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Photo Credit :: photodee / 123RF Stock Photo
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When the phone rang, I thought it was my parents, calling to wish Joshie Boy a happy seventh birthday. Our little family was gathered around the table, laughing and soaking up this golden moment. We were at the end of a long, hard health season for my husband.
It was Momma on the other end of the line and I could tell she had been crying. She had surgery two weeks before, a hernia repair, and they removed some fatty tissue from the area. When Momma had her post-operative checkup, what was supposed to be a routine appointment suddenly turned very serious.
The tissue sample came back as cancer, with undifferentiated cells. The experts in the lab couldn’t tell what kind of cancer from the sample, but it turned out to be very advanced ovarian.
The moment she called was surreal. I rose from the table and wandered into my bedroom, settling on the floor of my quiet walk-in-closet. The party sounds were muffled. The wooden kitchen table was a long way off. The news seemed impossible: she … a non-smoker, non-drinker, with no "female" cancers in her medical history?
Not long afterward, during my devotional time, I ran across the story of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. As I read it, I felt peace fall on me. Remember the one? When Lazarus was sick, and things looked bleak, Mary and Martha called for Jesus, saying, “Lord, behold, he whom you love is sick.”
When Jesus heard that, He said, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it” (John 11:3-4, KJV).
Not unto death. Those words encouraged me and, when I shared them with Mom, she told me that passage had been warming her heart too.
One morning a few weeks later, as I talked with the kids about Mom’s cancer, I told them they were very important in this process, because we needed their prayers. Then we opened the Bible for our scheduled daily reading and turned to the story in Luke 5:17-26.
A paralytic man was brought to Jesus by his friends, but the crowd around Jesus was so great, that they had to lower him down through the roof of the house. They were so sure that Jesus could help him, and they loved him so much, that nothing could stop them from bringing their friend to Jesus for healing. We felt an immediate connection with this story.
I was amazed – I had not previewed the bible lesson. We reread the verses and inserted my mom's name throughout the passage. It was a powerful moment. We brought her to Jesus. And we felt comforted that He would heal her too, just like the man in the story, so that in the end, it could be said about all of us that “amazement seized them all, and they glorified God and were filled with awe, saying, ‘We have seen extraordinary things today’” (Luke 5:26).
A little more than four years later, my mother and father volunteer every Tuesday at the hospital where she was treated for stage 3C ovarian cancer. Daddy pushes wheelchairs and Momma prays with people. She gardens, travels, cooks for the sick, and recently started a women’s ministry at her small church. We are all thankful her sickness was not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it. {Tweet that.}
Britta LaFont is a sojourner. She was a military kid and is a military wife. She lives in the hot, hot desert of Arizona far, far away from her New Orleans family. She gratefully homeschools two of her most favorite people on the planet: 12-year-old Gracie and 10-year-old Josh. Britta and her husband Scott recently celebrated their 21st Anniversary and foresee a happy ending to this military life in the very near future. Britta writes about how loving God and loving people are helping her learn to love life at Britta Lafont ~ Walking in Love.
Want more insights? "Peace in the Process: How Adoption Built My Faith & My Family" is available on Amazon. Like me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter, peek into my life on Instagram, follow 152 Insights at Bloglovin', or subscribe to receive "Insights in Your Inbox."
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