Unexpected Blessings

Unexpected Blessings

I’m always amazed when the discussion at my support group meetings turns to the blessings that have come through the survivors’ cancer experiences. Somehow the words blessing and cancer in the same sentence just don’t make sense.

I’m a very logical, rational person, and having colon cancer at the age of thirty-six made absolutely no sense to me. But as the years have gone by, I must admit that God has used this “senseless” experience to bring blessing in my life.

In May 1991, when I returned for my first checkup after six months of weekly chemo, I was the only person who wasn’t there for a treatment that day. I knew I should feel happy that I had finished treatment, but I didn’t. As I looked around that room of people in recliners, hooked up to poles with saline-solution bags, I was overcome with sadness. Some of them looked so thin and ill, and others looked so tired and afraid. I began to weep. I wanted to take away their pain, but I couldn’t. I wanted to give them peace, but I couldn’t.

Then God spoke to my heart: “But you know the One who can, and you can tell them about Me.”

“But I just want to put all this behind me and go on with my life,” I argued. “Besides, I don’t want to hang around people with cancer. It will be depressing.”

Finally, a few weeks later, like a pouting child, I gave in: “I’ll do it, but I won’t like it,” I told Him.

I started the Cancer Prayer Support Group in October 1991 with four people. My intent was to have a one-hour, once-a-month meeting. That shouldn’t be too depressing, I figured.

But almost immediately I could see that the people coming to the group needed more support than that. Not only that, but I found that I actually felt better after the meetings rather than worse. So we started meeting twice a month and have been doing so ever since. And guess what soon became a great source of joy in my life? The support group! As the months rolled by, I secretly began to pray that I would be able to quit my public relations job and volunteer with cancer patients.

In July 1995, on the fifth anniversary of my cancer surgery, I told our congregation how God had blessed me through my cancer experience—through my friends in the support group and through Marc and his wife, Elizabeth, who by then had become very close friends and prayer partners with my husband and me.

I concluded with this sentence: “Someday I hope I can quit my job and minister full-time, sharing God’s peace and love with cancer patients.”

I knew it was an unrealistic wish—there was no way financially that we could afford for me to quit my job and volunteer. But less than a year later, my prayer became a reality when Marc offered me a job in his office ministering to his patients’ emotional and spiritual needs.

So since May 1, 1996, I have been a patient advocate, listening to patients’ hopes and fears and praying that God will heal them physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I ask Him to bless each one, and I believe that He will.

In the year before my new job offer, I had been meditating on Ephesians 3:20, which speaks of our God “who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine” (NIV).

There is no doubt in my mind that God has done far more in my life than I could ask or imagine, and I know that He can do that in your life too.

Do I think He’s going to give you a job as a patient advocate for your oncologist? Probably not.

Do I think He is able to do something equally amazing in your life? You bet I do.

I can’t tell you how, when, or where God will bring a blessing through your trial of suffering. But I can tell you why—because His Word promises He will.

Romans 8:28 (NASB) says,

We know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

God will bring blessing through your trial because you matter greatly to Him and He longs to show you that. He may bless you with physical healing, or He may bless you by healing you emotionally of some deep-seated hurts. He may bless you spiritually with the joy of knowing Him in a way you never have before. Or He may bless others through you in unimaginable ways.

My blessing from cancer is certainly not the one I sought, but because God knows me and loves me, He knew how to bless me.

He knows you. He loves you. He can bless you through cancer . . . if you let Him decide the blessing.

Perhaps you would like to use part of Psalm 139 as your prayer today:

Lord, You go before me and follow me. You place Your hand of blessing on my head. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too great for me to understand! I’m believing that You can bring blessing through cancer, and I’m trusting You to choose the blessing. Amen.