My Adele, My Lisa, My Stacy, and MY GOD
Cancer. It is all around me.
Lost people. People that do not know of the saving grace of our Lord Jesus are all around me.
Lost people with cancer are all around me.
The last few weeks have been pretty amazing in my life. Pretty stressful, but pretty amazing. I have come to the understanding that God is at work in my life, using me in the life of others. I am unworthy, but it seems that God is directing my steps to pray for, get others to pray for, and to witness to a specific group of people with cancer that do not know the Lord Jesus Christ. Amazing.
Someone close to me was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer earlier this year. Lets call her Adele (for privacy reasons). She is beginning her fight against cancer. Weekly chemotherapy treatments. Fatigue. Loss of hair. God knows the number of her days.
My niece has been fighting Stage 4 breast cancer for six years. (Lets call her Lisa for privacy reasons) She is losing the fight. Today she has been admitted to a hospital for IV therapy to fight dehydration, and to help with pain relief. God knows the number of her days.
Stacy is my new friend, in fact, a stranger. I do not even know her last name, but God has put her in my path. She is a beautiful 40 year old woman who has Stage 4 bone cancer. Unless God intervenes she will probably die in a few months. The physicians have told her she has 2-3 months left to live. I met her during a visit to a hospital. This week she will be transferred to a hospice center. I have told her that only God knows the number of her days.
Adele, Lisa and Stacy with cancer. And my God. He is in control. He knows why these women are in my life
I too have had my brush with cancer. In the beginning….six years ago, a routine mammogram gave me the diagnosis of Stage 1 Breast Cancer. Months of radiation followed with bi yearly follow-ups with my physician, multiple repeat mammograms and of course, constant thoughts of possible recurrence. The cancer has not recurred, and I am cancer free. At least for today.
As I have thanked God daily for my ‘little breast cancer’ I knew sometime in the future I would be able to use my experience to the glory of God. I am seeing it now.
As I interact with "my three girls" I believe that one of the reasons that they listen to me is that they know that I am a cancer survivor and have some small idea of what they are going through, when others might not. Stage 1 Breast Cancer is a small price for me to pay so that I can witness to other women about the Lord Jesus Christ.
Adele. I have prayed for Adele very day since my life was changed, and I was born-again in October 1987. I have tried to discuss salvation with her on many occasions. I have sent her Scripture and tracts in the mail. Adele is a hard nut to crack and is pretty stubborn. She says that she knows Jesus in her heart and is going to heaven when she dies. Praise God!!! May she be right!!
My interaction with Adele is daily witness through living. She says she is praying everyday. We often talk about the power of God and how He is in control of her cancer. Any deeper discussions of salvation are met with a brush off. I pray that she does know the Lord Jesus Christ as her Savior, and these interactions with me are just earthly, fleshly responses. I have had friends praying for Adele every day since October 1987. (Thank You God for faithful prayer warriors!)
Adele was with me when I went through my radiation. She attended most treatments with me. Now when she lets me I go with her. I want to be by her side and go with her to each treatment, but she says she prefers to go alone. (She has never come to the understanding that I need to go, I want to go to help, that it would be a blessing for me to help. No. She wants to be alone most of the time.)
God knows the number of Adele’s days.
Lisa. My sweet, beautiful niece. Never having a daughter, she is like my own. The last time I visited her in Montana she honored me by saying that in life she has had two mothers. I was one. When her mother could not go to be with her over the years, I could. Through the delivery of three sons, and months to follow, I could be with her when her mom was stuck in a job situation in California. Lisa is the daughter I never had.
Lisa was diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer a few months after my own diagnosis. I often asked God…why do I have Stage 1, and sweet young Lisa have Stage 4, asking not in anger, but in curiosity…knowing that God has a plan for all of this.
Again with Lisa, as with Adele, because I had my own bout with breast cancer she knew that I somewhat knew what she was going through.
Does Lisa know the Lord Jesus? I hope so. I have had my friends praying for Lisa since October 1987. Several years before all the cancer started, when I was visiting with Lisa we did get to speak seriously about spiritual matters. We read through a gospel tract together and she prayed to receive Christ. God knows her heart.
