Comfort Ye!

25 Mar

After three consecutive scans that were clear of cancer, my husband had his chemo-port removed this week in his fifth fully-anesthetized procedure in a year. Over this past year of chemotherapy, we couldn’t see a clear mission like we had with our other two experiences of cancer in 2006 and 2018. Until, that is, after his treatments were done.

The first contact that mentioned the need of encouragement for another person with a similar cancer to Dan’s 2018 melanoma, was the surgeon who had done the melanoma excision in 2015. During a routine follow-up appointment last November for something else, the doctor asked if he could give this other patient Dan’s phone number. The man is very nervous about his melanoma diagnosis and the doctor had watched us go through it with a calm and peace unprecedented in his experience. When the man called, Dan was able to encourage him and answer his questions about treatments, side-effects, etc., as well as offer help in other more tangible ways.

In 2 Corinthians 1:3-6, the Apostle Paul specifies a part of Christian ministry that is largely ignored. It is the outcome of our own suffering which enables us to comfort and support those who experience similar trials after us: “Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds by Christ. And whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer. Or whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation.”

In the case of the Apostles, it was a matter of persecution because of their beliefs. For us it is about our experience with cancer. In our earlier experiences, the people God sent us to talk to, encourage, and pray with, all came from direct contact, either in medical and hospital settings or at work.

Shortly after Dan’s first cancer diagnosis in 2006, we knew that God had placed us in a new mission field, among both medical personnel and other patients who we would otherwise have never met. When we sat in waiting rooms, we looked for who the Lord had sent us to pray for, even speak to on occasion. He gave us primarily Christians, some cancer patients, their caregivers and families, and others who were Christian medical personnel. In 2018 we had a similar mission, but this was more directed towards Dan’s co-workers, several of whom were going through cancer at the same time.

Now we are involved in the ministry of comfort and prayer for people whom we have never met. Only a few weeks after Dan’s talk with the doctor about the man with melanoma, a friend texted me that her daughter and son-in-law both had cancer diagnoses; could we meet to talk. Unfortunately it was the night before Dan’s knee replacement surgery and we weren’t able to meet at that time. However, I have been able to pray for them all throughout the ensuing weeks and months.

A few days later, we received a request from another friend on behalf of his cousin’s family going through the same thing. Since then we have added a few others to our cancer prayer list. Like any other ministry, whether it is an individual calling or a corporate church program, we will never know the impact our lives, prayers, and counsel have on others. We do what God has clearly called us to do, and we leave the results to Him.