Bruce Wrenn August 2020
Abridged and Revised January 2024
“Come and listen, all you who fear God;
Let me tell you what He has done for me.” Psalm 66:16
A good Pastor friend of mine titled his retirement farewell sermon “Almost Too Good to be True,” because when waves of doubt plagued him, it caused him to wonder: “The God presented in the Bible, and the meaning of life and the hope for the future it provides are just too good to be true.” I now know what he meant, because when I look upon what He has done for me I wonder if it really did happen–did the creator of all that is good (“You are good, and what you do is good” Psalm 119:68), really reveal to me over and over again the reality of Romans 8:28 becoming true in my life:
“We are confident that God is able to orchestrate everything to work toward something good and beautiful when we love Him and accept His invitation to live according to His plan. (Romans 8:28 The Voice).
At my good friend’s urging, I am writing this chronology of the revelation of God’s goodness to me, and what He is eager to do for everyone.
2010
My true story begins in late December 2010, when, during my morning devotional Bible reading, I read this verse in Psalm 112:
“He will have no fear of bad news;
his heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord.” Psalm 112:7
I had read that verse many times before, had it underlined, and put a star in the margin beside it to signal it as an important verse to live by, but this time when I read it was different. I thought to myself, “You had better be ready to receive some very bad news that is coming.” I didn’t hear a voice telling me this, but it was a very profound moment of clarity that bad news was coming.
Two weeks later I was at the end of my annual physical, and the doctor was about to leave the room with his hand on the doorknob saying, “Well with any luck I won’t see you again until this time next year.” I replied, “Oh, one more thing. Could you look at this small lump on the outside of my thigh?” He looked at the jellybean-sized lump just under the skin and said it probably wasn’t anything significant, but lumps didn’t belong there so let’s make an appointment to have it removed tomorrow. The next day, he surgically removed it and said it looked okay, but “just to be sure” they would send it off for a biopsy. A week later I received a call from his office that started out with “I’m so sorry to tell you this but…”. How bad was this bad news? Well, it turns out it was pretty bad. The innocent looking “jellybean” was Leiomyosarcoma (LMS), a very rare (4 people in a million will be diagnosed with it), very deadly, and incurable form of cancer. My immediate thought was “So that was what God was alerting me to when I read that verse!”
It suddenly hit me, that God was not just alerting me that I was entering what would be a long “walk through the valley of the shadow of death,” He was telling me that I would be taking that journey with Him by my side the whole way. Here is how God saw me:
12 For he will deliver the needy who cry out,
the afflicted who have no one to help.
13 He will take pity on the weak and the needy
and save the needy from death.
14 He will rescue them from oppression and violence,
for precious is their blood in his sight. Psalm 72:12-14
This tells me that however bad the bad news that each day brings, and, as you’ll see, they could be very, very bad, God can bring good out of even the worst of them. Not only that, but God would open my eyes to see the good hidden in what at first appeared to be nothing but bad. Hard as it was to believe (almost too good to be true) He really could, and was about to repeatedly:
“…orchestrate everything to work toward something good and beautiful when we love Him and accept His invitation to live according to His plan.” Romans 8:28
Most of us are aware of and treasure Romans 8:28, but many pay more attention to the first part of the verse than the last part: “…accept His invitation to live according to His plan.” God yearns to bring us into His embrace and do the good He has planned for us (“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11), but He wants us to know that we must want Him to bring what He knows is good, not what we consider good according to worldly criteria. Jeremiah makes this clear in chapter 17 where he contrasts the person who looks only at prosperity from a worldly perspective versus someone who puts his/her trust in God to deliver prosperity, or goodness, according to heaven’s perspective:
5 Cursed is the one who trusts in human strength and the abilities of mere mortals.
His very heart strays from the Eternal.
6 He is like a little shrub in the desert that never grows;
he will see no good thing [that] comes his way.
He will live in a desert wasteland,
a barren land of salt where no one lives.
7 But blessed is the one who trusts in Me alone;
the Eternal will be his confidence.
8 He is like a tree planted by water,
sending out its roots beside the stream.
It does not fear the heat or even drought.
Its leaves stay green and its fruit is dependable, no matter what it faces. (The Voice)
“When we love Him and accept His invitation to live according to His plan,” God opens our eyes to see those small and not so small miracles of grace that he delivers at the perfect time and through the perfect channel, that steels our faith and allows us to make it through adversity with gratitude for what He has done. We are not like the one who, as Jeremiah describes in verses 5 and 6, trusts in human strength, and ends up disappointed in the outcome of the adversity with stunted spiritual faith (“like a little scrub in the desert that never grows”), and who never sees the good that God has worked out in our lives (“he will see no good thing [that] comes his way” Other versions say “prosperity instead of “good thing”).
How tragic is that--not being able to see the reality of God’s intervention in our life for the good? Such a person will never know what it is like to be “like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots beside the stream. It does not fear the heat or even drought. Its leaves stay green and its fruit is dependable, “no matter what it faces.” Prospering, not just surviving, during heat and drought, no matter how severe, is a reality for everyone who “trusts in Me [God] alone” (the Amplified Bible says “who believes and trusts in and relies on the Lord and whose hope and confident expectation is the Lord”). Everyone. By God’s grace, I became one of Jeremiah’s trees, because I learned to put my trust in Him alone.
2011
“When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions” Shakespeare. The bad news continued into 2011 when my mother died in January. My sister died in August of 2011 from the same disease (LMS), and my father had died from it in 1992. The oncologists identified it as “a genetic predisposition with an environmental trigger.” My research into the disease began immediately, and I learned that while it is incurable, you can extend your survival time by receiving treatment at a sarcoma center. I discovered that we lived only 150 miles from a world-class sarcoma center at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, the other side of the state from our home. Considering that there are very few sarcoma centers in the U.S., and that my sister’s and father’s lives were cut short because they did not have access to one, this was the first bit of good news we received since the diagnosis a few weeks earlier.
Further research revealed that only 22% of people diagnosed with LMS are alive 2 years after diagnosis, so when my U of M oncologist, who specialized in sarcomas, told me with a big smile “I think we can get 4 years for you!” I knew God was already bringing good out of a very bad beginning to this affliction. I did not know at that time the full extent of good God had in store for me. I am writing this to you in January of 2024, entering the fourteenth year of the diagnosis in December of 2010. If I had become a member of a LMS support group of 100 people in 2011, only about 3 of us would be alive to attend meetings now. While I am deeply grateful for the quality care I’ve received, that care does not explain how I am in that rare company today. But, as you will see, the best news about the good news I experienced is not about the additional time I’ve been given, but about how God filled that time with lessons learned about His goodness, and His ability to turn bad into good in a thousand ways, for me and for others.
