The Culture of Hope Founded on Faith

As Dan’s caregiver fifteen years ago, I found dealing with insurance companies among the most difficult activities related to cancer that I had to do. I spent a great deal of time, sometimes more than an hour, on the phone waiting for agents to answer so I could ask my questions. I usually ended up on hold, as well, waiting for the supervisor to be asked the question. Some of my calls were eventually transferred to the supervisor after a few attempts to relay second-hand information revealed more questions that the agent was unable to answer. And everything required a referral from the primary provider, even if the orders came from a doctor for whom we already had a referral.

I learned to write everything down and to keep every scrap of paper connected to Dan’s medical care. There were times that an agent would tell me the opposite of what another agent had said. I was very glad to have the prior agent’s name written down so that I could say that on such-and-such a date so-and-so said this. This was the most effective strategy I had for working with the insurance companies.

Early on, God reminded me of my need to thank Him, even for these time-consuming sessions, with verses like Colossians 2:6-7, “As you therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him, established in the Faith as you have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.” I found myself using the wait times for prayer and praise.

This time around the insurance issues aren’t as complex, a reason to thank God indeed. But the Bible makes it clear that we are to be thankful, even when we can’t recognize a human rationale for thankfulness. Once you start with “Thank you God,” you begin to see motivation for thanksgiving on many levels.

For us this includes Dan’s eleven years of cancer-free time from 2006 to 2017, the ease of his first few months of infusions in 2017-2018. His first infusion lasted about an hour during which we shared the gospel with the mother of the patient next to us.Twenty-four hours later Dan felt a tingling sensation all over his body that lasted about twenty-four hours. We chose to think that it was the infused drugs doing what they were supposed to do, connect with damaged cells and rehabilitate them.

Dan’s current chemotherapy schedule now involves three days of varying lengths once a month. There are many things to be thankful for, and right now our thanks are for the one week a month that Dan has some energy since he experiences profound fatigue most of time. Recently someone suggested that I should be stressed by all this. But when we rest in God’s grace and obey Him in gratitude, whatever other people think should shatter our lives actually promotes God’s hand of mercy and strength. Yes we do experience times of mourning. We are human beings and even Jesus mourned loss when He walked this earth. But mourning is simply the adjustment to our new reality at each point of changed circumstances.

2 Timothy 1:7 states that “God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” Whatever God allows to affect our lives is according to His will, according to His plan, and meant for both our good and His glory. We just continue to live in daily acceptance of what He brings and thank Him. There is nothing stressful in that because He promised to care for us (1 Peter 5:7), to give us peace (Phil 4:6-7), and to provide all that we need (Heb. 4:16). What’s not to be thankful about in that?

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