Letter to Carolyn
I forgot to tell you an interesting story that happened a few years ago. A very good friend of my mother’s was diagnosed with breast cancer. We were devastated, of course. This lady is a devoted Christian who loves God. We couldn’t understand how this could happen. Of course, it’s always hard to believe when this happens, no matter who the person is.
After the news sunk in, I prayed earnestly for her. At the time, I had a wall in my house where I had pinned up a lot of my favorite scriptures. As I was praying and crying out to God on Pam’s behalf, asking him why this had happened to Pam, all of the sudden, my mind went to a scripture on the wall. I had my eyes closed, but I knew which scripture it was and where it was. It was this one in Luke chapter 12 where Jesus is saying:
2 There is nothing covered up that will not be uncovered, or hidden that will not become known. 3 What you have spoken in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be proclaimed on the housetops.
I felt like the Lord was telling me there was a hidden reason for Pam’s cancer. Like I was telling you, sometimes physical things manifest in our physical world because of something that is happening in the spiritual world, in our soul or in our spirit, that we may not be aware of. Cancer is one of them.
Well, I was praying before work and I had to go. So I hurriedly called my mother and told her that I was certain the Lord was giving me a hint of what was going on, but I had to go to work so I couldn’t keep praying to get more information. So, after she hung up with me, she prayed and said, “Okay, Lord, you heard Mandy. So, what does that mean?” She immediately heard, “Open your Bible.”
Now what happened next has happened to both of us a few times. We open our Bible and the page it opens to is exactly where we need to see something. So, she opens it and it lands right on Job 19. You remember Job – he was the man that was put to the test by God and Satan, and he lost everything including his health, only to get it back and more. He was having a conversation here with his uncompassionate friends:
19 Then Job answered and said:
2 “How long will you torment my soul,
And break me in pieces with words?
3 These ten times you have reproached me;
You are not ashamed that you have wronged me.[a]
4 And if indeed I have erred,
My error remains with me.
5 If indeed you exalt yourselves against me,
And plead my disgrace against me,
6 Know then that God has wronged me,
And has surrounded me with His net.
7 “If I cry out concerning wrong, I am not heard.
If I cry aloud, there is no justice.
8 He has fenced up my way, so that I cannot pass;
And He has set darkness in my paths.
9 He has stripped me of my glory,
And taken the crown from my head.
10 He breaks me down on every side,
And I am gone;
My hope He has uprooted like a tree.
11 He has also kindled His wrath against me,
And He counts me as one of His enemies.
12 His troops come together
And build up their road against me;
They encamp all around my tent.
13 “He has removed my brothers far from me,
And my acquaintances are completely estranged from me.
14 My relatives have failed,
And my close friends have forgotten me.
15 Those who dwell in my house, and my maidservants,
Count me as a stranger;
I am an alien in their sight.
16 I call my servant, but he gives no answer;
I beg him with my mouth.
17 My breath is offensive to my wife,
And I am repulsive to the children of my own body.
18 Even young children despise me;
I arise, and they speak against me.
19 All my close friends abhor me,
And those whom I love have turned against me.
20 My bone clings to my skin and to my flesh,
And I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.
21 “Have pity on me, have pity on me, O you my friends,
For the hand of God has struck me!
22 Why do you persecute me as God does,
And are not satisfied with my flesh?
23 “Oh, that my words were written!
Oh, that they were inscribed in a book!
24 That they were engraved on a rock
With an iron pen and lead, forever!
25 For I know that my Redeemer lives,
And He shall stand at last on the earth;
26 And after my skin is destroyed, this I know,
That in my flesh I shall see God,
27 Whom I shall see for myself,
And my eyes shall behold, and not another.
How my heart yearns within me!
28 If you should say, ‘How shall we persecute him?’—
Since the root of the matter is found in me,
29 Be afraid of the sword for yourselves;
For wrath brings the punishment of the sword,
That you may know there is a judgment.”
So, my mom got dressed and got over to the hospital with her Bible. She walked in the room and Pam was alone. She said, “Pam, I have something I want to read you.” So, she proceeded to read Job 19. As she got to the underlined portions, Pam started to say, “That’s me. That’s me.”
All that stuff that Job says about being rejected: his children rejecting him, his friends rejecting him, his wife rejecting him, etc. Job was suffering from some inner anguish that Pam could relate to.
Pam had had a horrible life and had suffered greatly from the things that had happened to her from childhood forward. Even her husband was a bit callous. Those hurts and pains had remained unresolved and then finally, in middle age, began to manifest as cancer, is what we believe. My mother spent the next hour praying for/ministering to Pam. No nurse, doctor, no one entered the room for the next hour. Just as she finished, someone entered the room.
To finish the story, Pam did go forward with all her treatments and was healed of her cancer. The doctors treated the physical, but we through Jesus treated the spiritual.
Just wanted to share that story with you. It’s probably one you’d never hear at church!