My referral to U of M sarcoma center was to a renowned surgeon who specialized in removing tumors in appendages (more good news) and I learned the plan was to remove a hockey puck sized chunk of my leg around the tumor, get a pathology report to see if the surgery had gotten good margins, and, if so, I would undergo plastic surgery a week later to permanently close the wound. This meant the incision site would not be fully closed after the first surgery. Being Michigan in February, the forecast was for a ten-inch snowfall, so Jan and I decided to take the Amtrak to Ann Arbor and back (the fact that we had this option was a huge bit of good news).
I was told to report to the waiting room at 5:00am (!), and to have nothing to eat or drink for 12 hours before then. No problem, except a series of delays caused me to not get back to be prepped for the surgery until 5:00pm (!), thoroughly dehydrated from having no water since 5PM the previous day. Not one of the three nurses who tried to get an IV line into my arm was able to do so, so they called the one nurse in the hospital famous for being able to do this when no one else could. Marlene was 10 minutes from going home from her shift on that snowy evening when they called, but, bless her, she came and saved the day. Thank you, Jesus!
The surgery was deemed a success, praise God, and I was sent home the next day on the train through the continuing snow. They supplied me with absorbent pads to put under my leg so that the blood would not get on the train seat, but I bled through them pretty quickly. When I got off the train 3 hours later in Niles my sweatpants were soaked in blood. The only other passenger disembarking in Niles at 10:30pm was an African American veteran returning from treatment at the VA hospital in Ann Arbor. I was walking with a crutch, he with a cane behind me, and I heard him say “Hey bro, I think you’ve sprung a leak!” We stuck up a conversation and when we reached the station’s parking lot, I realized he was going to walk the 3 miles to his home on snow covered streets using his cane to keep him upright. Jan and I gave him a ride home, grateful that God had given us the opportunity to pay forward some of the good things God had so freely provided to us.
Now this end to this part of the story might seem unremarkable to you, but there the backstory of this encounter with the vet made a profound impression on me many years earlier that to this day takes my breath away when I see the connection to this “chance” meeting.
On a broiling hot summer day in 1963 my mother, my sister and I were traveling from Alabama to Texas where my father was working at a temporary job. Along the way on a lonely stretch of two lane highway the car had a flat tire. This was in the days before cell phones or AAA roadside service, and we had neither the strength nor know-how to change the tire, so we were well and truly stuck by the side of the road. Several cars drove by with no offers for help before an African American man stopped to help. Understand that this was the deep south in 1963. When he got out of his car his shirt was dry; when he got back in his shirt was soaking wet, yet he refused my mother’s offer of money for his trouble.
We do not know the full extent of the good that will come from our deeds done at God’s direction, just as the man who changed our tire did not know if we would even appreciate his sacrificial service, much less know that his sacrifice on our behalf would be remembered and acted on a half century later. But God has shown us that He can do far more than anything we can ask or imagine with our offering, just as he did with a few loaves and fishes.
That small act of kindness performed on that snowy night in February 2011 was a priceless gift God gave me to feel gratitude once again for that Good Samaritan’s act almost 50 years earlier and see God’s hand at work in my life for the good of others. I could see that all the ways He had already turned bad news into something good for me in this new journey with LMS were only the vaguest suggestion of the full extent of the good that He had in mind. I was being enlisted by God as a partner in delivering good to others as well. This opened my eyes to see a more full-orbed understanding of Ephesians 2:10:
“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (NIV).
God was not only promising to help me through my affliction, but also was blessing me with the opportunity to use the forthcoming bad news events of the affliction for the good of others. This revelation, as you will see, totally turned me around to how I came to view the bad news events related to the disease in the next 13 years.
After the successful plastic surgery, I received thirty sessions of radiation oncology treatments at the site to reduce the chance that the tumor would regrow there. With no serious side effects from the treatments, I was lulled into a sense that I would be able to skate through any future treatments that might be needed with no problems. I was mistaken.
2015
The typical protocol for an LMS patient after surgery is to return to Ann Arbor for MRIs of the surgery site every 3 months, plus bloodwork, plus X-rays of your lungs to detect any growth of the disease. If you keep getting good reports of these tests you will go to a schedule of every four months for years 3 and 4, then six months for year 5, then be seen on a PRN (as needed) basis after that. My unbroken string of good news test results ended in the spring of 2015 when I discovered a lump on my left forearm. I immediately called my surgeon’s PA at U of M and said I thought I needed to come in to have it examined. The PA and the surgeon said it was unlikely to be anything to worry about and resisted scheduling an appointment for me to come there. One thing I had learned about being a patient in any healthcare system is that you have to be your own best advocate, so I insisted (in a nice way) that I should come in.
Upon examining me, the surgeon said, “It is a good thing you came in,” “It is a good thing you came in.” Saying that twice made me think “No, it is a VERY good thing I came in!” I was about to enter a new phase of my disease.
While the surgeon’s expertise gave her an excellent track record of knowing whether my lump was in fact malignant, we needed a biopsy for confirmation. While we waited for the results, I told Jan that we should not hold out any hope that the news would be good. It wasn’t that I am a pessimist, but I had a strong impression that it would reveal bad news. Soon after, I received the very bad news that the disease had returned. My immediate response was to put my trust in God to keep His promise to be with me every step of the way:
“The Lord is my helper;
I will not be afraid.
What can [any earthly enemy like LMS] do to me?” Hebrews 13:5-6
This time, before they did surgery to remove the tumor in my arm, I had to go through 4 cycles of chemotherapy. The chemo that was being used was so toxic and dangerous that I had to receive it in a room segregated from the other infusion patients, and my infusion nurses had to be gowned up in personal protective equipment like hazmat wear. An infusion session was 7 to 8 hours on day one, followed by overnight continued infusion where I would be connected to a pump to continue the infusion at a hotel (an alarm would go off repeatedly if the line became tangled while sleeping), followed by another 8-hour day of infusion. Three weeks later I would do this all over again, until I completed 4 cycles of infusions. The terrible side effects of a typical chemotherapy regimen are well known, so I will not recount them now, except to tell you how God opened my eyes to see how He was able to bring good out of bad amid this latest version of adversity.
