Strength and Healing from Romans 8

My new video that uses Romans 8 to bring about strength and Healing. The video includes the song The Hurt and the Healer. Enjoy

Life is a Roller Coaster ( The Ride of Thymoma Cancer)

Life is a roller coaster with ups and downs. The key to dealing with life is not to fool yourself into thinking that you will only experience ups with no downs or only downs with no ups. The only predictable thing in life that we can trust in is a God who says He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and end, the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. I have learned this lesson the hard way, through experience. Just when I think that life is following a normal course for me something always comes along to rearrange my world. My dad being diagnosed with Thymoma cancer did just that..This condition is a rare cancer that is hard to treat due to the lack of information and lack of doctors who specialize in its treatment. My family was taken off guard. Until you have cancer or have a close friend or family member diagnosed with cancer, you will always naively think that cancer only affects other people. What started out as severe side problems turned into what we thought was small cell lung cancer. The doctors had given my dad no hope of a cure. My dad took several rounds of chemo trying to slow down the progression of his cancer. It was hard seeing dad go through chemo and be weakened by the medicine that was supposed to provide a cure. One of the hardest challenges for me was to be at college concentrating on school work while my family was being attacked at home by this disease. College was to be a time of independence, but it turned into a time of guilt at times because I thought that I should be at home with my family. Cancer always affects the whole family and each member deals with cancer in a kind of second hand fashion. We get the emotional shrapnel that comes from watching our loved one being attacked by cancer. My mom stuck by dad’s side like a warrior and held on through all the storms that came his way. The only sense of sanity that kept me going through these hard times was trusting God was in control and would take care of my family. Often my friends and family at church served as answers to my prayers for strength and comfort. During this time, the roller coaster of my dad’s life seemed to have lots of quick turns and ups and downs. The downs came in the form of my dad’s loss of strength, hearing, and taste. To fix the hearing and taste problem that came from brain fluid leakage, dad went to Chapel Hill to see a specialist. This trip led to other biopsies which led to an up in dad's life. We learned that he did not have small cell lung cancer, but that his tumors were benign. The doctor was still trying to diagnosis what type of cancer my dad had, but we were happy to receive good news, and we wanted to live in that moment.

In life, when the roller coaster starts to go up, this is the time we need to gather all our strength and work on our faith because a ride down the hill may follow along with the sting of the devil’s fiery arrows. The next turn in life brought dad a new diagnosis of benign Thymoma cancer. This cancer was benign but forming a plan of treatment is an experimental and on-going process. The cancer took my dad on a journey through so many kinds of suffering and pain. My dad still had fluid leakage and the doctors had to fix the leak on one side of his head at a time. Each procedure was dangerous and scary, which had us on our knees continually. In the meantime, the medication to treat the problems with his lungs was causing him to go on a depression/prednisone influenced soul searching crisis of life. It was like dad was becoming a new person, and he was leaving behind the old Johnny. Dad was caught in between grieving what he could not do anymore and trying to redefine himself. He was scared to death of losing the essence of what made him Johnny Deal. This idea was scary for me. I saw my dad fight this war of character assassination. It was the stripping of the most influential man in my life. This was the worst part of seeing dad suffer. My dad will always be bigger than life to me. It is a legacy that makes a man, not his physical capabilities. During this time our quiet, do- not-get-too-personal ways were being thrown out the window. Dad would tell me everything about himself: the good, the bad, and the ugly. We examined our father and son relationship in ways that were, at times, traumatic, but I was glad I could have this experience. For me, what dad was going through was hard to take. Dad helped me honestly look at what he was going through. During this time, God showed me that I needed to help dad to see himself as a warrior caught in the trenches of life fighting to survive. No one can dare say that a wounded warrior fighting for a cause is not worthy of respect and honor. I have always wanted to be this honest and open with my dad and this season of life provided the opportunity. During this time, my mom and I helped each other with the hard questions of life. My brother and I acted as comrades talking about the battle that was happening in our lives. My little nephew, Noah, was a healthy distraction reminding my parents of pure, simple joy and laughter. My wife has acted has a sounding board and good listener to my rants about the unfairness of life. Not only did this opportunity happen between my dad and mom but also between my Heavenly Father and me. I needed answers for this hurt in my life, and I was questioning everything I believed about God's sovereignty and goodness. Dad was on a desperate high that was like a version of dad unrestrained. Dad was obsessed with connecting with everyone that crossed his path. This need scared us at times because dad seemed to have no sense of time and would talk with complete strangers about personal topics. In the South, we are very reserved about personal issues, especially when it comes to strangers. Later on, dad would come down from his high and become afraid that he would hurt those around him with his presence reminding them that he was suffering. Recently, dad has gotten out of the house more and started to find more strength out in the community, especially recently at North Catawba Baptist Church. Each season of cancer brought a new season in dad’s life.

The roller coaster of these seasons kept trying to throw mom off the tracks several times, but my brother and she hung on for dear life, and this connection also helped to sustain my faith. I was so scared that the family would start to lose faith. I wanted to get to the bottom of the theology that bad things happen because sin was in someone’s life, and God was teaching a lesson. If this theology was behind my dad's suffering, God and I were going to have serious problems. He would have to help me understand His decision. My whole family was going through this soul-searching time, and this theology was killing our faith. The comfort that God gave me about this theology was that the theology was being used too generally. God does not react the same way with each person. In the Bible, some people suffer as a consequence of their sin, but the suffering was a natural part of the suffering that would come from that particular sin. For instance, drinking alcohol in large quantities will lead to alcohol poisoning. Can God be blamed if the individual would not listen to reason and continued in sin? Often God shouts for us to turn around, but we don't listen and blame him when we get in a bind. Suffering happens to good people, like Job, who obediently followed God. Suffering has no favorites. All will get their turn with suffering. The results of the Fall in the Garden of Eden led to suffering in the world. So all suffering can be traced back to the sin of Adam and Eve. Jesus Christ was not even protected from suffering. Jesus made a way to have peace a midst suffering. Jesus said in this world you will have trouble, but I have come to give you peace. This peace has acted like a seat belt that has held our family through the toughest of times. Through all the storms, my dad has held on to his faith. For my family, holding on to faith has been a battle that has increased our faith. Facing a struggle with faith should cause one to take an honest look at his or her beliefs. Something that has helped me on my journey is to examine the lives of David and Job and how they struggled with God's plans, but came to God with their struggles instead of running away. We must understand that God wants us to be honest in our relationship with Him. My dad still has Thymoma, and the battle is still being fought to find a relief to his pain and a cure for his cancer. Through all this pain, our family has had a community of constant companions who have supported us, cried with us, fought with us, and loved us. Christ and my Dad's love for his friends and family have helped to create a lasting, supportive community. The strength of Christ has helped us to take an honest look at the roller coaster we are on and know that we can gain strength through the ups (good news) and learn to trust through life's downs (bad news).

Below is a video of Dad's story