Woman On A Mission Ministry

Thank You for Dave’s can­cer, Lord. That’s what my friend sug­gested I pray yes­ter­day. Why? We’re told to give thanks in every­thing. And so I did. Yes­ter­day, one day before the doctor’s appoint­ment, fear­ing the worst–that Dave’s prostate can­cer had escaped the gland and was now unstop­pable. Through the night and into my quiet time this morn­ing I was deter­mined to con­tinue to give thanks–and mean it.

Even before arriv­ing at work at 8:30 I found myself think­ing a new thought: how might God actu­ally use this can­cer for our wel­fare and not calamity, to give us a future and a hope? He does know the plans He has for us –and those plans are good. We’d both been down this bumpy path before and indeed found bless­ing in the rub­ble of surg­eries and even red-devil chemo for Dave, the mean­est med­i­cine this side of death.

At 3:15 this after­noon while wait­ing in the small, cold exam room for what seemed like an eter­nity, I doubt either of us took a full breath. An excru­ci­at­ing fif­teen min­utes passed before the doc­tor entered with news of the CT and bone scan. “Don’t see any­thing of con­cern on the scans, just as I expected…” The words that fol­lowed were lost to me com­pletely as I attempted to wrap my brain around the sim­ple dec­la­ra­tion. I tuned back in at some point and remem­bered, at last, how to breathe. As I returned to full con­scious­ness, I finally fully embraced my weird prayer.

Can­cer and the surgery ahead now seem like a walk in the park. Sur­prised by joy, I’m deeply aware of just how happy I am today. I am so thankful.

P.S. from Dave: Life is such an amaz­ing jour­ney between breath-taking joy and gut-wrenching expe­ri­ences. I can not imag­ine how peo­ple do life with­out the love, grace, mercy and hope we share and embrace as believers!

Psalm 25:4–5

Make me know Your ways, O Lord.
Teach me Your path.
Lead me in Your Truth and teach me,
For You are the God of my sal­va­tion.
For You, I wait all the day.

Make me know. Teach me. Lead me. Teach me.
Your Ways. Your path. Your truth.
My sal­va­tion.
For You. For You. I wait.

What a beau­ti­ful prayer, one that under­scores the rela­tion­ship that God has planned for me and Him. Me and the God of the uni­verse, the galax­ies and the orchids. Inti­mate con­nec­tion with the mighty Lord of all! The invis­i­ble, eter­nal God is capa­ble of mak­ing an ordi­nary girl know His ways, His path and His truth. Amaz­ing! This is my prayer, O Lord.