By this time, I had begun to “front load” my expressions of gratitude when facing adversity by saying “Thank you Lord for what you are about to do,” whenever I was in need. When I had to have an emergency blood transfusion at 4am during the time I was having these chemo infusions I thanked God on the way to the hospital for already putting the health care workers in place to deliver the aid I needed. That gratitude did not waver when I arrived and found the workers included a nurse fresh out of nursing school and another with a severe cold (the chemo had drastically reduced my white blood cell count, making any infection a grave threat). But, if I am truly trusting Him to “bring me through the fire without being burned and through the waters that will not sweep over me” (Isaiah 43:2), how can I question His choice of people to come to my aid? The blood transfusion went perfectly, and I was told it probably saved my life. Gratitude and trust had become a package deal for me now.
At an extremely low point during my chemo infusions my physical appearance was specterlike—emaciated, pale, hairless (even my eyebrows had lost all their hair), and weak. I remember my wife leaning over to kiss me goodnight and her tears falling on my face saying: “It hurts me so much to see you suffer like this.” I said, “No Sweetheart, God is very near, we are very blessed and have so much to be thankful for.” I thought of this during my devotional the next morning when I read in Psalm 84:5-7:
Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
whose hearts are set on pilgrimage.
As they pass through the Valley of Baka,
they make it a place of springs;
the autumn rains also cover it with pools.
They go from strength to strength,
till each appears before God in Zion.
The “Valley of Baca” is translated as “The Valley of Tears,” so this psalmist is saying that as we go through our times of suffering and tears on our earthly pilgrimage, we are blessed by a God who can turn our tears into “a place of springs.” He is near, providing the strength we need on the journey, transforming the suffering into victory when we reach the pilgrimage’s end “before Him in Zion.” God was responsible for leading me to that Bible passage to once again affirm my belief that He was constantly with me and would continue to bring good out of bad in my life.
God not only gives us the gift of faith, He also gives us the gift of having a grateful heart. Without deliberation, thankfulness became a natural condition for me. When I was extremely fatigued and we found a parking space close to the hotel or hospital, I said “thank you for this, Lord.” When we had to park far out, I said “thank you for helping me to get the exercise I need to build up my stamina.” I was grateful when we did not have to wait long for a blood draw, or to be called for the chemo infusion to begin. I was grateful when we had to wait for what seemed to be a very long time, because I needed to learn the virtue of patience, and because I believed God was answering my prayer that others in greater need would be called ahead of me. When I was able to get on a clinical trial drug in 2018, I would not say I have to go to University of Michigan Cancer Center for tests (an 5-hour trip if I drive, or a 12-hour train trip), but rather, I get to go to UMCC for tests. A sense of gratitude for how God is working out all things for the good is infectious and can alter your attitude in a powerfully positive way.
Scientists are discovering evidence of the healing power of gratitude:
Recognizing and giving thanks for the positive aspects of life can result in improved mental, and ultimately physical, health in patients with asymptomatic heart failure, according to research published by the American Psychological Association. “We found that more gratitude in these patients was associated with better mood, better sleep, less fatigue and lower levels of inflammatory biomarkers related to cardiac health,” said lead author Paul J. Mills, PhD, professor of family medicine and public health at the University of California, San Diego. The study was published in the journal Spirituality in Clinical Practice…. “We found that spiritual well-being was associated with better mood and sleep, but it was the gratitude aspect of spirituality that accounted for those effects, not spirituality per se,” said Mills. To further test their findings, the researchers asked some of the patients to write down three things for which they were thankful most days of the week for eight weeks. Both groups continued to receive regular clinical care during that time. “We found that those patients who kept gratitude journals for those eight weeks showed reductions in circulating levels of several important inflammatory biomarkers, as well as an increase in heart rate variability while they wrote. Improved heart rate variability is considered a measure of reduced cardiac risk,” said Mills. It seems that a more grateful heart is indeed a more healthy heart, and that gratitude journaling is an easy way to support cardiac health.” http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2015/04/grateful-heart.aspx
All of this puts me in mind of Habakkuk 3:17-19 where he concludes his prayer with a description of what it is like to have gratitude even when getting a seemingly unending series of bad news:
17Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,
18yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will be joyful in God my Savior.
19The Sovereign Lord is my strength;
he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
he enables me to tread on the heights.
God created us in such a way that our recognition of and gratitude for the mercies he bestows on us each day (Lamentations 3:22-23) makes us more aware of other mercies in the form of mental, physical, and spiritual benefits. We need only to open our eyes to see these tender mercies provided to us in our hour of need to be spontaneously grateful for God’s unfailing love for us.
It was during the time of my chemo infusions in 2015 that Psalm 73:23-26 became my “go to” verses in scripture:
23 Yet I am always with you;
you hold me by my right hand.
24 You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will take me into glory.
25 Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
26 My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.
After the chemotherapy was complete, I had another successful surgery, and then had another 30 radiation oncology sessions to radiate the tumor site on my arm to decrease the chance it would come back in that location. Unfortunately, this time the radiation started a chain of bad news events that would last for 18 months. My resolve to persevere through the bad to see God’s hand at work for the good was about to be seriously challenged.
The previous radiation treatment on my leg in 2011 had gone well, and I was going back to the same radiation oncologist at a local facility to get treatment now, so I had no worries about the results being any different than before. This time, however, I began to experience problems at the radiation site. It started as a rash, then blistering, which progressed into a second-degree burn. Radiation will continue to “cook” at the targeted site for weeks or months after treatment stops, so the worst of this burn occurred after the treatments had ended, but, as I was to learn later from my oncologist team at U of M, there was sufficient evidence of where this was headed that treatment should have been suspended before it got to this point. My forearm was now one huge blister, which then broke, followed by all the outer layer of skin falling off, with intense pain and a dangerous exposure of dermis that could lead to serious infection. Here is a photo of what it looked like:
My primary care doctor said that when he looked at my arm, he had a flashback to when he was doing a residency at an Air Force base and had to treat airmen who were seriously burned with jet fuel in an accident.
The burn wasn’t the worst result of the radiation. After it healed, I noticed the swelling continued to increase, and it was diagnosed as lymphedema. The Mayo clinic defines it:
Lymphedema refers to swelling that generally occurs in one of your arms or legs. Sometimes both arms or both legs swell.
Lymphedema is most commonly caused by the removal of or damage to your lymph nodes as a part of cancer treatment. It results from a blockage in your lymphatic system, which is part of your immune system. The blockage prevents lymph fluid from draining well, and the fluid buildup leads to swelling. There is presently no cure for lymphedema.
