Dear friend,
Over these next months, I want to share a story with you of great spiritual significance regarding the testing of our faith and how we can choose to trust God, even when things look very bleak. I believe this story will encourage you, no matter what you or your loved ones are facing.
Heart’s Desire
Everyone who knows and loves my dear friend, Angela, was shocked and dismayed by her breast cancer diagnosis.
Angela is a strong prayer warrior, intimate in her relationship with Jesus, and a great encourager to her fellow Believers. Living on three different mission fields and serving in ministry for almost 20 years, she has experienced a lot during her 43 years on earth.
As a young woman, it was Angela’s deepest desire to be a wife and mother. She was thrilled when at age 31 the Lord brought Eric into her life. They married and she joined her husband in ministry in Europe and Russia.
However, they were stunned when he was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer just seven months later. Together, they faithfully stood with family and friends, praying against the diagnosis and declaring his healing based on God’s Word. Yet he died after battling the disease for a year, and Angela’s heart was broken.
It’s been over a decade since her husband’s death, and since then Angela has continued to serve the Lord wholeheartedly. She also has waited expectantly for the Lord to answer her prayer for another husband and for a child.
After an annual check-up, Angela couldn’t believe the words she heard her doctor utter: “It’s cancer.” It felt like too much after losing her husband to that battle and having stood so strongly for health and wellness for years.
Painful questions surfaced as she sought the Lord over which treatment to choose: a gentler, more holistic alternative of nutrition and homeopathic medication versus the traditional treatment of chemotherapy, radiation, and possibly radical surgery. Not only was Angela horrified at the thought of putting destructive chemicals into her body, but she still was hoping to have a baby one day, and this choice could make pregnancy impossible.
Assignment for His Glory
Here is an excerpt of Angela’s struggle:
I have quietness in my heart tonight and relief from the anguish and turmoil I’ve been experiencing in making this decision about what treatment I should choose to battle the cancer.
Saturday I completely crashed emotionally, physically, and spiritually as I experienced some of the darkest hours of my life. Though I desperately wanted to go the alternative medical route and passionately still believe there is healing on this road, I now see that the Lord let me explore those options so that I would have time to process, and then accept, this clinical route that feels like absolute death to me…one which includes grueling chemotherapy, surgery, radiation, and years of medication.
Tonight I’m believing this is the door He has chosen for me, one that will lead to my healing and be for His glory. My deepest desire has been to obey the Lord—whatever that looked like—and now that I know this is His path for me, I can submit to it, though it may be costly. From the beginning, He said He would heal me—I just didn’t know how.
My doctor sent me three clinical studies that were very sobering. They describe a pathway through these next months of tests, doctor visits, and the various chemo drugs that might be used and their side effects. The reports also reviewed the five years of daily medication I would need to take post-treatment and their impact on my body and emotions. This would be a very long road ahead.
There is so much grief over not being “healthy” and in anticipating what I’m about to go through. I will be stripped physically, with complete hair loss two weeks into my first chemo. And unless God does a miracle, I will never know the joy of carrying and nursing my own baby. Some days the suddenness and gravity of all this seems like just too much to bear.
But so many in the world are subjected to much, much worse—and not in the name of healing. The Lord is giving me an opportunity to die to my flesh and the things of this world in a much deeper way than I ever thought possible. I’m trying to gain perspective and am clinging to Him for how all this will play out as I live alone and must continue to work full-time. But there is much to be thankful for, and I’m trying to focus on those things. We all will see much more of the Lord through this.
What blesses me so much is how broken Angela is, and yet, in the midst of her pain, she is choosing obedience and fixing her eyes on Jesus. She rests in His promise that His grace is sufficient:
“My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness. Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Corinthians 12:9).
Rather than focusing on the “what ifs,” Angela is allowing Christ, her Healer, to form His character in her, moment by moment, one battle at a time. Oh that we all may embrace the character of our Lord and be His light to the world through our testimonies!
Dear friend, I encourage you today to take a moment right now and enter into His presence. Know that His desire is for you to trust Him completely. Allow Him to minister to your deepest need, for truly His grace is sufficient.
Your friend on the journey,
P.S. Don’t miss my article next month, when I’ll share more of Angela’s story.
Barbara Cerullo is devoted to authentically sharing God’s love with women. She authors From Barbara’s Heart, where her spiritual insights, heartwarming family stories, and delightful anecdotes encourage readers with God’s faithfulness. Her husband, David, is CEO of Inspiration Ministries.
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