Why me, Lord?

In her own words . . .

I have off work today, and I’m in my office at home after having lunch with Karen and our two teenaged grandkids and then playing the “Operation” game that’s both stupid and fun. Grandma won.

I’m supposed to being doing something else. I’m supposed to be getting our tax stuff together to take to our accountant today or Monday at the latest. It’ll probably be Monday at the rate I’m not getting things done today.

I’m listening to Karen read our grandchildren the words of my sister Susan who died this week. It’s something that Susan had written for a message that she gave for her church over fifteen years ago about her battles with cancer that she fought for so long and which finally killed her body but not her spirit.

As Karen read my late sister’s words, I prayed that they would find root in the souls of our grandchildren. I know they will.

Here’s what I heard my wife reading of my sister’s testimony, which you can also listen to by clicking on the “Article voiceover” above.

In today’s 2^nd reading of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, Paul talks about choosing faith and hope in God over the sad and unreliable wisdom of the world. The choice is for one clear reason. God’s Wisdom is based on Love and forgiveness. It is the Divine Love of God that gives us strength to face the toughest trials that the world throws at us.

The Lord says in Mark 11:23-25, “I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go throw yourself into the sea’ and does not have doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him.” The verse continues, “Therefore I tell you whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him so that your Father in Heaven may forgive you your sins.”

My husband Scott gave me the idea to use this verse, he had been listening to a radio preacher, and the preacher had been talking about a time in his life that he used these verses in prayer and they literally changed his life. It seemed perfect for my sermon today. Prayer is a gift God gives us, and it is His loving Power that makes it work.

I believe in prayer. I believe the reason I am even here today able to stand up in front of you because of prayer. There is so much power in the spoken word, or unspoken word, from our lips to God’s Ear, as they say, and I know that I have barely tapped into it.

I was brought up on prayer. Raised in the Catholic Church we were taught to memorize a lot of prayers. As a child I woke up singing a prayer that our mother had taught us. We prayed before meals, and, of course, we didn’t sleep until we had “God bless”ed each other and everyone we knew.

As I got older in my teens, then in my early twenties, I prayed mostly for myself. My prayers were something like, “Please God let him like me. Let me get the job. Let me do well on the test.” They were always asking prayers, and, sadly to say, as soon as I said them or they were answered, they were forgotten. Then a little older, late twenties, I had some angry prayers. I couldn’t understand why God didn’t grant me what I wanted. I was a good person. How come I didn’t get that job, guy, car, whatever?

I questioned God; my young self-centered self could only see how things did or did not affect me, and truly at that time that was all I cared about. It wasn’t until much later that I would need God in a way that I had never before, not as personal wish list, and I would come to see prayer as a way of reaching out to Him in my fears, in my sorrows, in my humanness. That was the day that I was diagnosed with cancer for the first time, Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, and I was in a battle for my life, and I not only had to ask for healing, but I must believe with all my heart and soul that I had received it. Hardest thing I had ever done up until that point. In the reading from Mark, God tells us not only to to ask but to believe, not only to believe, but to believe before anything has been given. THAT IS NOT an easy task to do.

When I was 38 and diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, I had been married for 3 years, Taylor was only 2, I had suffered a miscarriage and the death of my father, and I just could not get myself together. Physically I did not feel well. Doctor after doctor told me that they could not find anything wrong. “Stress,” was the answer that I received most.

Then finally, when I was ready to join them and believe that maybe I was crazy, I was finally diagnosed. You know the quote, “the hour I first believed.” Well, this was the beginning of a new journey for me, one where I would have to put my money where my mouth was, and I had to believe that I was going to be healed while I was the sickest that I had ever been and going through all kinds of changes. Every single day, there were changes. I had to believe I could beat this disease, that I was not going to die. I had a child to raise and a husband to love, I had to act on faith for about a year and a half before the doctors told me that the cancer was gone.

In Hebrews 11, it says, “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Or quite simply, faith is evidence of things not seen. Hard to do when your body is made weaker by the treatments; to look at me you would think that I was getting sicker instead of healing. Through all this I just could not imagine myself dying. I was so scared. But from the first I had made up my mind to believe that even when I felt the sickest God WAS healing me. Sometimes I had to hold on minute to minute, and while this was going on a miracle was happening. I was growing closer to God than I had ever thought possible.

I always wanted to be a spiritual person, and when I use the word “spiritual,” I mean it to be filled with God’s Love. I used to see people of great faith, and they had such a beauty about them. It was in their eyes, and a serenity that just surrounded them. You could tell from looking at them that no matter what happened their faith and trust in God was so great that they were able to get through the toughest things life threw at them and that was the peace that comes from trusting your life totally in God’s hands.

My mother taught me that in all problems my solution was in turning to Jesus in prayer and so we did. Cancer taught me that Jesus never left me alone. Even at the times I felt the loneliest, it was like that prayer “Footprints in the Sand.” He was carrying me. At moments, I could feel His Peace surrounding me. I hung on to those moments as I turned to prayer. “Where two or more are gathered in My Name . . . “ If you know me, you know that I am kind of an all or nothing kind of person. I figured if two are good, then more would be better! So, I got myself onto every prayer list that I could. I asked everyone I knew to pray for me. I am not shy about asking for prayer. You often hear my name as Pastor asks us to lift each other up in prayer. I am one of five children, two have remained with the Catholic Church, one worships in a Baptist church, another in the Greek Orthodox, and me and my family we worship in a Lutheran church. Just in my family alone, that is a lot of prayer lists! In fact, the Bible tells us to bring our illnesses, sorrows, and woes to God. I believe that Prayer is a gift from God, and He wants us to use it. So, I did.

