In the Lion's Den
Senior year is usually more work-intensive. And my senior year at Melanoma U was no different. I still had a lot of learning to do before graduating.
Still striving to be an A+ student, when I began getting strong nudges from God to read the book of Daniel, I thought that perhaps the time had come in my very dull (and probably short) life for me to do something big for God. I had never heard his voice as clearly as this. At first, I thought he was giving me ideas for a novel I had been 'working on' for years. I decided that God must want me to convey a message to the world, and it must be really important!
What I hadn't stopped to think about was how important I was to God. Just little ole me.
The nudge was so strong, it was comical. Everywhere I turned, something about the book of Daniel was right in front of me:
I kept my car radio tuned to one of three Christian radio stations. And every time I changed channels, a different preacher was giving a message about Daniel.One day as I was putting my husband's books on a bookshelf, I found a novel based on the story of Daniel. I read it with abandon, thankful that God had sent me such a clear, insightful perspective. I still had no idea what to do with the information, but I enjoyed the novel.Later, I ran across a book of essays. I opened it randomly to skim through the contents, and it fell open to an essay about ' Daniel.But the real clincher was when a pest control technician came to my home to give me a quote to get rid of pesky carpenter ants. Because I had become so expectant of God's messages, all I could do was smile when I noticed 'Dan' embroidered in the oval on his uniform.
Everywhere I looked, the book of Daniel was in front of me. I knew God was urging me about something, so I willingly obliged. I kept reading, taking notes, searching for plots, characters and biblical themes to include in my novel, trying to discern what God wanted me to know about this book. I was grateful for the opportunity, because I had never read the entire book of Daniel, and I found it fascinating, intriguing, and even fun.
But I just wasn't getting it. Why did God want me to read Daniel? What was in it for me?
I was barely in Chapter 5 of my study when my friend Evie, who knew about my Daniel adventure, told me about a chapter in a book she thought I should read. It was an application study of Daniel, focusing on the lion's den.
I mentally gasped when Evie said 'Lions Den.' Yes, I'd heard about that part of the story, so I knew there was one' but the fact that my friend was offering me something to read about it meant that God was nudging me about something in particular. What if God was trying to prepare me for the horror of my last days?
I didn't want to hear about the lion's den. I didn't want to go into the lion's den. I wasn't ready.
But I read the chapter anyway. Evie had gone to the trouble to make a copy of the chapter for me, and.. well, gulp' I might as well face whatever God was leading me to, whether I felt ready or not. I figured it was time to graduate' to accept my fate of suffering as a martyr for the cause of melanoma awareness AND as an example of strong faith.
Instead, what I found in that chapter was an understanding of Daniel's dedication to God, how he obediently turned to him, not just during trials, but every day, religiously. He was fully dedicated to worship and prayer. It was that constant abiding in God that kept him strong and able to face a den of lions without fear, and. . . without harm.
In faith, Daniel simply turned his back on the lions, knowing that his God would save him.
This was the message I needed to hear. I needed to turn my back on the fatalistic notions that had convinced me I was to die soon. I needed to live an abiding life and have faith that survival happens, and that it could happen to me.
Since that time I have found the abiding life to be exhilarating. The more I open up to all the possibilities of God, the more joyous I become. When everything around me is doubtful, stressful, and unfulfilling, my relationship with God remains strong. He is the only thing in life we can count on; so walking with him, and resting in him are the only means of true joy.
My last recurrence, in 2006, seemed to be the direst yet. With the help of a camera pill, the doctors had seen pigmented areas throughout my intestines. It was the first time I had seen my otherwise confident and take-charge oncological surgeon appear to have no answers. He didn't believe he'd be able to get all of the metastases, which meant that the cancer would spread, and it would just be a matter of time before it took my life.
But during surgery, the pigmented areas were found to be benign. There was only one tumor, and it was removed. I was tumor-free again! Since I had been through the same surgery 15 months before that, and since my recurrences had been so rapid until that time, I really had no reason to hope that melanoma wouldn't return.
But this time, there was a KNOWING that I can't explain. Up until that time, I felt defenseless unless I was on some kind of adjuvant therapy between recurrences' a clinical trial, anything. But there was nothing available for me. All I could do was wait and have a battery of scans (CT, PET, MRI) regularly. At first, every 2 months, then every 3, then 4, then 6, and finally in 2012, I graduated to annual exams. Melanoma hasn't dared to show its ugly self again.
And I do not expect it to.
So, what did I learn at Melanoma U? The most precious lesson! God is with me. God is for me. The closer I draw to him, the more blessings I receive. Knowledge, power, ecstatic love for the Christ who not only saved me, but showed me that I too am a 'son.'
What a paradigm shift! I thought I had enrolled in Melanoma U to learn how to die, but found out instead that I was there to live as Christ.
The Trinity is in a constant conversation. So, it's no surprise that God is always the initiator of a conversation with us. Sometimes we think we know what he's telling us because we have already made up our mind about Him. But how could we possibly know all of his wonders? How could we presume to know the path he has for us unless we listen day by day to his whisperings?
As I look back on my experiences at Melanoma U, I realize that my underlying patterns of avoidance and people-pleasing were at play from the beginning. My drive to 'perform' for other people and for God just got in the way of experiencing the blessing God had for me. I didn't have to be a perfect employee or a super Christian. All I really had to do was seek Him out and be willing to listen to and rest in Him.
My life's story?... to be continued.
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