Part 1

To my fellow travelers on this journey to beating cancer.
I would like to tell you how I came to understand healing.
Let me start off with the premise that I am a Christian believer in the faith tradition of conservative Mennonite. So this frames everything I am about to share.

My journey started January 30 when we went to the ER to get a persistent abdominal pain checked out. What has happened since then has been a shocking decline in my health and a dizzying roller coaster ride of ups and downs, twists and turns. I’m sure many of you know exactly what I mean.

It has now condensed to late Monday afternoon’s revelation by my doctor that she just isn’t sure the chemotherapy is working. She’s willing to go another cycle, but at some point it makes the most sense to transition to comfort care.

Well, along this journey for me, because of the truth I have staked my life on, I have determined that live or die, it is for God’s glory. And sometimes the truths you hold on to, you have no idea what it means until God calls you into it. One of those truths in my faith tradition is that followers of Jesus are called to follow him in the way of suffering and are called to follow him in death.
So when this hard thing came, that is the truth pin I know.

Well, that, and everything is for the glory of God. Which means whatever happens, it’s purpose is to make God look good.

Now, one of the things about who I am is that I am one who has to have something make sense in order for me to get it. I always thought it’s because I’m probably just dumber than other people, but I’m beginning to realize that this may actually be a feature of me and not a bug.😊

So, in order to keep this as pithy as I can, I will jump to the part where I was trying to figure out healing. What is it actually, why do we have these stories in the Bible about miracles of healing, etc. etc.

So God showed me that clearly any and all healing comes from his hand. The particulars of why and when etc., and what that means, when ultimately the sum for all of us is zero. Meaning we are all going to be dead someday. So, God intervening into a natural process has to be for some reason that is a mystery which God only understands.

So it’s under that understanding that I’ve narrowed it down to; what is the means of healing or what is the way healing comes?

Well, for followers of Jesus, the New Testament is full of stories of healing. Most of them are of unbelievably miraculous quality. But there is one place where there is instruction to believers and that is in the book of James where it simply says ‘ Are any of you sick? Call for the elders of the church to come and anoint you with oil. Confess your sins to each other and the prayer of faith will heal you.’ That’s all kind of paraphrased, but conveys the main idea. So because of my faith tradition, this is not an uncommon thing to do. About three weeks ago that is what happened here in my living room.

Well, what I was stressing over in that was; how do I know if I have enough faith to be healed? After all, I desperately want this to ‘work’. But what I learned through that experience is that, all I need is the faith of obedience. The fact that I was obedient was faith enough. That realization is foundational and has given me immeasurable peace.

I think I will stop with that for now, and will pick up the next part another time.

Glory to God alone.

Part 1