I experienced a miracle of healing. God did a work of healing in my life that was both outward and inward. Obviously, God spared my life because He has a special purpose for me, right? I can relax now because my life has been restored, and I've got a good shot at celebrating my eightieth birthday, right?
Wrong.
A year after my miraculously successful surgery and my clean bill of health, I had a seizure. It seemed to come out of nowhere. I had been here before and was shocked to be back again. I went in for an MRI. I prayed, prayed, and prayed some more before the procedure, pleading with God to hear my doctor say, "Your scan looks clean. No sign of a tumor." I prayed that this recent seizure resulted from the surgery, not because of a new tumor. I knew that a new tumor would only equal one thing — cancer.
I went to my appointment full of anxiety. My doctor came in and pulled up the scan. "Your tumor has recurred." What he was really saying in those words was simple.
You have terminal brain cancer.
It had been an unintentional setup. Initially my medical team had thought that because they removed my original tumor completely and in time, I was in the clear, with a clean bill of health. But now a new tumor had formed. It was clear from this fact that my brain was filled with cancer cells that weren't detectable by the human eye during surgery or by an MRI scan after surgery. As they explained to me, the cancer cells scattered throughout my brain are in a sense turned off — until they aren't. When they eventually turn on, which they will, they come together to form a new tumor. And within a few years, the chances were good that the cancer cells would overtake my brain and end my life.
I was going to need a second brain surgery — a procedure that would be followed by radiation and chemotherapy. They explained very clearly that the radiation and chemotherapy would not destroy the cancer cells but would only stun them, hopefully keeping them at bay and slowing down the rate at which they would form new tumors.
Natalie and I sat in the small office of my new neuro-oncologist, Dr. Nancy Bush. With no-holds-barred honesty and kindness in her voice, she told us, "This kind of cancer has no cure. It's terminal." I heard Natalie's quiet tears and turned to her, placing my hand on her knee, trying to offer comfort I knew couldn't be enough.
- Together we were about to face something we desperately wanted to avoid.
Dr. Bush offered reassurance and said, "There is no cure for this kind of cancer — yet. My job is to keep you alive long enough for the medical community to find a cure." Unfortunately, cancer researchers haven't made any significant progress in this area for more than two decades.
The clock was ticking.
What! It made no sense to me.
- Why would God deliver me from a nearly inoperable tumor through a high-risk surgery with miraculous results, only to have the tumor recur and for me to receive an unfavorable prognosis that essentially amounted to a death sentence?
At this point I began to realize I was a brain tumor survivor who was now battling a terminal brain cancer. I was in a fight I could not win.
What would you do if you heard the words "you have cancer" along with the words "no cure" and "terminal"? I'll tell you what I did. I went to Dunkin'. I wanted to drown my sorrows with a maple bar. I used the drive-through, parked in the parking lot, and then got down to business with God.
I prayed, God, what are You doing? It wasn't an angry prayer, like when my dad died. It was a confused prayer. It was very straightforward. I asked God, What are you doing? and then He answered.
It was not a booming voice from Heaven. Instead it was just as Jesus promised. The Holy Spirit unmistakably communicated to me by reminding me of what Jesus had said before. My mind went to 2 Corinthians 12:6–10 (a passage I hadn't yet memorized), and I felt a bond with the apostle Paul. In this passage, Paul was dealing with what he described as "a thorn in my flesh" — a mysterious statement that some scholars believe referred to a medical condition with no treatment.1 Paul had a thorn in his flesh, while I had a tumor in my brain.
Paul had asked repeatedly for healing, as had I. The answer Paul received from Jesus was the same one I had received: No. But with compassion, Jesus essentially explained to Paul,
My grace is sufficient, and My power is best displayed in weakness.
After hearing this, Paul concluded, "When I am weak, then I am strong." The Holy Spirit ministered to my spirit, and I concluded the same thing:
- When I am weak, then I am strong.
I got a strong sense that God was going to use my weakness to teach me the true meaning of strength. And also that this next season of my life would allow me to become vulnerable with my wife and daughter and form a deep connection with them. In that moment, God granted me insight: cancer was not the undoing of the miracle, but rather the continuation of the work He had begun.
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