Ministry of Endurance

Please continue to pray as I look to finalize some dates for the surgery on the spine. This surgery will work on the spinal buckling at T10 and the nodule of cancer at T12.

As I have been communicating with others who are fighting cancer in their lives - I have come across a common struggle - that is the amount of time fighting cancer can take. The following is an email I sent out recently to women struggling with breast cancer - please pray that the thoughts would ring true in my own life!

Per your last email - I have also been thinking / struggling over this whole reality of fighting cancer taking up so much time! Others who are not in this cancer world I don't think understand how much time and effort it takes for just one appointment - the travel - and a 10:00 appointment means 10:00 is when you BEGIN to wait - not when the app. starts. Then by the time your home - there is just enough time to make your food / rest / and bang - that is your day. It also has been discouraging as I think it is taking so much time away from REAL ministry for the Lord - that I am wasting what precious time I have left on simply the maintenance of my body.

However, for the last few months the Lord has been putting this thought into my mind. What if fighting cancer - in a way that is pleasing to Him - with trust, humility, tenaciousness - is just as much of a real ministry as preaching a sermon / leading a Bible study or sharing your faith? I have come to the conclusion that this MUST be true - but I'm having to force myself to believe it. I don't FEEL the joy and satisfaction of this ministry yet - like the joy and satisfaction of preaching or teaching - but it is growing.

Found a great quote from Spurgeon that speaks to this,

"I believe that a man of God—under trial and difficulty and affliction, bearing up, and patiently submitting with holy acquiescence, and still rejoicing in God—is a real preacher of the Gospel, preaching with an eloquence which is mightier than words can ever be and which will find its secret and silent way into the hearts of those who might have resisted other arguments! Oh, do, then, listen to the text, for it is a command from God—‘Rejoice in the Lord always!"

Oh that this would be true of me! So let me encourage you (and myself) to go about our REAL ministry of fighting cancer this week to the glory of God!