8/6/13

 

Life as we know it can change in an instant. My husband Steve and I celebrated our 33rd wedding anniversary on January 12, 2013. A week later our world turned upside down. James 4:14 says, "Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away." That reality can smack you in the face when you least expect it.

 

January 19, 2013 will be forever burned into my memory. As I sat in our missions conference at Denton Bible Church, I felt a touch on my shoulder. I looked up and saw Steve beckoning me to join him in the foyer. After we sat down, he said, "The doctor just called me with the test results. The CT scan showed the lymph nodes are enlarged, and the chest X-ray showed that my lungs have shrunk. She thinks I have lymphoma. She's sending me to a surgeon for a biopsy." Stunned and shocked, I looked up and saw Mike Spencer, one of our pastors and our ABF teacher. We walked over and told him what we had just found out. He prayed with us and comforted us. We know without a doubt that God had Mike in the foyer just for us.

 

Our heavenly Father started us on this journey with love and grace, and He continues to shower us with blessings too numerous to tell. So our journey began. Walk along with me as I recount God's faithfulness and the peace and joy He's given us these past months.

 

8/12/13

 

Psalm 32:10 says, “Many are the woes of the wicked, but the Lord’s unfailing love
surrounds the one who trusts in Him.”  We focused on the Lord’s unfailing love as Steve underwent a needle biopsy on a lymph node in his neck the following week.  We knew something was wrong when the surgeon called the lab after the biopsy and asked for a rush report. She confirmed that Steve had lymphoma and immediately scheduled an outpatient procedure for another biopsy. Steve was put to sleep, and the surgeon removed a lymph node in his neck to determine what kind of lymphoma he had. We had no idea that there are 60+ kinds of lymphoma.

 

Psalm 27:14 – “Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the Lord.” We thought we would get the results back in a few days, but we waited and waited and waited. When anxious thoughts tried to envelop us, we went to God’s Word and did what this verse said; we took courage because we had experienced God’s faithfulness over the years. Three weeks later the doctor called with the results. The reason it took so long was because Steve has a rare form of lymphoma called mantle cell. Only six percent of people in the U.S. are diagnosed with it every year. We learned that it is a very aggressive form of cancer with few symptoms which means the majority of people are diagnosed in stage four.

 

As all this was going on, I was reading Jerry Bridges’ book, Trusting God Even When Life Hurts. On page 20 Bridges quotes Romans 11:33 which says, “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!”  Bridges writes, “God’s plans and His ways of working out His plan are frequently beyond our ability to fathom and understand. We must learn to trust when we don’t understand.” How true that is!

 

Steve and I clung to the Lord as we saw an oncologist. Steve underwent a bone marrow biopsy, a PET scan, and more blood work. More waiting…and then we found out that Steve had stage four mantle cell lymphoma that is in all his lymph nodes, his bones, and most of his major organs. He had already begun to lose weight, and over a three month period would lose 30 pounds.

 

What do you do when you get news like this? You pray, you cry, then you live one day at a time trusting God. Psalm 50:15 says, “And call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor Me.”

 

The bottom line amounts to this - Steve’s cancer is not about us at all. It’s about bringing glory to God and about His fulfilling His purposes through our circumstances. God continues to shower us with blessings too numerous to tell as we walk this journey. Our persistent prayer is that people would praise God for His abundant care of us and realize what a loving, compassionate God we serve. In future posts I’ll write about some of the many ways we’ve experienced His love, faithfulness, joy, peace, and compassionate care. Praise His holy Name!