7. The view from the bottom

Journeys > 7. The view from the bottom

Today was our ‘base-camp’ day. Now nestled in the foothills of this Everest, round one of chemo treatment started. All was fine and all is well. But most people know how I love to run the forest trails, I’ve never smoked and I don’t drink. The bad habits I do have are about as serious as a bag of popcorn on a Saturday night. So the thought of injecting toxic chemicals directly into my veins is horrendous. This body has always been fit and healthy – what awaits me is the potential antithesis to that.

So why not walk this out by faith, some may say? If God really can heal, why submit to the horrors of this poisoned approach? Personally, I have no issue with combining the gold standard of modern-day oncological medical treatment, alongside the ultimately sovereign power of God released when we pray. That’s because the chemo is only one of God’s tools - so my focus and hope is not actually in the chemo. It’s in the God who has all authority over this. I know He has a bigger picture and timing that only He can know. Time and again in the past, through circumstances that just made absolutely no sense at the time, God has revealed an elevated purpose, that has later illuminated His precise movement of the chess pieces. I know the same applies with this.

But have you ever been walking in the hills, thinking you know where the top is, only to near the believed summit to find there is yet another peak, higher still, awaiting your ascent? Today was one of those days. After the chemo we met with the Professor over this case, to hear the results from the latest MRI.

Today we were told that because the tumour is so large (its taking up about one third of the breast) and as it has spread, there is a very good chance it will have thrown rogue cancer cells into the rest of me. The spread into the lymph’s is the first step towards metastasising into the body. Apparently five years ago, my prognosis would have been two years at best. However, because I am receptive to a relatively new drug called Herceptin, I have a 50/50 chance of going on to make a full recovery. IF I fall on the wrong side of those odds, my life expectancy will be around two to ten years.

In the stark light of day, taken in isolation, the clinical facts are chilling. But incredibly, they don’t even make a dent to the certainty I know. In an instant His spirit is rescuing my fall. That knowing voice is saying; ‘listen to my truth, not the one before you’.

Whilst these are the clinical odds, the God I know has a very different track record. In the ears of my spirit, over and over, He is pouring a reassurance of His faithfulness - God holds me so steady. I hear the medical data in one ear, with the superseding perspective of heaven in the other. Yes, this is bigger than we thought. Yet, nothing has actually changed. God’s word is His word - it is eternal and every truth still applies. Whilst now I know the cancer may be bigger, in my heart I know, that God is bigger still.

‘Jesus came up and said to them, “All authority (all power of absolute rule) in heaven and on earth has been given to Me’’.

Matthew 28:18 AMP