‘God, Where Are You?’ How My Faith Helped Me Survive Mesothelioma
I was raised in the Baptist church and have always believed in God, which was why I couldn’t understand why I was cursed with cancer. I attended church on a regular basis, tried to be a good Christian; I did everything by the book.
God, why have you forsaken me?
I turned to the book of Job. Job lost everything he had: family, land and riches, and yet he still never lost faith in God. After reading the book of Job, I realized that I did nothing wrong. I had not done a thing to deserve this.
Faith the Size of a Mustard Seed
I then remembered a conversation I had had with God many years ago. I would always hear people at church say that God told them to do this and that. God never spoke to me in such a manner. I often wondered if these people really had the gift of discernment. I, too, wanted to believe in God the way that they did.
Lots of people believe in God, but don’t really believe God, and those are two different things. The Bible is filled with miracles and the promises of God. The Bible tells us of blind men who received sight, feeding thousands with a few fish; the list goes on and on. If God did all of those things, then surely I, too, could be healed.
The Bible also stated that all I needed was the faith of a mustard seed. If you’ve ever seen a mustard seed, then you know that you don’t need much faith at all. I wanted to have a closer connection to God. I asked God for a closer connection. I wanted him to “speak” to me like he spoke to others.
In order to be close to God, you must have unwavering faith. While reading the book of Job, I realized that I was chosen, not cursed. God had allowed me to be stricken with peritoneal mesothelioma. I gained unwavering faith from that.
Mesothelioma: My Very Own Boot Camp
There is a hymn that says: “I am on the battlefield for my Lord, I promised him that I would serve him till I die …”
Let’s think of this, will you? If you were putting together an army to fight the enemy, would you select your weakest or your strongest soldiers? In order to develop strong soldiers, they must be trained, i.e., boot camp (mesothelioma).
The captain (God) must know beyond a shadow of a doubt that when the going gets tough, you will not waiver. In the midst of my chemo treatments, surgeries and bad report after bad report, I maintained the faith of a mustard seed.
I immersed myself in His promises and miracles that He performed. God is the same today, yesterday and forever. It was important to me to surround myself with believers, as well. I didn’t know how I was going to be healed, but I knew, I believed, that it would happen.
Scriptures and Miracles
After two HIPEC procedures and several different chemotherapy regimens, it was do or die time. I went to the Prayer Tower in Tulsa, on the campus of Oral Roberts University. After reading several scriptures, I was on my way out of the building and then I read one on the wall that stuck. Jeremiah 33:3: “Call unto me, and I will answer thee. And I will show thee great and mighty things thou knowest not.”
That scripture resonated with me because at that moment, I needed God to show me something that I knew nothing about. I needed a miracle. I remembered that Jesus died on the cross for me thousands of years ago. He paid the ultimate price and suffered so that I didn’t have to.
Therefore, I believed that He has already suffered from cancer, so that I don’t have to. I repeated that scripture over and over. The more I repeated it, the more I began to not only believe it, but I felt relieved.
The very next day, my oncologist told me that I was in remission for the first time. Like Job, I was now a miracle. Although I’m in remission, I still believe that I am healed and will go on to live a healthy, productive life.