Personal Narrative: Neil's Journey With Cancer

Friends, this is a heavy chapter for me to write. In chapter three, I wrote of my friend Neil, who battled brain cancer and remained cancer free for over a year. Neil’s testimony declares volumes of God’s provision and protection.

As I write to you, I’m battling to declare trust. Today is May 18, 2015, and in less than two months, Neil will be meeting with doctors to receive experimental drug treatment. It breaks my heart to say this, but Neil’s brain cancer returned.

This time around, God prepared Neil’s heart and mind to fight the battle for joy through life’s circumstances. While I’m proud to call Neil one of my closest friends, I cannot imagine the anxiety, the worry, the fear, and the doubts he faces during his second bout with cancer.
My heart weighs heavy for Neil because he fights brain cancer for the second time at just seventeen years old. To add to the weightiness of this news, the doctors told Neil he should expect to experience severe seizures and vomiting soon. Thankfully, he hasn’t showed a sign yet.

As a close friend, how can you respond to this?

Through the progression of Neil’s journey with cancer, I’ve learned inadequate I am for him from a medical perspective. Unless it involves adjusting his hospital bed, I’m of little to no help to him physically. However, there exists a power, which goes beyond the capabilities of medicine – the power of prayer.

While God can use anything, including medicine, to heal anybody, the power of prayer goes beyond the physical and ventures into the metaphysical.

The problem with our view of prayer involves a tremendous lack of trust in a trustworthy God. I believe the reason the New Testament implores us to simply ask, seek, and knock for God’s response (Matthew 7:7) derives from our lack of faith in His answer. Our society convolutes our perception of our relationship with
Well, not the cancer part, but I like to be different. Since I’ve had cancer, I’ve had a unique reason to tell people about Jesus and how good He is. So, I don’t care if people think I’m weird. I like being weird because it lets me share my faith with them.”

Since being diagnosed with cancer, Neil experienced traumatic events, which left him scarred. Yet, he’ll be the first to share those scars with you, and I’m not referring to just the physical ones. He trusts God’s provision over His life and wears his heart on his sleeve. If there’s anybody on this earth whom I’ve learned how to trust God, when you think you own the right to doubt, worry, or fear, it’s Neil.

Satan tempts us by trying to make us believe we’ve earned the right to waver in our belief in God’s goodness. He interjects with fear, anxiety, and depression, which he uses to stir up our unbelief. But God says to trust Him anyway. For every earthly battle we will face, He promises eternity with Him for those who cling to Christ with all their strength.

There is nothing too dangerous for the unrelenting love of God to completely cover and provide for. Trust Him with anything you are anxious about. Give Him your doubts. Lay your worries at the foot of the cross. God’s love can be trusted, sweet