Month: March 2017

Part 2

The Miracle

The voice told us the doctor would be down shortly. In minutes he was there leading us to a small anteroom that seated the three of us. He seemed a giant of a man, perhaps six feet six inches tall and hands that looked so large I wondered how he could possibly operated on the bodies of such small children. In apologizing for the delay he explained that when he got to the location the CT scan had pinpointed the pea-sized tumors to be, they simply were not there. Thinking that there may be an error he consulted with the head radiologist to make sure they were at the correct place. In twenty-five years of practice he had only experienced this twice before. The tumors, that the most up-to-date equipment known to man had revealed just hours before, could not be found. They had disappeared. A miracle had taken place!

The waiting, for now, was over, the void being filled with the rawest of emotions. We cried. We had our baby back! Can you imagine how you would have felt?

It’s funny, (Is that the word I want to use for lack of another?) to me how my thoughts were taking shape after that extraordinarily notable day. I found myself that man who, heretofore, had no grid for a miracle. And now, having lived through one, it felt impossible to really grasp and own that moment. (Are we even allowed or warranted to do that?) Yes, I was incredibly thankful, but that season eroded quickly and became displaced with doubt. Frankly, I was in that place of constantly wondering if this ordeal was in fact over, or if this was simply a reprieve, a break, until we would be living through a variation of what we had just gone through.

In the weeks and months that followed my wondering, doubtful heart forged a prayer that became my constant, my mantra, my point of contact with God. It went something like this: “Father, we would love to know if you are going to spare our daughter. But, if You are going to take her, please let me know so that I can be the strong one and prepare the family for her death.”

I think it was about a year after the miracle, while still presenting God with the same request, I was reading in the Book of Proverbs as was my regimen at that time. I was reading, simply minding my own business as I like to say, not really expecting at that exact moment that God would answer my prayer. But there, in chapter 23 I read, “Let not thine heart envy sinners: but be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long. For surely there is an end; and thine expectation shall not be cut off.” Upon reading that, I slammed my Bible shut and simply but emphatically said, “No!!!!!!” At that moment almost every trace of doubt had been erased.

I related that story to my pastor who insisted that I stand before our entire congregation of roughly 800 people that following Sunday and share what had happened. The point was to declare it to be God’s word to me, and the promise, based upon my faith in that encounter with His Word, that our daughter would live. I had never done anything like that before, much less felt that I, personally, had heard from God and I didn’t want to start now! I was being asked to put my reputation on the line. More than that I was being asked to put God’s reputation on the line. I wanted no part of that but, somehow, I knew I had to.

Today, 34 years later, she is a happily married woman with children and a business owner. Who would have known? Outside of faith, few.

I do not have cancer nor am I a cancer survivor. But I, like many of you, have had intimate contact with those who have survived, with those who have not and with those whose lives are a battle against an enemy who wants to steal, kill and destroy; who wants to limit the lives of those so filled with value, promise, hope, dreams and destiny. What follows is a small portion of my journey with them.

Part 1

Waiting . . .

Waiting can be tortuous and even tormenting. We had been waiting; trying to be patient, trusting, keeping it all together. But here, now, the waiting became so heavy, feeling so unbearable, that it invoked the desire to run . . . run away, but . . . no, you couldn’t do that because the waiting for the resolution of the dilemma required you to be there, in person, through every agonizing moment. And with the waiting there gradually evolved the exhaustion that comes from trying to keep hope alive when someone you love, who has their entire life in front of them, for whom you have dreamed and prayed, faces life or death. We were waiting for a miracle to happen.

While growing up, the idea of miracles had never really taken up residence in my thinking in any way. Whether they were real or not or even the object of thought or scrutiny, was never an issue with me. Of course, I had heard exclamations from various and diverse sources to the effect that a miracle had taken place or rather there was no logical or empirical explanation that could account for these occurrences. Again, while hearing of these events, there would be nothing that would challenge me to undertake further investigation and they were soon lost to the black hole of discarded information. That is, until Bible college in the 1970’s where I thoroughly read a Book that was filled with miracles. And it was here, where I sat at the feet of those who believed and taught that the way that those miracles took place then, was not for today.

My personal take away from those years, during which I received my degree, was not so much about whether miracles were for today much less through human instrumentation, but the character and integrity of the God Who, . . . well, did He still perform miracles or not? More importantly, what was He like? If I needed a miracle, would He do one for me?

In answering those questions I failed miserably. He seemed a fickle, schizophrenic, mysterious, angry, slave-driving entity that we prayed to, hoping that we could somehow catch him on a, not so angry, not so demanding day. If our words were just right and convincing enough we might be able to manipulate Him (if that were even possible) to grant our wish. And our chances of that seemed to increase in direct proportion to our hard work, dedication and adherence to a litany of prescribed activities that demanded a high degree of execution and excellence.

This, then, is the backdrop that best describes my grid, my understanding, my attitude, my posture as we sat in the doctor’s office and heard the words no one ever wants to hear: that your loved one, your two and a half year old daughter has cancer.

The next eleven months hosted an initial three-week stay in the hospital for surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. There were numerous trips back and forth to the hospital for more outpatient chemotherapy, beautiful blonde hair falling out until there was none, sick reactions to the medications, sleepless nights, and . . . fear. Lots of fear. And there was more wrestling with whether God was in a good enough mood or whether we asked, begged, petitioned, prayed, intervened and interceded on her behalf enough to sway a, maybe, reluctant God to see things our way, to be in our corner. . . to give us our miracle.

After 11 months of giving her the maximum amount of chemo that her body could take, a cat scan revealed two remaining tumors. . . . Not at all what we had hoped, prayed, dreamed, wished for. Not at all what we had expected. Another surgery was scheduled. It was thought to be quite routine, maybe forty-five minutes at the extreme, and then . . .

We sat in the chapel-like surgical waiting room, hoping . . . and waiting. Forty-five minutes came and went and after two hours we felt like dying. There were other pairs of parents, some grandparents, and small family groups in the waiting room with us. Most of them somber, saying little; some trying to break the pall of fear with chatter and feeble attempts at levity; but all wondering . . . and waiting.

Sitting starkly solitary on the top of a desk in the corner was an old rotary phone. It would ring, someone in our tiny community in the waiting room would answer, and the voice of someone somewhere in the hospital would ask to speak with one of the parents by their last name. It seemed as though we were lost in time as forty-five minutes yielded to an hour which then yielded to two, and almost everyone seemed to be called before us. It’s one of those things in life you never forget. The waiting . . . nervously waiting with anticipation and what little hope was left that the fear and the days and weeks and months of uncertainty had not taken. Sitting there running it through your mind for the millionth time, trying to make some sense of it all, just wanting it to be over. And then our call came.