An Invitation to Trust God

Every time I think about sharing this news my stomach does a somersault and my heartbeat quickens and throbs in my throat.  Keeping information among close friends and family in real time feels safe and secretive in this modern age, as though reality doesn't exist until shared on the internet for all to know. If it isn't on my Instagram or Facebook page, it isn't really happening.  The words are hard enough to say, but typing them out is just too much.

Jonathan has cancer.

There. This is real. This is happening. Cancer has hit my family, my person, my husband, and I hate it.

After several months of sporadic pain, joined by a chronic lower back ache at the beginning of this month, Jonathan went through a series of tests.  Last Friday, they confirmed what my gut already knew: testicular cancer, stage two. At this point, disease has spread from a primary tumor in his groin into the lymph nodes and possibly some surrounding tissues in his retroperitoneum, the lining of abdominal cavity near his kidneys.

Tomorrow at 8 am a urology oncologist will remove the primary tumor. The subsequent pathology report will take about a week to determine exactly what kind of tumor we are battling.  That information, in combination with his tumor markers from a blood test at two weeks post-surgery, will determine what chemotherapy regimen will be the best combination of eradicating disease while minimizing long term negative effects. The hope is that the chemotherapy will reduce the abdominal presence of disease to the point that abdominal surgery is unnecessary or at least more straightforward than it would be if they operated on that area pre-chemo.  

We are heartbroken and sad, scared and anxious, and more than a little angry that this stupid disease is messing with our lives.  We were supposed to be leaving for our first family vacation to the beach tomorrow, and instead we had to tell our five year old that Daddy is sick and the beach will have to wait. Gut-wrenching. Instead of relaxing on the beach, Jonathan will be recovering in a hospital bed and awaiting the next steps in this journey of healing.

But.

BUT. There is hope. Praise God, there is HOPE! And by hope I do not mean the high success rate for treating and beating testicular cancer.  Yes, that statistic does bring me great hope. But the hope of which I speak is THE hope that surpasses every heartache of this broken world. The hope of Jesus Christ, who promises that there is more than this life for those who trust in and follow Him. This life is hard, messy, unfair, and ugly. Only in Jesus do we receive the guarantee that all that ugly can be redeemed and made beautiful, and that in the process we will never be separated from his love and presence. What is more, through these trials we are given the opportunity to know him--the God of the Universe!--more intimately and to bring him glory.

Not that any of this comes easily. We are riding a roller coaster of emotion, and fear tends to be the conductor on that ride.  In a recent sermon on fear, our pastor taught that fear is intended to lead us into paralyzation or into sin.  We are either petrified to the point of inaction, failing to move forward into what God has for us, or we are convinced that through our own control, anxiety, or avoidance we can alter the circumstances that scare us.  Neither should be the function of fear for the follower of Christ.

Fear is an invitation to trust God. To run to him with our fears, pour our anxiety at his feet, pound our fists in anger on his chest.  To let him have it, knowing he can take it, and then accept his invitation to trust him with it all and walk forward into a deeper level of knowing and being known and used by God.

And so that's what we are doing.  Daily, hourly, moment by moment. We accept the invitation to trust God, and ask that you would join us in prayer during this difficult time in our lives. Here are a few specific ways to pray and a few sporadic thoughts.

• Most urgently, pray that tomorrow's surgery at 8 a.m. would go smoothly and that Jonathan would have a swift and easy recovery. 
• Pray for relief from Jonathan's pain.  Since tomorrow's surgery is only on the primary tumor in his groin, the disease in his abdomen will remain for now, and that is what is causing him persistent back pain.  
• Pray that the pathology report would reveal run-of-the-mill testicular cancer (seminoma or non-seminoma), which has a very high rate of survival with treatment and a straightforward protocol for treatment. We do not want some rare, rogue tumor type.  
• Pray that we would continue to feel the presence of Jesus and see his hand of care. I could write a book on what he has already done, from how quickly things moved along in finding this problem to how the timing of our vacation is allowing Jonathan to have surgery without taking additional time off.
• Pray that we would have strength and courage for these coming months and that we would continue to take our thoughts captive and view this as a one-step-at-a-time process rather than getting freaked out by big picture possibilities. 
• Pray for physical strength, endurance, and rest.  Pray that our boys would sleep soundly through the night, which is not typically the case (most nights we feel tag-teamed; if the baby sleeps, a big boy wakes, or vice versa!). This stuff is emotional and exhausting enough without trying to do it sleep deprived!  
• Pray that our boys would feel secure and loved during these out of the ordinary times. Pray that we would see our children and have a sense of their deeper individual needs when our own needs feel very big and unavoidable. Pray that his experience will point them to Jesus. 
• Pray that we would be faithful to walk with Jesus, knowing him more closely and making him known more broadly through this trial.   
• Pray that we would run to those in our community who love us and want to help. My old friend Brandy Greer, when faced with her own cancer diagnosis, told her husband Stanton to "run to the Body." Well, the Body has been running to us and we are flat-out floored.  If you want to get Jonathan crying, just get him talking about how loved and supported he feels. Pray that we would receive the blessings that our loved ones want to pour out on us with open arms, and that we would not be deceived into feeling alone.  THANK YOU to those of you who have been loving on us already through texts, messages, phone calls, snail mails, meals, visits, and helping with the boys.  We are overwhelmed with gratitude.