The Big "C"

In late April of 2010 I discovered that I had a tumor on my sigmoid colon near the rectum.  The doctor described it as a “large mass.”  (Funny how people avoid using the word “tumor.”)  Me, who’d rarely been sick all my life.  Me, who never missed a day of tax season on the job.  Me, who didn’t think it was necessary to have yearly checkups with a doctor.  Yes, me.  So, on I went to numerous doctors.  They had one for everything – from a CT scan, to chemo therapy, to radiation therapy, to surgery, to colonoscopies.  In the span of a couple weeks I saw more doctors than I had seen in the last 20 years of my life. 

I was scared.  The Big C!  The doctors were 99% sure the tumor was cancerous.  I had cancer.  It kills people on a very regular basis.  I was going to die and that was that.   I didn’t want to die.  I had a lot of things to do.  I wasn’t finished with my life.  For the first time in my life I’d run into something over which I had absolutely no control, and I knew it.

Those doctor visits were scary and they demanded a lot of me.  I had to drink gallons of very strange concoctions.  I went to the radiologist 25 days in a row for radiation treatments.  I took five pills a day for chemo therapy.  The stated side effects alone were disturbing.  Having to go for blood tests before seeing the chemo therapist was a revelation.  Through it all I never stopped working, which seemed to surprise all the doctors.  My work schedule was a bit odd but I still managed to get everything done.

It was when I was crying myself to sleep that first night after finding out that I realized they’d said only 99%.  I kept hearing this voice in my head saying that they’d left 1% for God.  It occurred to me that I’ve seen what God can do with nothing, so what he could do with 1% was staggering.  That voice said, “Give it to God.  Give it all to God.  He will take care of you.”  With trepidation and great relief I did.  And suddenly, my entire life changed.  Just like that. 

Suddenly I found myself plundering my Bible, looking up the verses God kept throwing my way, day after day after day.  Whatever I read there spoke to me and was repeated in the sermons Pastor G spoke from God’s heart on Sunday.  Evening the Wednesday night teachings fell into line with what I was reading.  It didn’t seem to matter where I was reading – a book of devotions, Scripture cards, a magazine, an e-mail, an online Bible study, a newspaper, a journal, or even an old notebook – everywhere I looked God provided Scripture on trusting him, taking his journey, and on his healing. I have never felt closer to God and more alive than during this journey.  God surprises me still with verses of Scripture that speak to my heart.

But I don’t think I would have found these Scriptures if I hadn’t gone looking for God in the first place.  Before the Big C came along I expected God to bring them to me; I didn’t think I had to do anything to find them.  I’d listen to a sermon and wonder who that applied to; it never occurred to me that it might apply to me.  After all, I was born again, and that’s all I had to do, right?  God wasn’t going to require anything else of me.  I could just coast along and get to heaven the easy way.

I was wrong.  I should have read those stories about Peter and Paul more carefully.  Oh, they traveled a long way into different places, but, oh, did they ever pay for the cause of Christ.  The Lord told Peter he was the rock upon which he would build his church, but Peter had to be crucified upside down to be that rock.  Paul withstood beating after beating, was imprisoned, bitten by a viper, and decapitated – all for the cause of bringing the gospel of Christ to the world.  No, getting to heaven isn’t an easy road but it is the only one worth taking.  God revealed to me that I needed to change a great many things if I expected to walk his road and reach the destination he had planned for me.

Like every other child of God, he has plans for me – plans to prosper and not to harm me.  What was holding me back from basking in the glow of God’s love was me.  I was standing in God’s way.  If I don’t move, he won’t force me to move.  Not that he will tell me what those plans are in detail, laying it on the table in a grand outline so I know moment by moment what I’m supposed to do.  Waiting for God to reveal the next step is hard work; sometimes I’m not very patient.  But when God says WAIT, he means for you to wait.

So I kept reading and waiting, reading and waiting.  I’m still reading and waiting.  In between I have done many things, including speaking to my church on what “thanksliving” means and sharing my testimony with others.  God seems intent on bringing to my door step people who are going through cancer treatments and other types of illnesses. 

Once I gave the Big C over to God, it stopped being scary.  Sure, the doctors said it was cancer, but God said he could handle it so who am I to argue?  I did the radiation treatments and the chemo therapy.  And all those nasty little side effects?  They never showed up.  I kept all my hair, my feet didn’t swell, my fingers and toes didn’t do funny things – I was a little tired but that was it.  The chemo therapy people said that was strange; I told them they’d have to talk to God, it was his show after all.

Of course, surgery was required to remove the “large mass” as the doctors often referred to it.  The surgeon said he was able to remove all of it.  So I have less “innards” but I can now sympathize with those who’ve gone through surgery or are facing it, and I can tell them how God brought me through it all.  God even made sure I had just the right surgeon – a very distinguished and thoroughly capable man with a kind heart and the will to do only what is exactly right for each patient.

After surgery, the chemo therapy doctor wanted me to go through more chemo.  This time he wanted the intravenous kind – the kind that is less than human-friendly.  He was surprised and taken aback when I said no.  He obviously didn’t think I’d made the right choice, even though I showed him my research.  I suppose the reason for his disbelief was that my research was Scripture rather than human studies on the reappearance of cancer.  Every Scripture I read said God had healed me.  I thought long and hard about my options, and I decided it was better to go with God than risk what happens when you do not obey his will for your life.

All throughout the journey, God led me through each step.  He asked me to go through the initial radiation therapy and chemo therapy, then the surgery.  He asked me to submit to a few more radiation treatments.  But when it came to additional chemo therapy, he plainly said NO.  The chemo therapy doctor said he wasn’t going to fight with me about it.  His nurse said he knew best but I could do as I wished since it was my body.  I looked at them both and said, “No, you don’t know best.  God does.  I’m going with God’s plan.”

You see, I don’t think they understood my path at all.  They viewed healing as something only they could accomplish.  But to me healing comes from God.  Healing takes many forms.  Sometimes God asks you to endure medical procedures.  Sometimes he asks you to undergo surgery.  Sometimes God’s healing is instantaneous, sometimes it isn’t.  Sometimes God asks you to endure so that you can speak to others and have a common starting point.  And sometimes God’s healing comes when you pass out of this earthly life and into his presence.  We’re all going to die, it’s a surety.  But death to me is merely the beginning of forever with God.  It’s why God says death has no victory. 

Because I know that no matter what happens, God will be there with me, I am no longer afraid of the Big C.  God says he has healed me.  By faith I believe that.  Whether the cancer comes back or not doesn’t really matter.  I have no need to prove God was right, though I know he is.  I simply learned to rejoice in the Lord – always.  I’m still standing – by virtue of God’s love and his plans for me.