Over the ‘cancer years’ I have brought up the subject many times…but with a rebuff from her. I have mailed dozens of tracts over the years. One with each card or letter. Maybe she has read some.
Only God knows the number of Lisa's days.....
(A later entry....) My Stacy. God brought her in my life…for her, and for an encouragement to me.
Stacy has cancer. Terminal cancer she told me.
We met by chance while I was sitting in the waiting room while Adele was receiving her three hour long chemotherapy. I was aware of the people around me on the ‘cancer floor.’ Thin, gaunt, people talking quietly with friends or loved ones. Able to leave their gray colored walls of their hospital rooms. Some with metal poles holding bags of various colored fluids draining into their veins.
People thought I was reading a book, but I was observing and praying. Praying for Adele and for those around me.
A tall beautiful, blond young woman sat down next to me. She was very thin, and looked a bit tired. She reminded me of my sweet LISA. I was drawn to her. She began the conversation, I don’t remember what she said, but it was a ‘divine’ appointment I am sure.
She pulled down the pink collar of the sweater she was wearing, and exposed her shoulder bone, misshaped by large tumors under the skin. Quite matter-of-factly she told me that the doctors had told her that she only had three months to live. She was a patient at the hospital for a few more days before she would be sent to a live in care center. She felt good enough today to get out and walk around the hospital…and meet me.
I asked her if she believed in God. When she responded with a “Yes.” I quickly got to the point, “Only God knows the number of your days. The doctors are not in control.” So began our discussion of salvation. She asked questions and we talked. When I began to discuss her making some kind of a commitment to God, she quickly changed the subject and asked if I would go with her to the cafeteria and get some ice cream.
For the next two hours we roamed the halls of the hospital. We ate at the cafeteria, we browsed at the gift shop, and we went outside and sat in the sunshine.
She seemed to tire and asked me to go back to her room with her. I got her tucked into bed and again spoke to her about Jesus. She asked me to go away, but to come back the next day to spend time with her.
So began my ‘mission’ for the next five days – going to the hospital to talk with Stacy about eternity and her relationship with Jesus. Each day she seemed more weak, and we never again left the room to walk the halls of the hospital. Her family always visited in the evenings, I visited in the mornings so we could have private time. Stacy seemed to enjoy my visits, and always asked me to come back.
I knew my time was running out with her. In two days she would be sent off and I would never see her again. On the forth day Stacy prayed.
She said she did want to make a commitment to the Lord, and repeated the prayer I prayed out loud with her. She was in much pain, and drifted off to sleep after our time together.
My next two visits with her were different. She was under heavy pain medication, but seemed glad to see me, drifted in and out of sleep….and always asked me to come back. I prayed over her each day with love and commitment as if she were my own, terminally ill niece.
I know that the hospital chaplain visited with her and prayed with her also. I saw several tracts that had been left on her bedside stand, beside the ones I always left with her. Praise God…Stacy was ‘getting it’ from several sources!!
The last day I came back her bed was empty. For one terrible moment I thought Stacy might have died. The nurse said she had been transferred a day ahead of schedule.
I never saw Stacy again.
God brought us together for a purpose. I pray with all my heart that she was sincere about her prayer to God, in belief and for eternal life. I do know that Stacy prayed. Only God knows her heart.
God brought her into my life as an encouragement and a balm to me to deal with the cancer all around me with Adele and Lisa. I knew in my spirit that because I had taken the time to share the Gospel with Stacy, that God would bring a stranger into the lives of Adele and Lisa to tell them what they would not listen when I spoke.
(An entry several months later.....) Lisa died in August. I do not know her spiritual condition, but I do know with all my heart that because I shared the gospel with Stacy, God sent someone to share the Gospel with her during the last days of her life. Only God knows her heart.
My Adele, my Lisa, my Stacy…and my God. God is so good. He loves Adele, Lisa and Stacy so much more than I ever could. He loves me too. God works all things for His glory. My interlude with Stacy was a divine appointment.
Thank You God in using me in a small way in Your plan to bring the offer of salvation to all people. Thank You for bringing me some comfort in my time of sorrow. Yes, I still shed tears over the death of Lisa, but I am comforted by my God and His great offer of salvation to all of us…to Adele, to Lisa, to Stacy and to me.
