COLLEEN TINKER
This week marks one year since Richard got his diagnosis: prostate cancer. The good news was the stage was early; the bad news was that surgery offered the most promising long-term outcomes.
The world, as we remember, was in the midst of Covid lockdowns. Hospitals had suspended elective surgeries, and finding someone skilled in robotic prostatectomies at a hospital that would do the procedure seemed a tall order, especially since we were also in the countdown to the FAF Conference.
The days are blurred in my memory, but I remember one thing clearly: I knew the Lord was with us.
I cannot explain my lack of panic; typically anxiety would paralyze my ability to live in the present and to think logically.
I cannot explain my lack of panic; typically anxiety would paralyze my ability to live in the present and to think logically. Yet, praying as we went, we found the right surgeon at a hospital that would do the surgery during the time of Covid.
City of Hope, we learned, was continuing its usual care and procedures because it is a specialty hospital and was not taking general medical patients. The only abnormal thing was that I could not be with Richard during any of his appointments.
The next five weeks slid past as if (as Richard said) we had gotten on a train, and there was no getting off. Surgery was scheduled for the day after the conference ended, and conference prep was a mercy from God. I found myself clinging to my go-to passage, Philippians 4:4–7:
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
There they were again—the words God knew would confront my habituated anxiety in response to fear and threats to my security: “Do not be anxious about anything.”
Taunting words
I confess; in my Adventist days, this command would have seemed metaphorical rather than real. I saw “do not be anxious” as a goal to be reached through a hypothetical lifetime of self-denial and sanctification, praying often and trying desperately to BELIEVE that God would heal my husband and keep me safe from loss.
Frankly, I never came close to internal peace when the life and health of me or of my family was assaulted. As an Adventist, I saw commands such as not being anxious and promises such as God’s peace guarding my heart and mind as ideals which would mock me and fill me with guilt. Obviously I wasn’t praying and believing well enough—and I could never figure out how to achieve those taunting goals.
After I was born again, however, something changed: I learned that God’s word cannot fail. Those words, “Do not be anxious about anything”, were not written to UNBELIEVERS but to BELIEVERS. They are based on the foundation that God’s promises are sure and, no matter how weak our faith or faint our prayers, God’s will cannot be thwarted. He is our true Father, and what He says, He will do.
He asks me to rest in Him instead of trying to work out the ends I want by working on the right formula of prayer and disciplined emotions.
When He commands me not to be anxious about anything, that command comes in a context. It is not a command I must do in order for Him to bless me; it is a reassurance from my Father that He has already done the impossible: He has already brought me from death to life. Furthermore, He has already brought my husband from death to life, and no matter what happens, He HAS us both. He knows what I need, and He asks me to trust Him instead of bargaining. He asks me to rest in Him instead of trying to work out the ends I want by working on the right formula of prayer and disciplined emotions.
In other words, God asks me not to be anxious because He is already keeping His promises to me and to Richard. Furthermore, He asks me not to be anxious—not to let my emotions and mind run away into catastrophizing—but to tell my Father what I want. He asks me to pray and supplicate Him, and to pray and to ask for my desires with thanksgiving.
Furthermore, my desires look different when I realize my Father is keeping His promises and has made me alive in Him. While I don’t feel any less intense about my husband’s health, I also want God to be glorified. I want His strength to be on display in these moments of our helplessness, and I want to be faithful.
Held by prayers
The day of Richard’s surgery came, and when I dropped him off in the darkness at the front door of the City of Hope and watched him walk into that building alone, I prayed the Lord would strengthen him and give him an uncomplicated surgery so that he could come home that night.
When I had found the parking lot which would be my “home base” for the next 14 hours, an amazing sunrise lit the sky. (See the picture above the article.) The east flamed with color shooting high into the sky, and another woman parking near me said what I was thinking: “That looks like the Aurora Borealis!”
That moment was worship. Only God could paint a sky like that at exactly the time I needed His reassurance, and I thanked Him for providing treatment for Richard, for being with him and with the surgeon, and I thanked my Father for holding us and our future securely. I knew that He was keeping His eternal promises to us, and I did know His peace. I didn’t know what would happen as the day wore on, but I knew we were hidden with Christ in God.
Yet in spite of my enforced Covid separation from Richard, in spite of unexpected events during the day, I felt the prayers of people who were interceding for us.
As the day wore on, I was conscious that people were praying for us. I can’t explain this reality, and I know I have heard others say similar things. Yet in spite of my enforced Covid separation from Richard, in spite of unexpected events during the day, I felt the prayers of people who were interceding for us. I knew the Lord had provided these praying friends, and I experienced His promise of peace.
Richard did go home that night, and in spite of post-surgical hiccups including a 24-hour triage nurse who helped me mediate the treatment of a wound infection during that first week, my husband began to heal and grow stronger.
The year has been punctuated with three-month check-ups at City of Hope at which Richard gets his lab tests to see if there are any markers of recurring cancer. Every time these appointments are due, I have to cling consciously, again, to Philippians 4. On the night before every drive to Duarte, the city where Richard sees his medical team, I ask the Lord to help me trust Him and to sleep without fear. He is faithful, and He gives me rest.
This week Richard passed his fourth post-surgical blood test, and he has been graduated to appointments every six-months instead of every three. I know there are no guarantees about his future check-ups just as there are no guarantees about future pandemics or political actions or personal losses, but I know this: God keeps His promises.
I used to think I could not live with the anxiety of a loved one having cancer, with the fear of recurrence or loss or with my loved one’s own emotions about the disease. This year, though, has shown me things I couldn’t have known otherwise.
First, our Father held both Richard and me through a frightening diagnosis and a major surgery during a pandemic that isolated us at a most vulnerable time. Second, I watched my husband grow in trust. He did not retreat into fear nor withdraw, but he knew the Lord’s presence and comfort. He has modeled faith and integrity that have helped me trust God through the strangeness of Covid and the periodic trips for blood tests.
Finally, I know at a deeper level how real God’s word is. When He asks me not to be anxious because He is keeping His promises—when He asks me to supplicate and pray and give Him thanks even when I’m entering a crisis and can’t see the end, I know He is faithful.
I have known my Father and His provision and protection this year in ways I can’t articulate, but I know He is holding me. He knows how to be all I need while also providing what I need in this life He has given me.
I thank God at this one-year marker of Richard’s diagnosis that He knew before we did what we would experience as the world reeled with a virus. He sent people who prayed for us, and He reminded me that He hears me and He is faithful.
He is enough, and His word cannot fail. †
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