Diary of a Present Help | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: Diary of a Present Help | Previous Challenge Entry
By Clyde Blakely
10/06/14
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“You have cancer.” April 2013.

I thought my 40+ years working in the medical field and hearing similar pronouncements to untold number of patients, being at the bedside of more dying people than several pastors have experienced combined, and having had my own brushes with death that it would have prepared me for hearing this diagnosis.

Looking back, I remember as a preschooler when I fell on a sharp stick puncturing the back of my throat and watching blood flowing down the sink as my parents argued what to do. God knew and stopped the bleeding.

Another time, as a child, I awoke from surgery and heard the doctor tell my mother, “We almost lost him,” which I later figured had something to do with my out of body experience.

Once, I fell from a boat and was sucked to the bottom of a river. In the lightless current I fought to find the way up. Thoughts about which family members would greet me in heaven and how far down they would find my body came to mind. As the pale light appeared above I realized it was the same as a recurring dream I had: struggling to break through the surface without success. Carried underwater downstream, I reached shallow water and collapsed, several times. “Oh, Father, for a place to sit,” I again collapsed and sat on what I believed was a tree limb. Strengthened, I turned towards shore and walked straight through “the limb” when a thought stopped me: The Arm of God! There was no limb debris present.

Another incident was when I was told I would die from a heart infection, no one thought I’d live, let alone come back to work. I was able to testify of God’s goodness when returning to full time work.

Shortly after this our house burned down. I shared God’s blessings and goodness for years afterwards, even though we lost everything. Only one person was up and discovered the fire. The biggest blessing was our family of four escaped.

I can’t forget the time standing on a country road holding my spurting carotid artery after gun shot accident, God was there.

“Cancer”. How many times have I heard this told to patients or read about others’ reactions when being given this diagnosis? I imagine all who hear this have a similar initial reaction. Feeling the emptiness, I looked at the floor for a few seconds, then “as a professional”, started asking questions.

Over months of waiting for all the testing and interviews to take place before a possible bone marrow transplant, my wife and I have grown closer to each other and to God. I am often surprised when I bring up a subject relevant to my cancer and our travels down this road together that she already thought through the process and came to the same conclusion. Last week we had an appointment with my Oncologist and received good news: all the tests and interviews were done and he was putting in a request for the transplant. Everything was falling into place – I thought.

The next day I returned to the hospital bringing papers I forgot to give the nurse. She mentioned something that started a cycle of doubting in my heart: how could I ask so many people to assist me over several months or over a year, it was too much of a burden I was asking of others. Doubt, the devil’s playground. I spent many hours trying to get God to give me a simple answer to go forward or not, only to be met with silence.

Silence, that is, until the Holy Spirit revealed in an instant how God had intervened in the past, even since the diagnosis: having a slot for a bone marrow aspiration/biopsy the minute I needed one, later an opening for a cardiac catherization the very next morning prompted the Oncologist to say, “This never happens”.

In the smaller things as well, such as when we scheduled an extra day in the city and the motel’s air conditioning malfunctioned. We were transferred to another room, slightly larger because it had a Jacuzzi, at no extra cost. More “coincidences” followed along the way.

The Holy Spirit, with a softly spoken rebuke, simply said, “Oh ye of little faith.” My past had been in His hands and now I release my future too while admitting, “I do believe, help me my unbelief.”

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