spend too much time reading about cancer and not enough time reading about God.
7. You will waste your cancer if you let it drive you into solitude instead of deepen your relationships with manifest affection
8. You will waste your cancer if you grieve as those who have no hope.
9. You will waste your cancer if you treat sin as casually as before.
10. You will waste your cancer if you fail to use it as a means of witness to the truth and glory of Christ.

Two points boldly stand out: You will waste your cancer if you grieve as those who have no hope and You will waste your cancer if you fail to use it as a means of witness to the truth and glory of Christ.

Yesterday I was challenged.  Am I willing to continue to walk in this world alongside those who are presently coping with cancer?  Am I willing to empathize and feel heart ache when the news is negative or terminal?  Am I willing to feel loss?

Yes.  The Bible pictures our eternal hope secure in God’s unchanging nature and promise as an anchor “for the soul, firm and secure.”  (Heb.  6:19)  I believe God’s purpose for me is to share there is  hope in cancer found in the truth and glory of Christ.

cancerchondriac and to trust some more

February 19, 2009 – declared cancer free!  What unbelievable words to hear, really, I mean unbelievable.

Hearing you have cancer and then going through months of treatment and then being declared cancer free is a mixed bag of emotions.  I was delighted and relieved to hear those words but there was a part of me that did not want to believe what I heard.  Allowing this cloud of hesitation put me in control of not being back-handed again by the diagnose, “You have cancer.”  That statement was so shocking, I was not going to allow myself to believe I would remain cancer free.  If I allowed for that chance then I wouldn’t be shocked.  There, I am in control and if and more likely when I relapse, I am already emotionally prepared.  Doesn’t that sound crazy?

The bummer about cancer is the treating oncologist makes it plain they can not use the word “cure.”  Since the doctor cannot say you are cured and there is no chance of the cancer returning, this can create a sense of dread in your thinking.  (I wish cancer could be treated like a cold, you get over it in about ten days and if you don’t, you are prescribed an anti-biotic to assure you get over the cold.  Chemotherapy is not like an anti-biotic; it kills the cancer cells but you are not guaranteed that one cancerous cell remains and is lurking waiting to wreak havoc on my life again.)

And then there is the precious “five-year” mark.  If you can get to five years your cancer will more than likely not return and just maybe the doctor might use the word “cured.”  But, yes, there is a big BUT . . .

It doesn’t matter how long you have been cancer free, you will always be a cancerchondriac.  The degree to which one is a cancerchondriac will vary, but nonetheless, there will be a quarter-inch sized square in your brain that entertains the “what ifs.”  (Please read the well written article by Betsy deParry, “A decade after a cancer diagnose: musings on life,” a previous post on this blog.)  I can bear witness that in the first year the brain is pretty much occupied by the capitalized “WHAT IF”  but as the years pass the occupied space becomes smaller and in lower case “what if”, thus down to a quarter square inch.

I have heard from 8, 10, 12 year veterans of survivorship still going through “scanxiety” as their annual appointment rolls around.  As a survivor, the first year post treatment you generally see the oncologist every three months, then the doctor lengthens out the visits to every six months until the you hit that five-year mark.  After that precious milestone, then the appointments become annual but regardless how many years have gone by the survivor still has a sense of dread, maybe a little, maybe a lot.

And, I hear from our veterans even after years along in their cancer free living if an odd ache pops up, a questionable hitch, a bump, a shadow on a xray that quarter square inch grows and the lower case “what if” has two or three question marks behind it and darn, that cloud of hesitation returns until the doctor proclaims, “That is nothing to worry about.”  Then one thinks to oneself, how silly, I over reacted.  Heck, yeah!

So addressing “to trust some more” is the name of the game.

My CBC’s (routine blood draw measuring red, white and platelet counts) show that my red count is not normal, it does not fall into the normal range, it is below.  I’ve seen wacky lymphocyte and monocyte counts, A/G ratio out of the normal range, LDH is a little high. I wonder what is going on?  If the blood test results show I’m out of range in one way or another I compare it with past months results, is there a trend?  And then not knowing what a lymphocyte or monocyte is, let alone an A/G ratio and a LDH, I look up the terms so I know what they are and do and if all this is bad.  I bring it to the doctor’s attention.  Can I trust you with this?

And then there is the “bump.”  The bump was how my lymphoma manifested so now when I find a bump does that mean . . . ?  One lymph node is a bit larger than the same node on the other side.  Asymmetric = not normal.  (With this one my “what if” did capitalize into “WHAT IF”)  So I skedaddle to my oncologist!  And her comment is it is not large enough to be of concern.  Well, are you sure?  Maybe you’re wrong!  Can I trust you on this?

And now it is time for my annual appointment.  I first scheduled my appointment with my local oncologist here in Kalispell.  A part of the routine annual exam is a full blood panel and a CT scan.  Now I have come to rely on my blood tests, if I’m going to relapse it will show up in the blood work.  Also, I rely on the CT scan to show us what we can not see – those hidden, internal lymph nodes I can’t feel to see if they are growing in size. If those two tests result in all is well, then for the next four months until the next blood draw I am assured the cancer has not come back.  And so it goes.

However, we planned a camping trip that takes us through Salt Lake City.  I thought I might as well make an appointment with my treating oncologist who is the specialist in hematological cancers.  You see, my doctor here is a general oncologist and he just might not detect something amiss.  Remember, can I trust him?

So I am scheduled with Dr. Glenn in March.  She will test my blood and order a CT scan.  But wait!  I was informed by Nurse Debbie after two years post stem cell transplant Dr. Glenn no longer believes a CT scan is necessary.  What?  You mean to tell me I can’t look into my body anymore for those evil, possibly growing lymph nodes?  Can I trust Dr. Glenn?????

Trust.  I am learning trust is the name of the game.  My last three blog entries were on trusting God in all things including my body and my health and my future.  A huge lesson here, do not put my hope and confidence in blood tests and CT scans – even if they show something negative.  I am to trust God first and the skills and knowledge of my doctors second.  If the doctor tells me he or she is not concerned then I need to trust their decision.

I was once again relying too heavily on circumstances letting them dictate my response so that I might control my emotions not letting news (bad news) back hand me again.   My eyes opened.  One, just trust God; two, and trust the knowledge of my doctors.  If I relapse, eventually it will be found out through testing or otherwise.  Why anticipate it?  I have no control over this anyway.

So, I thought to myself, “It’s time to put my big girl panties on.”  I had cancer, I am now cancer free.  Don’t worry, in God’s book my days are already ordained and nothing will happen too soon or too late.  Trust God, He is in control!  (and I’m not, phew!)