The Cancer Trip: Family, Friends, Victories, Defeats – Part 2

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.