Hi, I’m Joni Eareckson Tada with a word about cancer.
All this week I’ve been highlighting October as Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and the last time we met, I shared a little bit about my own battle against this disease, but let me share with you just a couple of facts. The chance of developing invasive breast cancer at some time in a woman's life is around one in eight (12%), a statistic from the American Cancer Society. For years, this was labeled a terminal disease, but the good news is, thanks to improvements in treatment and early detection, millions of women are surviving breast cancer today.
Now, whether you’re worried about developing it, or you have it, and you are making decisions about treatment, or already trying to deal with the ups and downs of chemotherapy, there are things you can do to make the most of your battle against this disease. And I tell you what, yes, it is a battle. You are in the battle of your life (for your life), but there is hope. Millions of women have gone through it, and they have survived. In every community across America, there are breast cancer support groups and there is help, information, and plenty of hope to go around.
Because if you are battling cancer, hope is so precious; and with Jesus, there is always hope. And according to I Timothy 6:12, He even believes a fight against cancer can be a good fight. And if you are the one dealing with this disease, you just might feel as I once did: absolutely overwhelmed. I will never forget the night before I took my first round of chemotherapy, I made the mistake of reading all the side effects that were going to happen, but then I read Jesus' words in John chapter 21, verse 18, where the Lord tells Peter, "Someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go." Well, guess what? The next morning, someone else dressed me and took me where I “did not want to go”—a dreaded chemo clinic. When the nurse drove the needle into my chest port, I felt so overwhelmed, just looking at that full bag of toxic, poisonous drugs hanging on the IV stand. I remember thinking, “Lord, I’m already a quadriplegic and I deal with pain. I feel like you’ve abandoned me here.” Yet, as I watched the IV with its steady drip of poison seeping into my veins, the Bible had an answer for me. From Hebrews chapter 13: “God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’ So we say with confidence, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid.’” Oh, friend, I can't begin to tell you how much that verse helped me on that first day in the chemo clinic. I kept thinking about how Jesus, the most God-forsaken man who ever lived, endured our afflictions so that he, in turn, might say to you and me, “I will never leave you; I will never forsake you.”
With that first day in chemo, I began the prayerful habit of looking to God's Word for emotional balance, as well as a healthy dose of true reality just saying out to the Lord: “Thank you that I’m not alone. You are here, bearing my burdens and caring for my needs. You have not abandoned or forgotten me. You give me strength for this challenge.” Just rehearsing those truths was so powerful and oh my goodness, friend, you too can endure almost anything—even sitting slump-shouldered in a big chemo chair—if, if you know God is sitting next to you. So take heart, the Lord of the Universe is in the good fight with you. I've written about this in a booklet called "Breast Cancer: Life After Shock." And I tell you what, you don’t have to be struggling with cancer, because the insights in this booklet could be for you or may be someone you know who is dealing with cancer right now; if so, go to my radio page today at joniandfriends.org and ask for your free copy of my booklet on cancer. And thank you for joining me all this week during Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
© Joni and Friends, 2013
Compliments of Joni and Friends
PO Box 3333 Agoura Hills, CA 91376