Lymphedema signs and symptoms, which occur in your affected arm or leg, include:
Swelling of part or all of your arm or leg, including fingers or toes
A feeling of heaviness or tightness
Restricted range of motion
Aching or discomfort
Recurring infections
Hardening and thickening of the skin (fibrosis)
I received treatment for my left arm at a local healthcare facility, and I carefully followed my treatment regimen of wrapping my arm from fingertips to arm pit in 7 layers of bandages for 18 months. At that time, I was declared “healed” (although as Mayo Clinic said above “there is presently no cure for lymphedema”), and my arm is back to normal, except for the scarring from the surgery and radiation burn. Of course, it can always reappear, even 10 or 20 years later ( and did reappear in 2020 when I resumed getting chemo infusions).
To me, the good that came out of this bad event was more than the eventual, and unexpected healing, it was in seeing how perseverance in the face of adversity can yield a harvest for the good when blessed by God. The Bible has a lot to say about perseverance:
But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop. Perseverance is needed for our lives to produce a crop of righteousness
1 Corinthians 13:7
[Love] always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love perseveres because it is the essence of God’s nature. When we persevere in loving someone, we are imitating God’s perfect love for us.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Others who keep the faith, no matter what obstacles they faced, are examples that encourage us to keep on keeping on (persevere), in order to complete the race and, like them, be welcomed into God’s kingdom. Our perseverance then makes us examples for other people.
Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him. We must not give up when faced with tough times. Our reward awaits those who persevere in their faith.
2 Peter 1:5-7
5 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7 and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. Perseverance is an essential ingredient to the completion of God’s transformative work in our lives.
What is striking in all these passages is that the reward for persevering is how it builds faith and spiritual “character,” even though what you are persevering through may be a physical trial. I know several people who have been living with lymphedema for more than a decade, and have no hope of ever being cured, so I consider my healing to be a gift from God. But I also think my persevering in wrapping my arm in 7 layers of bandages every day for a year and a half taught me what Paul said about perseverance in his letter to the believers in Rome:
Romans 5:3-4
Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. When we persevere in trusting God through our trials, we attain the moral and mental qualities that give us hope, and that hope will last, no matter what tomorrow may bring.
In addition, one of the good things that God brought out of the trials related to my disease was an increase of empathy for others going through similar trials. This was an essential lesson that was going to be put to use in many future encounters I would have with fellow patients in chance encounters in waiting rooms and common spaces over the next years. I was expanding my understanding of how God could use various new versions of my affliction to increase my trust in Him to bring good out of bad for me and others in each new stage of this journey. This growing foundation of trust would be very important in getting me through some increasingly dark days ahead with LMS.
2018
After the successful surgery on my arm, I started again going to U of M every 3 months for chest x-rays intended to determine if the sarcoma had spread to my lungs, where LMS goes next, signaling that the sarcoma had metastasized. Once again, I got “all clear” good news…until I didn’t. In February of 2018 my oncologist entered the exam room and started the conversation with “Well, we’ve got some spots on your lung we need to take a look at.” A follow up CT scan confirmed the presence of 4 tumors in the lungs and a biopsy (local anesthesia) confirmed that they were LMS. I can honestly say that this bad news did not come as a surprise, nor did it shake me or challenge my faith because God had been building my trust in His unfailing love since 2010, when I was originally diagnosed. He had kept His promise to never leave me or forsake me, so why would I fear the next step of this journey?
I have found that expressing gratitude by performing an act of service near to receiving bad news is the surest way of finding a reason to be “joyful” in the face of adversity. The day after I received the news that my cancer had metastasized, I answered a call to be a United Way volunteer to help flood victims in our area access financial assistance from local charities. A day spent like that not only can lift your spirits, but it can also enable you to “tread on the heights” (Habakkuk 3:19) by serving others who are dealing with their own bad news events.
After talking about the options (surgery to remove the tumors, more rounds of chemo, radiation oncology on the tumors) we decided to try to get me on a clinical trial drug that was showing some promise in treating LMS. The clinical trial was to test a new oral drug against an existing IV drug that was being tested “off label”” to treat LMS, and a computer would randomly assign me to one of the two drugs. I would be one of only 67 people worldwide who would participate in the study if I qualified (remember, LMS affects only 4 people in a million, so there weren’t a lot of people to choose from to participate in the study). A lot of tests had to be run to determine if I qualified, but, Praise God, I did, and a computer in San Francisco assigned me to the clinical trial oral drug.
I had earnestly prayed that whichever drug God’s plan for me included, I would Praise Him for that result. By this time, I had come to understand that you can never want for something better in your life than for God’s plan to come true. How can we possibly know if one drug is to be preferred to another? Only God knows, so His will be done. I would receive my drug allotment at U of M, take them exactly as the protocol ordered, and come to Ann Arbor for tests whenever they were scheduled according to the study’s regulations. When signing my agreement to participate in the study I had to indicate that I would continue to participate unless the drug failed to be effective in treating the disease, or if the side effects became too much to bear. The brutal side effects that I did experience were pretty constant over the 11 months I was in the clinical trial.
On September 9, 2018, when I was on the clinical trial drug, decimated by the side-effects with no positive therapeutic results evident, I was taking my dogs for their evening walk and communing with God when I looked up to see this rainbow over our house. You can imagine how this celestial sign thrilled my soul. Message received. “I will not violate my covenant or alter what my lips have uttered.” Psalm89:34. This symbol of God’s faithfulness is over you too, wherever you go, whether you see it or not. Remember, “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” Psalm 27:1. You do not fear bad news because your heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord (Psalm 112:7).
Although the side effects from the previous stages of treatments had begun to take a noticeable toll of my physical health aside from the disease itself, the time I was on the clinical trial drug and the radiation and chemo that I would receive in 2019 and 2020 would accelerate the decline in my overall physical health. Before my diagnosis in 2010, I had an active athletic life, playing golf (not well, which just means you get more exercise on the course than good golfers do), racquetball, which I loved and played all out as often as I could, and went for 3 mile power walks every day in all weathers and seasons.
