Category Archives: Life’s disappointments

Failing to Faint

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Cancer is not for the faint of heart. When any major life-calamity hits us, we have several choices in the way we respond. We can flee, fight, or faint. Tomorrow morning (Monday) Mary’s doctor and his surgical team at Mayo Clinic will “put her under” and go through the complicated steps of something called the Whipple surgery.

SurgeryThese doctors and nurses are pros at this procedure and have done it many times.  Because Mary has been called “an excellent candidate” for it, the medical staff is confident she’ll get a new lease on life as a result.

They aren’t saying they can cure her, but they do label the surgery “curative”. My layman’s understanding is that after Mary has recuperated, she’ll feel cured. On a best-case basis, her cancer crisis will have all but disappeared, which sounds pretty good!

As with every cancer diagnosis, in the early days Mary was overwhelmed – faint of heart. But she refused to stay there. It wasn’t 24 hours before she’d pulled out her best weapons (God and his Word) and begun to fight, though what she chose to go up against wasn’t cancer but her personal enemies: fear, worry, doubt, and… faintness of heart.

Scripture reminds us in half-a-dozen places not to let ourselves grow faint, whether we’re facing surgery or any other crisis. It also gives us the how-to. Here’s one example: “Do not let your heart faint, do not be afraid, and do not tremble or be terrified because of [your enemies]; for the Lord your God is he who goes with you, to fight for you against your enemies.” (Deuteronomy 20:3-4)

The Bible’s most frequently cited instruction on this is found in Isaiah 40:31: “Those who wait on the Lord… shall walk and not faint.” More than likely this is referring to walking through life without becoming faint of heart. Instead we’re to be confident in God’s ability to keep us from it.

Mary and BervinAs Mary is wheeled away from her family toward the O.R. tomorrow morning, she may be tempted to slip toward a heart-fainting, but if she does, she told me she’s ready with a secret weapon. She’ll follow our mom’s example. When Mom was faced with a similar crisis, she hummed a favorite hymn to lift her from a near-faint:

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.

After that, even as Mary sleeps during surgery, she won’t grow faint.

“The everlasting God, the Lord, The Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary.” (Isaiah 40:28)

Mary’s prayer requests several hours before surgery:

  1. Praise for so much loving support
  2. Praise for God’s wisdom that has come through prayer
  3. Pray for Dr. Truty and his surgical team
  4. Pray that Mary will be a good example of someone who trusts Christ
  5. Pray for courage to face the unknown

Weapons of War

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60-something baseballMy sister Mary has led a healthy life. She’s made wise decisions along the way, not smoking, drinking, overeating, or under-exercising. She’s avoided aspirin, Tylenol, and antibiotics whenever possible. The combination of those choices along with good genes, has resulted in a healthy life. No hospital stays except for giving birth, and no surgeries. She didn’t even have a doctor of her own.

Till now.

Suddenly she’s got a whole team of doctors. Cancer slammed into her life a month ago, and at a bare minimum, she’s majorly disappointed. If she let herself go to the maximum (which she hasn’t), she’d be scared stiff.

Mary’s healthy body has begun behaving badly. She might say, “That’s ok. I’m due.”

But in the dark of night anyone who’s experiencing a fresh challenge as she is can be emotionally jet-propelled to the disturbing thought, “What’s going to happen?”

But God is always way ahead of us and is ready for that question. When we’re lying in bed wide-eyed with anxiety, God steps out of the darkness and whispers, “Listen carefully. I’m well prepared for this, and if you’ll let me, I’ll get you ready in time for every new experience. And I’ll do that all the way through. Yes, ‘through’. You and I together will get to the other side of this crisis.

“I realize I’ve programmed you to plan ahead and make lists, which makes it all the harder to hear that your plans and lists must come beneath mine now. But here’s a new way to look at it. The reason I’ve let this crisis come is so you’ll learn more about Me and want to intensify your personal relationship with Me. I want you to want that as dearly as I do.”

God says all that and then waits for our response.

When we get sick, particularly with something as forceful as cancer, God is trying to teach a hard lesson about independence and dependence. In a health failure, for example, he’s letting us know we can no longer depend on our bodies to be a source of well-being. He is the only One who can consistently and permanently provide that, without failure.

Horses and chariotIn ancient times when kings needed to make a show of power and superiority, they turned to the biggest, swiftest resources of strength known to them: horses and chariots. With enough of those, they could win any war. At least that’s what they thought.

We know from Scripture that God conquered those horses and chariots in all kinds of unexpected ways: with confusion, loud noises, water, darkness, fire, and much more. With him it’s never about human weapons or strength but always about himself.

So we can view a health crisis as an ideal chance to discount a worrisome lack of resources and use it to get to know The Resource to end all resources: God All-Mighty.

“Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The LORD, the LORD himself, is my strength and my defense.” (Isa. 12:2)

Mary’s prayer requests:

  1. Praise for a loving, caring family, including those who have gone before
  2. Praise for long-standing prayer partners
  3. Pray for unwavering faith and trust in the Lord
  4. Pray for courage as surgery gets closer

Potential for Fear

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Elisabeth Elliot (to whom I referred yesterday) is one of those rare people who has been committed to Christ from a very young age without wavering. That’s not to say she hasn’t struggled with why God does what he does.

Wedding dayHer widowhood arrived only 3 years into her marriage to missionary Jim Elliot, a man so committed to sharing Christ’s love he told Elizabeth (Betty) he had decided never to marry. In God’s economy, wives trumped careers, and Jim didn’t want to slight either one.

But after years of friendship with Betty, he realized that her longing to serve God was as deep as his, and so they married, eager for a lifetime of ministry together. Though it seemed God’s plans had gone awry when Jim was murdered along with 4 fellow laborers, Betty accepted it as his will for her and their 10 month old daughter Valerie.

End of the SpearShe then did something her friends thought was incongruous, even unconscionable. She packed up her little girl and headed for the same tribal group that killed her husband, intent on continuing the work he’d barely begun. Her astounding story has been told in books (Through Gates of Splendor, The Savage My Kinsman), magazines (LIFE, Readers Digest), and a feature film (End of the Spear).

Betty and Valerie

 

 

As Betty trudged on foot through the snake-infested jungles of Ecuador to see not only the place where her husband died but to meet the men who killed him, surely she was frightened. I would have been terrified. But she testified to knowing no fear. She took two reassuring tools with her: a rock-solid belief in the sovereignty of God, and her camera.

Whatever happened, she believed, would only occur if God allowed it. Though she didn’t understand why Jim had to die, she didn’t sign off on her faith. Instead she submitted further, trusting God not just with her own life but with that of her toddler.

Betty's photo albumFifty-eight years later we begin to understand a bit better as we see this once-violent tribe of savages committed to Christ and living in love relationships. Betty and the others who refused to let fear keep them away were ultimately successful in bringing God’s light into a dark culture.

The devil delights in torturing us with fear, whether it’s to debilitate a new widow facing the unknown, or to dangle failure in front of someone trying a new venture, or to fight seemingly unbeatable cancer as my sister is. But God steps forward and says, “That fear is not of Me. Don’t buy into it. Keep trusting me with abandon.”

From Betty’s youthful perspective, her husband’s death was unnecessary, and for years she bore the heavy burden of trying to understand God’s behavior. When she finally figured out she wasn’t responsible for it, the load fell off and she was free to rest in God’s peace.

Her example should encourage us all to take him at his word and move forward without fear. Only in heaven will we finally understand why God did what he did on earth.

“The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.” (Proverbs 29:25)

Thank you for continuing in prayer for Mary. Additional requests on tomorrow’s blog.