End of September Thoughts

Bernie and Mike sing at Tamagawa Seigakuin's 2010 school festival.

September used to be one of my favorite months. Notice the past tense.

When I was a child, September meant the start of school. Not that I was eager for the summer holidays to end, but I did look forward to some new clothes, a new lunch box, and meeting my friends again for the new school year. September always spelled new and exciting to me, even if year after year our first assignment back was to write, “What I Did during My Summer Vacation.” (Although I didn’t voice it out loud, I did often wonder why teachers couldn’t be more creative in assigning paragraph topics.)

But that was a long time ago. These days I’m starting to think that it might be good just to jump from August right into October—at least if the last two Septembers are indicative of what the month is going to hold for me in the future.

It was early September 2009 that I learned my cancer had recurred. Then while waiting for test results to determine which course of treatment would be recommended, I found myself shadowboxing with fear, an opponent that was definitely present even if I couldn’t see it. In our sparring, I also discovered many opportunities to doubt God and his good plans for my life. I’m grateful that I emerged from that September stronger than ever in my faith, but I did have some scars to show from the battles.

I remember one day in particular. Despite feeling weak physically, I attended the annual school festival at Tamagawa Seigakuin. I’d be there only an hour or two at most, or so I thought. I knew I had a fever that was getting higher, but I couldn’t go home immediately. Complicating matters further, I met an acquaintance who offered to introduce me to a faith healer. Let me say it clearly: the Bible teaches that God is a healing God; it instructs us to ask him for healing; and I believe God can and does heal, even miraculously, even cancer. So there shouldn’t have been any problems.

But when I showed interest in her suggestion, my Christian friend lowered her voice conspiratorially and told me that this faith healer was Buddhist, adding, “But that’s okay. We all believe in the same God.” Do you realize what you’re saying? I wanted to shout out loud in my shock. Instead, I recoiled from her involuntarily as if she had the plague. Although I did accept the faith healer’s calling card from her, I asked Bernie to burn it later that evening. I felt strongly that I had to get rid of the evil I’d carried into my home. We also prayed together, asking God to put his shield of protection around us. As we did, peace returned to my troubled heart even as my high fever finally broke. Even now, more than a year later, I’m convinced my faith was on trial that day.

And this year? The trial continues, but in more subtle ways. After six relatively “healthy” weeks in which it was sometimes easy to forget that I have cancer, my oasis in the cancer journey has come to an end, at least for the time being. Fatigue has returned and, more recently, pain has become its companion. On top of this, I’m coughing again and running a low grade fever most days. All of this is right on the heels of my writing a victorious blog on September 4 in which I testified about the wonderful lessons God had taught me in the year since my cancer recurred. Those lessons haven’t changed, but it is definitely harder to share them jubilantly when I’m not feeling good and when doubts have begun assailing me once again. The trial is not over.

Needless to say, I’ll be glad to put yet another difficult September behind me and to enter October tomorrow. Of course, I have no way of knowing what October will hold. Yet these words of Paul renew my confidence and restore my hope:

“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18).

One Year Later

Bernie and Cheryl, September 4, 2010

September 4, 2009. One year ago today. It was the day a doctor told me he suspected my cancer had returned. He was right.

In looking back over this incredible year, I’m grateful for so much, not the least of which is the fact that I’m much healthier today than then—and that, even though I still battle cancer. I’m also grateful for the lessons God has taught me as we have journeyed these past twelve months. Some, if not most, are lessons yet in progress. (I seem to be a slow learner who requires application after application for a lesson to really be absorbed.) Without any specific order, here are ten I’ve been learning in this past year:

1) Patience. I’d far rather just jump right to healing, but it’s been a year of wait, wait, and wait some more. I’m still waiting. After the cancer recurred, I had to wait a very long three-plus weeks before I could start taking the first anti-cancer medicine. Every two weeks thereafter I waited for the results of tests to show if the drug was being effective. When in March 2010 a CT scan showed that Sutent had stopped working, I had to wait another endless three weeks before the second drug, Afinitor, became available in Japan. What really tested my patience (and faith) was that throughout this wait my body was weakening noticeably. Most recently, I’ve been waiting since May to see whether doctors will set a surgery date as a way that I might become “cancer free.”

“Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord” (Psalm 27:14). Waiting requires patience, which doesn’t come easily to me. Perhaps this is why I’m being given so many opportunities to learn this lesson.

2) God is worthy of praise. Always. Forever. No matter what CT scans and blood tests show and doctors proclaim. No matter how I feel. No matter what. None of these change or challenge the always faithful, always powerful, always in control God. I join the Old Testament prophet Habakkuk to proclaim, “Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior” (3:17-18).

3) My trust is in God. It is not in percentages: the efficacy rate of a certain drug, the chances that surgery will get all of the cancer, survival rates for renal cell carcinoma, and more. My trust is in God, my Father, whose word never fails because he is “the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).

“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear . . . . Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth” (Psalm 46:1, 2, 10).

4) And a related lesson: doctors don’t know everything. Even their guesses—educated though they may be—are only guesses. Will this particular medicine work? What treatment is best? Should they perform surgery? How about radiation? How long will I live? Only God knows. I am so happy that my trust is in him.

5) My husband stands beside me “for better, for worse, in sickness, in health.” Never have my wedding vows been so meaningful; never has Bernie’s love been so real. I don’t have cancer—we have cancer. We travel the journey and fight the battle together.

6) The family of God is truly amazing. “Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not faint” (Isaiah 40:30-31). How often during this year Bernie has commented that it is the prayers of the family of God around the world that provide the updraft for the eagle to soar. A prayer partner in Missouri said it a different way when she wrote, “When you can’t pray, remember that we’re praying for you.”

7) The cancer journey shouldn’t be walked alone. It’s a journey for the whole family—both one’s blood family and the wider family of God too. Why would anyone choose to go inward, silently bearing the burden while trying to keep a stiff upper lip and a smile on the face? Why would anyone choose to walk alone? It happens often in Japan where people are so private about personal matters. Solo journeys may be adventuresome and break Guinness world records, but the cancer walk should not be attempted alone.

8) God’s Word is powerful and full of promise and hope. It is the way God has spoken to me most often this year. I have been renewed, strengthened, comforted, challenged, nourished, and sometimes chastised. Jesus quoted the Old Testament in Matthew 4:4 when he answered Satan’s temptations: “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Neither do I live by anti-cancer medicines. Far more important is the Word of God—something I’ve “known” my whole life, but never as I have known it this past year.

9) What you don’t know won’t kill you. Cancer kills, of course; a lack of knowledge doesn’t. Therefore, even as I pray for healing, I pray for my doctors (who’ve studied and are knowledgeable, but only to a degree). I’ve chosen not to focus on the cancer itself. Instead, I want to focus on the Lord and on walking with him. “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things,” Paul wrote in Philippians 4:8. It is good advice for me—the very best.

10) My worth doesn’t stem from what I do. It is based on who I am: God’s beloved child. So many scriptures testify to this fact, yet I confess I’ve often acted like the more productive I am, the worthier I am. If you look at my date book, I’ve not accomplished much during this year. Instead, I’ve been with the Lord in his school of learning and I’ve come out in a much better place and with much greater understanding of God. It’s a far more stable place to be for I stand on a foundation that cannot be moved. It’s a new kind of productivity that I’ve discovered: delighting myself at Jesus’ feet even if I accomplish nothing else during the day. It is enough.

“Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him” (Psalm 37:4-7).