The reason I mention this is that my physical decline and contemporaneous spiritual growth has caused me to have a deeper understanding and sympathetic response to Paul’s well-known conclusion to chapter 4 in 2 Corinthians:
16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18
We all intellectually agree with what he is saying here as a spiritual truth that has universal application, but I am among the many people that literally lived verse 16 and believe and practice verses 17 and 18 as my personal daily conviction. This is a profound truth to me, not just a philosophical maxim—a truth that orders my thoughts every day and keeps me centered on the eternal instead of focused on light and momentary troubles. The volume, frequency and intensity of my troubles do not alter where I “fix my eyes.”
I also better understand how verse 17 provides greater insight into Paul’s discussion of perseverance in Romans 5, cited above. When Paul talks about “light and momentary troubles,” he is referring to his ongoing severe trials that would have crushed someone who wasn’t getting Divine help to get through each day (see 2 Corinthians 11:16-33 for a short list of what Paul had been through). They were the furthest thing from light or momentary by worldly standards. However, these troubles performed an important service for Paul that he wanted us to understand. Consider how the Contemporary English Version translates verse 17:
17 These little troubles are getting us ready for an eternal glory that will make all our troubles seem like nothing. (CEV).
How are our trials “getting us ready” for heaven, where we will praise God eternally for everything we went through to get us there? This is where Paul’s statement in Romans 5 comes in:
Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. Romans 5:3-4
I’m no theologian and have no credentials that allow me to do a credible exegesis of these verses, but I have thought a lot about how my “troubles” have shed some light for me on this scripture. Persevering in faith through severe trials (for me, physical, but they could be spiritual, relational, financial, etc.), and seeing God’s hand helping me to endure, gives me assurance that my “living hope” (1 Peter 1:3) of a future in heaven is not in vain. I mean, why would God be constantly bringing Romans 8:28 true each day if it were not to get me “ready for an eternal glory that will make all our troubles seem like nothing”? God will get me there; I need only to persevere and not give up my hope of heaven.
A mix of good news (some minor shrinking of some tumors) and bad news (side effects plus growth in most of the tumors) describes my experience for the 11 months I was on the clinical trial drug.
2019
My first visit to U of M in 2019 with my oncologist began with us both agreeing that it was time for me to discontinue the clinical trial drug. The CT scan revealed that it was no longer retarding the growth of the tumors in my lungs. For me, this was good news because the side effects had seriously compromised my quality of life in the past 11 months (the constant uproar in my digestive system alone caused me to have no regrets in being taken off the drug. I lost 20lbs while on the clinical trial). Now the question was, what do we do at this point?
We quickly came to the decision that radiation of the four tumors in my lungs would be the best tradeoff of good results with the fewest side effects. The oncologist emphasized that I would need to get these treatments in Ann Arbor rather than locally, which was fine with me, given my experience with the radiation treatments of my arm at a local facility. I was scheduled to get treatments of two tumors, then a pause for a couple of weeks before getting the other two done.
The treatments required me to use the Deep Inhalation Breath Hold (DIBH) method with a 40 second breath hold at the end to provide a stable target for the radiation beam. I had to do this repeatedly (10 times) for each treatment. It is very demanding that my breathing be very precise and you could become very stressed in trying to achieve that precision. Rather than be intimidated by thinking of the number of times I would have to successfully perform the DIBH, I concentrated on only each breath hold at a time and didn’t look at the stopwatch counting up the 40 seconds. Instead I recited Philippians 4:13, changing emphasis with each repetition: “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength,” “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength,” “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength,” “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength,” Not only does this make the 40 second breath hold seem to go faster, it makes the treatment session of 10 breath holds go faster. Before you know it, I’m done and praying a prayer of gratitude that I was able to do it all perfectly, by His grace. Just another example of how enlisting heavenly resources can help you prosper through adversity.
Here is another example of God turning something bad into something good. In my first radiation oncology session on a Friday there was an equipment failure while I was in the middle of the radiation to my lung tumors, necessitating my return to the waiting room while they tried to repair the equipment. While waiting, I leaned upon the Bible promises about being patient, and used the time to silently pray for each person in the waiting room and engage those I could in conversation to encourage and support them in their journey through cancer. Those interactions with fellow patients were as much a blessing to me as I was trying to be to them.
The equipment failure was God bringing the promise of Romans 8:28 true in my life at that moment by making what looked like a problem become an opportunity. After 7 hours of waiting, the technicians came out to say they were not going to be able to fix it, and I should plan to come back on Monday to complete the treatment. I traveled the 2.5 hours of driving home thanking God for a successful, yes, even joyful, day, lived by his power to bring good out of bad once again. This way of reacting to an event like this does not come naturally to me, and perhaps not you either. No, this is definitely a “God thing,” and my contribution was only resolving to look for God’s path to the “good” and pray for the Spirit to be in control of my decisions each day. I was learning to trust God, not myself, to determine what constituted the “good” to come out of every circumstance. This result demonstrates just how much different things are when God is sovereign over our thoughts and behavior.
Each radiation treatment session on the lung tumors started with the patient robing for the session and then going to the gender specific waiting room to await being called back for the radiation session. We were almost always late being called for the session; sometimes as long as an hour after our scheduled time. By this point in my journey I had learned to look forward to, and even pray for, these little windows in time with my fellow patients in order to do what I could to provide encouragement, empathy, shared tips on how to deal with the rigors of tough treatment regimen, and , when possible, share scripture that gives the steadfast heart described in Psalm 112:7. God never failed to supply these opportunities, answering my quick prayer to guide me in the conversation to do the good He had in mind for each individual.
Certainly, the times we live in as I write this have provided many opportunities to contribute to the fund of the common good. I am reminded of Jana Stanfield’s quote: “I cannot do all the good that the world needs. But the world needs all the good that I can do.” In these perilous times I am doubly grateful—to God for His matchless grace and all His mercies to me, and grateful for the opportunity to, even in a small way, be part of His web of blessing to deliver aid to others in need. I want that urge to be a constant presence.
God always supplied scriptural assurance for my own needs during each of my medical diagnostic or treatment sessions as well. We’ve all had experiences where we need to be prepared to deal with bad news, including potentially highly stressful ones involving medical conditions. Having Bible promises to claim during these times is not just a way to reduce stress, it avails you of all the resources of heaven on your behalf. One that I’ve claimed many times has been 1 Corinthians 10:13. Paraphrasing it from the Amplified Bible, it tells me that nothing I’m going through is the first time God has ever seen this problem. God is going to be faithful to His compassionate nature and can be trusted to not let you be subjected to a trial beyond your ability to escape (endure) it with His help. He will provide the way to get successfully through that difficulty.
