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Learning from Christ and cancer
Jonathan Peske, from California, reflects on suffering from cancer and how his faith has helped him.
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As I write about what I have gained from my experience with cancer, I feel like there is an expectation that somehow the experience immediately and radically transformed me. But life is rarely so neat and tidy. Some questions remain unanswered, and some traits remain a part of whom we are. Still, cancer can teach us lessons for spiritual growth. I was diagnosed with testicular cancer in October of 2003 (and was in a car accident that same week!) I had surgery the following month to remove the tumour. It was determined to be Stage I (localised) so the doctors weren’t too worried. The CT scan I had afterwards showed no spread to the lymphatic system but just to be sure I had a second surgery the following February to check that it had not spread. It had. When I woke up from that surgery I learned they had found an extensive spread in the lymph nodes, and I now had a 10 inch scar across my stomach to show for it. They told me I would have to go through two rounds of chemotherapy to kill the remaining cancer cells. This was eventually extended to four rounds, as the cancer was still growing aggressively. After twelve weeks of chemotherapy, however, my cancer eventually went into remission where it has remained for two years. How did I take it all? When I was first processing the news, I realised I had to make a choice whether I was going to let this become a “crisis of faith”. I decided that I had proclaimed Jesus to be Lord before all this and He still was Lord, even if life seemed like it was dealing me a bad hand. I remembered a lesson I had read: being a Christian does not mean we are immune from trouble. I realised that in the midst of suffering, we must make a conscious decision to keep trusting. The period from February 2004 to June 2004 was the darkest and most difficult chapter of my life. I felt miserable. My body was a wreck. I lost 20lbs from my already lean frame - I’m 155lbs and 6ft 2”) and I couldn’t work, so I was at home alone all day. I had trouble reading because my vision was sometimes blurry (a side effect of the medication I was on - once I figured this out, I stopped taking it and was much happier). “I wasn’t too busy and I still couldn’t be a spiritual superstar” I suddenly had lots of free time. I am the kind of person with a to-do list that is constantly full. Now I had to make up things to do. I had certain TV shows that I would look forward to. I would read the entire paper slowly, and then do the crossword puzzle. Sometimes I would just lie in the chair and be bored. The free time was nice for the first six weeks or so. After than it became oppressive. I felt like with all this time I should be spending hours in prayer or reading the bible. After all, isn’t that the excuse all of us use? “I’m too busy!” Well, I wasn’t too busy, and I still couldn’t be a spiritual super star. I did pray and study the Scripture a bit more than I usually did, but having cancer did not turn me into a spiritual warrior. Of course I pondered the nature and purpose of suffering. I read the book of Job - twice. For me, it was not a very helpful book to read in the midst of suffering. Job lost everything. When God finally does speak to Job, He doesn’t give him neat and tidy answers. Basically he says, “I am God, and who do you think you are to question me? Did you lay the foundation of the earth? Or the Sea? Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty?” Granted Job is restored in the end - everyone lives happily ever after, but the question of suffering is not directly answered. “Solace in the Psalms” I did find much more comfort and solace in the Psalms. I needed a refuge and stronghold, and I found God to be real and present in that way to me. I was comforted by the way in which God cares for people in the Psalms. They are great reading for when life is kicking your butt. I also read the Gospels and focused specifically on the stories of Jesus healing people. I was struck by the fact that Jesus never denies healing to one who asks Him, and by the compassion that He shows. In Mark 1, a leper approaches Jesus and says, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” Jesus reaches out to heal the man and responds powerfully, “I do choose. Be made clean!” I love how Jesus states explicitly that he is choosing to heal this man, and felt Jesus was saying the same thing to me. In the midst of this dark time, I experienced the support of the Christian community around me. I had hundreds of people praying for me. Several times we invited our friends to come to pray together with us in a special prayer time and God used those times in a powerful way. Even more amazing was the way people from our church brought us food, cleaned the house and helped take care of all the day-to-day things that had to get done. This kind of support demonstrated God’s continued care for us in tangible ways. Both times that I was in hospital and doing poorly, God sent a rainbow. I felt it was a promise and comfort to my family and me. I think that one way that I have changed, since my illness, is that I understand suffering much more than I used to. I have had a life full of blessing and good times - but sooner or later everyone experiences suffering. I realised the reality of evil in the world through the experience. Now I can empathise more with the pain that people feel when things are not going right. “Can empathize more with others” As someone who has found Jesus to be a gracious Lord throughout my life and has never sensed a lack that would cause me to look elsewhere, I have sometimes regretted that I didn’t have an exciting testimony of how God rescued me from my drug and alcohol addictions and transformed my life. Now I can share all of these wonderful stories of the way in which Jesus cared for me as I “walked through the Valley of the Shadow of Death.” When I was reflecting on these things I wrote a song that has become part of the worship life of our church. As Jesus wraps up his Sermon on the Mount, he tells the crowd a story about how those who act on His words are like a man who builds His house on a rock foundation. When the storm comes, it beats down on the house, but the house stands firm because it is built on the rock. My experience with cancer certainly felt like a strong storm beating down on me, but I found out that Jesus’ words were a foundation that could weather the storm.
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A
cynic would label David Harp simply another tragic product of
Australia’s growing drug and homosexual culture. He had grown
up an Anglican but had drifted away from church and became involved
in the gay lifestyle after being seduced by an older man at a
youth camp. Things changed, at least temporarily when he came
into contact with a Catholic group called Flame Ministries International,
which was founded in Perth, Western Australia by an Englishman,
Eddie Russell who had emigrated there. David did their Set My
People on Fire seminars in 1993 and joined their ministry. He
became a Catholic and even came on an evangelisation crusade to
the UK with the ministry. 