These two weeks I have consistently met homeless people, strangers in the street, and new patients all diagnosed with Stage IV cancer and the recurrent thread in our life is that we are all grateful for every day that we are still alive. When I ask them what to pray for them, the first thing is not necessarily the total healing of their bodies, but that their families be able to walk with them spiritually and emotionally, or that their financial circumstances would just be a bit more stabilized while they ride through this storm of their life. And then, they ask for removal of this incurable disease.
I believe the acknowledgement that cancer is incurable has already prepared the fellow patients and therefore spiritual and emotional health come to the forefront. Very often, God has already touched their soul and strengthened them as they go through this trial while their family is still lagging behind.
Chris Gore, the director of the healing ministry, in Bethel Church, Redding, wrote in his book, Walking in the Supernatural, about giving thanks for every little things the Lord gives us and here’s a wonderful illustration.
At one of his conference, he called up a man in the audience in the front and gave him 1 cent and asked him if he is thankful to the Lord. He said he was and he thanked the Lord for it. Then Chris gave the man a $10 note, a 1000 times increase. “And now?” Chris asked. The man was very thankful and praised the Lord again. The director said you have to be constantly thankful for every small thing because the Lord will bless your gratefulness. Unknown to the director, the man was in dire need of $50,000 and that day, he went back to the parents-in-law house for lunch. The in-laws were trying to sell the house for a whole year and the market was down and no one was buying but at lunch time that day, suddenly, the realtor walked in with a prospective client and the client put a deposit down on the spot to buy the house. The in-laws previously have promised their son-in-law that if they ever sold their house, they would give him $50,000. The man ran back to the conference to report what happened with being grateful for 1 cent.
When we give praise to the Lord for every single breath in the morning, He will hear us and bless us. For every improvement we feel on our bodily, emotional and spiritual state, thank Him for the progress and we will see more coming. Do not focus on what He hasn’t done yet. Negativity never works. Focus on what He has blessed you with already. For my fellow cancer patients, when I pray for them, I ask also for the small improvements they want to see immediately: a return of the taste bud that has been traumatized by chemotheraphy, agility in fingers that has been numbed by neuropathy so they could play the keyboard again, an opening up of the throat so they could swallow pills without difficulty and sing praises again. Those are the areas I pray for first, and then the rest. Healing comes in many forms: miracles which are instantaneous and you see immediately, evident mostly in conditions like a bad back, a hurt joint, arthritis, asthma, stomach pain and etc; healing which could be longer term and takes time; and emotional/spiritual healing with or without physical healing to follow. Kathryn Kuhlman, the evangelist in the 60’s and 70’s who healed thousands just by talking about the goodness of Jesus in her healing services said that it is God’s sovereign right to heal. She doesn’t know how He does it and she doesn’t need to. It’s all God. And we need to appreciate all that He does for us no matter how minute the improvement is.
Don Moen’s song Give Thanks echoes this need for gratitude nicely.
Sandra Li-Pham 