For example, once when I was told that an MRI would take about thirty minutes it turned out to take more than two hours. If you’ve ever been in an MRI tube, instructed to remain perfectly still, with the metal housing inches away from your face, you know how every minute can seem an eternity. As the time slowly drags on to be four times the time period, they told me it would take for the MRI and without any communication from the technicians about the reasons for added time, it would have been easy to “freak out” and push the panic button to get out. However, claiming the promise of 1 Corinthians 10:13 not only gives you a supernatural sense of peace under such demanding circumstances, but it also makes you feel closer to the God who will never let you be subjected to anything He hasn’t already made provision for your “escape.”
2020-2024
My radiation treatments for the tumors in my lungs ended in July of 2019, but the radiation continued to cook away in the following months. One of the side effects of the radiation treatments was a constant cough caused by the inflammation in my lungs from. This started in September, and persisted until heavy steroid use stopped it in October. My December 3 month visit showed a CT scan result that the radiation had stopped the growth of the radiated tumors and had generated some slight shrinkage in them, so I took this as good news. My cough had stopped as well, so 2019 ended on a positive note, Praise the Lord.
As happens many times when experiencing a good news oasis, this one was short lived when my oncologist entered the exam room on my first visit to U of M in March 2020 and reported that my CT scan the previous day had shown a tumor in my liver. I immediately knew that this was the news I had been prepared to get as the sarcoma spread from my lungs to other organs, just as it had done for my sister and father. The oncologist said I needed to get an MRI of my abdomen so we would have a better understanding of what we were dealing with now. The Covid-19 pandemic was picking up steam at this time (mid-March), particularly in Michigan, making it extremely difficult to find a place to have the MRI done. I was able to call around and get one scheduled at a hospital in Kalamazoo a week after my trip to Ann Arbor. Later I was told by the technician in Kalamazoo that because of the pandemic I received the last one they were going to do for an outpatient.
A week later my oncologist at the University of Michigan’s Sarcoma Center called to tell me that the results of the latest CT scan showed 8 tumors: 4 in my lungs ( they had been treated by radiation, but were still there), two in my liver, one in my pancreas, and one in my spine, The number and location of the tumors made surgery and radiation impractical, leaving only chemo as the means of treatment. In order to logistically plan from that point forward I asked him how much time chemo would buy me and he said, “about 6 months.”
Well, I don’t need to state the obvious here, but it is hard to see room for this news to be anything but bad. However, almost immediately I got some good news about the treatment regimen for these tumors.
The only treatment I could get that would possibly have an effect on all these sites was chemotherapy. But I could get the chemo infusions done in South Bend, IN, only a 35-minute drive instead of the one way 2.5 hour drive to U of M! This was terrific news, and I set about arranging for this to happen. As you know, everything, and I mean everything, is more difficult to do in a pandemic, but Praise God, He paved a way to make this happen, and I began chemo treatments for the second time in this journey in April of 2020.
I now had two oncologists, one in AA and a new one in South Bend, who would confer on my treatment regimen and future therapy; the quality of care at the South Bend facility was absolutely top drawer; and I now had a whole new group of fellow patients and healthcare workers to serve in any way I was guided to by the Holy Spirit in providing small acts of kindness.
Notice what God has said about his concern for his creation, large and small:
for every animal of the forest is mine,
and the cattle on a thousand hills.
I know every bird in the mountains,
and the insects in the fields are mine. Psalm 50:10-11(NIV)
Think about that last line. Small things can be important to others—and to God. No act of kindness or self-sacrifice we do for someone is so small that God considers it inconsequential or takes no notice of it. He is the God of small things as well as great things and no good deed goes unobserved by Him or fails to receive His “seal of approval” for having been done in His name:
And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.” Matthew 10:42
But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents.
Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. Mark 12:42-43
“Who dares despise the day of small things…?” Zechariah 4:10
When we selflessly do these deeds, big or small, and we express gratitude for being recruited to faithfully act in God’s behalf, we are “coming near to God,” knowing that He will “come near to us” (James 4:8). The more we do these things, the more grateful we are, the more grateful we are the more we trust Him to be with us through the good and bad in our own lives, which increases our faith and makes us more grateful. Jesus is the “author of our faith” (Heb. 12:2) because He walked this path himself as fully human when He was here, and He knows what it means to go through tough times while doing good for others. He, in his humanity, is the gold standard in being the doer of good deeds (e.g., Matthew 9:35-36, Mark 8:2) and in being the recipient of them by others (Matthew 26:10-13). He knows exactly what we need to experience in order for our faith to mature and grow strong, and a mature and strong faith is what we need to get through the most difficult trials we face on this side of eternity.
My oncologist in South Bend had me get a biopsy of the tumors in my liver to see if I can be treated by immunotherapy for my sarcoma. It showed that immune therapy was not possible for me.
Fast forward to March 2022, two years after I started getting chemo to treat the eight new tumors I learned about from my oncologist at U of M, who had told me I had a life expectancy of 6 months (as I write this it is 4 years after he told me of the 6 months expectancy).
At my visit to discuss the results of the CT scan I had in March 2022, my oncologist said when opening the door, “Your scan looks very good, and I suggest you take the next 3 months off from infusions. We will take another CT scan then and see if anything has changed. This is what I would do if I were the patient.” He then shared the details: “No evidence of active metastatic disease in the chest”; “The hypotenuse lesion in the [pancreas] is no longer visualized" (i.e., is gone), and the two tumors in my liver have shrunk for the fourth consecutive CT scan. The one in my spine (at L1) has not grown at all in the last year and a half. So, I gladly accepted the oncologist’s recommendation to suspend treatment for the next 3 months, with a scan after the time period. He did also say, “I’m obligated to tell you that there is a 5% chance that the tumors in the liver might become resistant to the chemo during this time and further treatment with those drugs might not work.” But honestly, any prediction I’ve gotten in the past 12 years that had a single digit chance of happening to my health status was the probability that something good would happen. I saw this as a 95% probability that I would get good news in three months, not a 5% chance that it would be bad news. And even if it were bad news, Psalm 112:7 remains my response to the incessant bad news I’ve gotten over the past years; “He will have no fear of bad news; his heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord.”