My younger brother had told me that his Pastor’s daughter had given a talk at their church and that she had been healed of cancer and that she went through the Bible and every place where Jesus healed someone, she claimed it as He was healing her. She memorized passages, something I am not that good at, and always had a verse on her lips, and she gave all the honor and glory to God for healing, another reminder that God is in the healing business today as much as He was thousands of years ago. So, I started with my Bible and I was pleased to find so many places where Jesus heals, but something else started happening, I could go moments without being in the clutch of fear and anxiety. Jesus brings Peace to the brokenhearted. I found that I love the Psalms. They give me so much comfort and told me many times like in Psalm 91, that “God would snatch me from the jaws of death and give me strength and raise me up on Eagles’ wings!” I love that one. The more I looked, the more I found places where Jesus told me how much he loved me and wanted me to live!

My life was changed by that experience. I began to see things through God’s eyes, and I could no longer just walk by and let someone suffer, because I knew what it was like to suffer. If there was a way I could help, I tried. I may not be able to do more than pray for someone, and I mean really pray, not just the lip service . . . “OK, I will pray for you” and then you forget . . . because I know how much it meant to hear those words.

Because of the chemotherapy, the nerves in my feet were killed, leaving me to walk with a cane and braces. I also developed osteoporosis. I have broken both legs at different times, 2 hips and a fractured scapula, all the results of falls, and I have felt so very blessed to have received prayers, and I believe they have helped me recover from all my broken bones and trials. I had someone say to me, “Boy if you didn’t have bad luck, you wouldn’t have any luck at all!” But he got it wrong because I DID have good luck because I am still standing and able to live my life! I’m not going to win any dance contests, but I’m still here!

At the end of July last year, I went for a routine mammogram and came out with a diagnosis of breast cancer! To say the least, I was shocked. I still am kind of dumbfounded by the whole thing. Of course, upon receiving my diagnosis, the first thing I did was add myself to the prayer lists. I called Pastor Adrianne and asked her if she could anoint me with oils. In the Catholic Church, that would be the sacrament of healing. It is a healing prayer and blessing. Every doctor’s appointment I went to we prayed, “Please God, let me be healed,” and each time I received good news! We gave thanks to God. This diagnosis, thank the Lord, we caught early enough so that after surgery there was no need for any further course of treatment, for which we are so thankful!

Some might look at me and think, “Oh my poor girl, look at all she has been through!” but I look at myself and feel so very blessed, so very blessed to be here, to have raised my son, to love my husband, to have such wonderful family behind me every inch of the way!

As I have said, prayer will take you on a journey you have never been before. You will not be able to look at someone who is homeless or different from you without seeing Jesus and that I believe is the Power of Christ Crucified. A rose will not just be a rose as Chad mentioned in his sermon. It will be a wondrous creation given to show us physically that there IS a God, and He is in all of us and all around us! I mean have you ever been to the Grand Canyon and looked out at the beauty that seems so surreal, or just sat outside and enjoyed the wonder of God’s creations, the butterflies, the singing birds? I just have to wonder at those who do not believe. There are wonders in this world for us to see, and yet there are those who say “there is no God,” and to me, THEY are the unlucky ones.

I don’t know the hour of my death. I pray to dance at my son’s wedding and hold a grandchild and sit on the porch with my husband and enjoy this life God has blessed me with.

I would like to end with some words of a song by a favorite singer composer artist of mine, Kris Kristofferson, called “Why Me.” If you have not heard it before, it’s words may surprise you. Instead of the typical cry “why me” of pity and negativity, the song asks, “Why me, Lord? What have I ever done to deserve even one of the pleasures I’ve known? Lord help me, Jesus! I’ve wasted it so. Help me, Jesus, I know what I am, but now that I know I needed You, so help me, Jesus, my soul’s in your hands. Try me, Lord, if you think there’s a way, I can try to repay all I’ve taken from you. Maybe, Lord, I can show someone else what I’ve been through myself on my way back to You. Jesus, my soul’s in your hand. Jesus, my soul’s in your hand.”

The Power of God, as Paul tells us, is in the Christ crucified. The Power is the Love that God so loved us that He gave His Only Son . . . not just for some, but for all of us!

After my sister wrote about surviving Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma some thirty or so years ago and then breast cancer some fifteen or so years ago, my sister got an embolism in her lung that landed her in the hospital where she was so sick that the doctors placed her in a medically induced coma when her organs began shutting down. While there, her newly married son told his unconscious mother that if she could just pull through, he and his new wife would give her the grandchildren that she had so longed to hold in her arms. My sister did pull through, and her son and his wife did come through on his promise, and the last eight years of her life, my sister got to enjoy two grandsons and one little granddaughter with a personality that sometimes reminds me of my sister. Three times in the face of death, my sister had hoped for just three things . . .

I don’t know the hour of my death, I pray to dance at my son’s wedding . . . hold a grandchild . . . sit on the porch with my husband and enjoy this life God has blessed me with.

Our Father God blessed my sister with all three.