Truth be told, I was planning to ask him for a break in the infusion cycle so that I could get the back surgery I had been desperately needing. For the past 20 years my back has been a train wreck, ever since I had surgery in 2002 for a herniated disk that the neurosurgeon called one of the worst 3 he had ever seen. Now I need help more than ever, with an MRI that the surgeon’s Nurse Practitioner said was basically “bone on bone’ (i.e., no discernible disks in the spine). What was new in 2022 was that all my cervical disks in my neck are also degenerating, and I had an epidural in February of 2022 between disks C6 and C7 to try and ratchet down the excruciating pain I’ve been experiencing in my back and left arm.
I think it is obvious that God’s hand is in all this, just as it was to bring dear Blue [our rescue golden retriever] into our home in January 2022 after losing both Cooper and Ella in a 6 month time span.
Were it not for the persistent prayers on my behalf by my friends, family and strangers who knew about my trials, I don’t know where I would be in all this. Prayers matter, big time. I’ve seen this over and over in my life and the lives of so many others. So my gratitude for all of my faithful petitioners is beyond measure. And I cannot find adequate words to express my gratitude to our great God who “delights to show mercy” (Micah 7:18), and who “…longs to be gracious to you; He rises to show you compassion.” (Isaiah 30:18). I am once again, “An Eyewitness to God’s Goodness,” and can continue to exclaim “Great, O Lord, is thy faithfulness."
In May 2022 I had another CT scan, which turned out even better than the previous one, despite the fact I had not been infused during that three-month period. So, another three- month sabbatical was granted (thank you, Lord) and 3 months later I had another scan (end of August 2022), and…well, not so good. A large mass (6cm by 6.5 cm) was in the distal end of my pancreas. A biopsy showed it was LMS, which had returned with a vengeance, and surgery was planned for November.
In the pre-surgery visit, my surgeon at Indiana University Hospital told me that he would be telling 99 out of 100 people who came to him with this condition and medical history that he was sorry, but there was nothing that could be done, and that I should make plans to go to hospice. However, after talking with my oncologist in South Bend and reviewing my unusual record, he would do the surgery. Once again, God was going before me to create a path to keep me alive against all odds (“I will go before you and will level the mountains…” Isaiah 45:2).
Surgery was planned at the Indiana University cancer hospital in Indianapolis for November 9, which was my birthday! The operating team sang happy birthday to me before they put me under, and I said “This was great! I’m coming back here to celebrate all my birthdays from now on!” The surgeon was the best I could possibly have had, and it went well; a Distal Pancreatectomy, a Splenectomy, and removal of 20% of my liver, which had some spots on it. The mass on my pancreas had grown to 10cm (!) since the end of August. This LMS stuff is relentless (but so is God:” …I will not take my love from him, nor will I ever betray my faithfulness.” Psalm 89:33).
It took me roughly a month to recover from the surgery, which coincided with my post-surgery consult with my surgeon on December 8, 2022. At that appointment he said I was looking good and could resume all normal activities and diet. That night I had a terrible attack of pancreatitis, which is not quite as bad as kidney stones, but it is darn close, which put me into the hospital. While there they did a CT scan that revealed a small stone was blocking a duct in the pancreas that caused the extreme pain I was in, plus revealed new LMS tumors had formed since my surgery a month earlier. The doctors said that the stone might pass on its own, but if not, it would have to be surgically removed. That surgery couldn’t be scheduled for another week, so the prospect was to remain hospitalized under opioids for a week unless it passed on its own.
Praise God, it passed overnight, and I was released the next day, pain free. But blood work in the hospital revealed the surgery on my pancreas caused me to now have diabetes. Now, you might be thinking, bad news just won’t leave this guy alone! But, actually my thoughts were that the pancreatitis turned out to be good news because without out going to the hospital for treatment I would not know I was diabetic and would not have started treatment for that perhaps until I had suffered irreparable damage from the disease. So, once again, my adage “bad news is just good news before its conversion experience” has been verified in my life.
My oncologist at Michiana Hematology and Oncology ordered a PET scan in early January 2023, which revealed five new LMS tumors, and was able to refer me to a sarcoma specialist at Indiana University cancer center. Sarcoma specialists are very rare at cancer centers, due to the low incidence rates of sarcomas in the U.S. population, so my ability to have her added to my healthcare team is another blessing for which I am extremely grateful. She worked with my oncologist to get me started with a new chemo drug to treat LMS. Unfortunately, the new drug was not successful as we hoped, and I had to get Liver Directed Therapy (LDT) in May of 2023 to try and get rid of a mass of four tumors in my liver.
The LDT had to be done by a specialist at IU Health, where my Distal Pancreatectomy surgery was done the previous November. The doctor who would do the radiation embolization in my liver looked at the CT scan and the record of the progress of my disease and told me he was not going to do the surgery because he thought I was beyond help. But, after being urged by my oncologist, my sarcoma specialist at IU Health, and the surgeon at IU Health who did my “birthday surgery,” he was convinced to do the procedure (“…my angel will go before you.” Exodus 32:34; “Yet I am always with you” Psalm 73:23).
A CT scan in August of 2023 revealed that the radiation embolization Liver Directed Therapy was very successful in destroying the tumors in my liver (the skeptical doctor who did the LDT said it was remarkable to see that there was no evidence the tumors had been there), and I was started on a new chemo drug, which I have infused every two weeks, followed by two white blood cell boosters the two days following my infusion. A CT scan in the Fall of 2023 showed some shrinkage of some of the remaining tumors, prompting a brief sabbatical from receiving the infusions around the Thanksgiving holiday. I resumed the biweekly infusions after Thanksgiving 2023. From the middle of December 2023 till the middle of January 2024 I had a string of health issues (including a visit to the ER in the local hospital, and a reoccurrence of the pain in my degenerative cervical disks) that made me wonder if I was entering a decline in my health that I might not bounce back from.
But this discouraging sequence of health problems got “turned around” when I went for my infusion on January 16, 2024, and my oncologist told me that a lesion on my head that had appeared during the past month was cancerous. You will not be surprised by my telling you that I saw this as another experience when God converted a bad news event into good news. My immediate thought upon hearing this diagnosis was that God was telling me “Bruce, I have gone before you and made a path for dealing with this problem and will bring you out of the discouraging health problems as well.” And that is exactly what happened. I had the squamous cell lesion removed by a dermatologist on January 29, and the other health problems I was dealing with were resolved as well. What a great and good God we have!
In the summer of 2024 a CT scan revealed that I had a large fast growing tumor on my left kidney. The tumor board at IU Health in Indianapolis believed it to be a LMS variant that had mutated to avoid the effectiveness of the chemo that had been keeping the sarcoma under control (what a ruthless and merciless disease this sarcoma has been!). Surgery was scheduled and on August 21 I had a full nephrectomy (removing the entire kidney and its tumor) of my left kidney. Biopsy revealed that they were correct in their diagnosis: it was a mutated stain of LMS.
Recovery from this major surgery has been following the usual full nephrectomy recovery experience of being slow (taking 6 to 8 weeks), difficult (far beyond the difficulty of previous surgeries), and inconsistent (good days and bad days). Nevertheless, God provides the spiritual resources needed to get me through with maturing faith and unflagging gratitude that He is constantly with me. I learned at my appointment with my oncologist last week that there are clinical trials that are targeting a variant close to mine, but there is no guarantee that I can join them. I remain secure in my trust that God is holding me by my right hand whatever the outcome (Psalm 73:23).
Some Reflections on the Past 14 Years
Here is more evidence of Romans 8:28 being revealed in my life: The 13 years God has given me have resulted in a deepening maturity of my faith that might not have occurred without this crucible. Reflecting on this journey in an episode of Scriptural Pursuit, available on YouTube, I said the following:
“I’d like us to wrestle with how the sufferer can draw inspiration from one of the most difficult passages confronting those who are suffering: James 1:2-4
“2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. NIV
The Message puts it this way:
2-4 “Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.”
How are we to understand this verse in light of our own experiences in suffering? Is it even possible to consider our suffering “pure joy”?
The problem I had was not knowing exactly how I could feel joyful about going through a trial, particularly a trial like dealing with an incurable disease such as LMS. I now know what James really meant.
The joy for me was not going through the trial itself, it was seeing God at work in my life to bring Romans 8:28 true trial after trial, for me and for others. The consequence of this was to increase my faith and trust in God’s providence and cause me to see more reasons to express my gratitude to Him.
So, I knew what James meant about persevering through the trial to experience a maturation of my faith. The trial, or affliction, was the vehicle used to get to this destination. A mature faith allows you to see the light of God’s Goodness through the darkness of your adversity.
Here are 3 ways I have seen my suffering result in a maturation of my faith, making me a more complete Christian:
- We are joined with Christ in our suffering. We can never know the degree of suffering Christ knew when he died for our sins, but our experience provides some understanding of his sacrifice for us. That draws us closer to Him and deepens our gratitude for His suffering on our behalf. When Jesus said in John 16:33 “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart, I have overcome the world,” he was saying this to his disciples the night before his crucifixion, giving them, and us, the hope of our salvation through His death on the cross. But this verse also implies that our troubles unite us with Christ, telling us that we not only will share in His suffering, but we will also share in His victory over suffering and death when he takes us to heaven. This verse was often on my mind during my affliction.
- The maturation of our faith also occurs when we read in scripture how members of the Hall of Faith described in Hebrews Chapter 11 went through their own crucible with their faith strengthened by God in the process. These heroes did not possess superhuman strengths that we do not have, they just looked to God to increase their faith to enable them to withstand the fiery trial they suffered through.
As Jesus said in John 15:5 5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” But with Christ abiding in us we can do all things through Christ who gives us strength (Phil 4:13).
Other verses that promise God will be with us and in us as we go through our trials include:
Isaiah 41:10 So do not fear, for I am with you;
do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you;
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
Isaiah 43:2 When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
you will not be burned;
the flames will not set you ablaze.
Psalms 73:23-24 Yet I am always with you;
you hold me by my right hand.
24 You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will take me into glory.
Hebrews 13:5-6 “Never will I leave you;
never will I forsake you.”
So we say with confidence,
“The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid.
What can mere mortals do to me?”
Our faith is matured when our trust in God increases as we see what He has done, and will do, for all His children as we go through our own fiery crucibles. I could feel God’s presence when I had MRIs that lasted as long as 3hrs, and when I was reading the Bible during my many infusions lasting up to 5hrs, and when experiencing the brutal side-effects from the clinical trial drug, and during the radiation treatments on my lungs requiring many demanding, very precise breath holds, and much pain, nausea, fatigue and bad news results during the 14 years (and counting) of my journey. I now feel a much closer bond to Christ as I put my complete trust in His presence as I go through the trials I face. A mature faith really does make it possible to do all things through Christ who gives us strength.
- Our faith is matured and increased when we see how our suffering reveals meaning and purpose through helping others:
- Suffering increases our sense of brotherhood and empathy with others who are suffering and makes it possible for the Holy Spirits’ fruit of love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness be revealed in our lives to help other people. I have been privileged to see the Holy Spirit work through me and others in numerous hospital surgery waiting rooms, in chemo infusion centers, radiation treatment robing areas, and many other places where patients and providers are experiencing stress. Suffering sensitizes you to seize the opportunity to share a word of hope and encouragement for others in these circumstances.
- Telling others about how you have come to see the truth in James 1:2-4 in your own life is a powerful witness to how God works through adversity to bind us closer to Him.
- But how can we be of service to others when our suffering is so intense that we cannot see beyond the crucible? When we undergo our own physical debilitating pain, injustice, overwhelming grief, severe deprivation of money, shelter, food, potable water, and safety and no access to emotional, mental or physical therapy, it makes service to others seem impossible. However, the greatest service we can render to others is prayer, and prayer serves both the person who prays as well as the recipient. We have all experienced the incredible power of prayer in our own lives as well as seen it in the lives of others.
These three means have increased and matured my faith, making me a more complete follower of Christ when going through my own personal crucible. But I am sure many of our listeners and viewers can add to this list. And, like me, you count it pure joy that we have reason to exclaim: “Great is thy faithfulness oh God our father!”
I know I join with everyone else in praying that Jesus will come soon to end all suffering forever. I know you all can say Amen to that.
My prayer is that you too will be able to see in your life what was said about God’s goodness by the psalmist (David or Jeremiah) in Psalm 31, and respond like the anonymous author of Psalm 116 and Isaiah:
19 How abundant are the good things
that you have stored up for those who fear you,
that you bestow in the sight of all,
on those who take refuge in you. Psalm 31:19
12 What shall I return to the Lord
for all his goodness to me?
13 I will lift up the cup of salvation
and call on the name of the Lord.
14 I will fulfill my vows to the Lord
in the presence of all his people. Psalm 116:12-14
I will tell of the kindnesses of the Lord,
the deeds for which he is to be praised,
according to all the Lord has done for [me]—
yes, the many good things
he has done for [His people]
according to his compassion and many kindnesses. Isaiah 63:7
