Darcee Murphy

Fear vs. Faith

Posted on August 9, 2014     1 Comment

I hobbled into the Doctor’s office. I could barely walk from the pain in my legs. Four days ago on a trip to St. Augustine, Florida, I landed in the emergency room thinking I had an appendicitis. I was told I had a large mass on my ovary and I needed to see an oncologist ASAP. My husband and I made the long drive straight through back to our home in Brookville, Indiana. It was a long seemingly endless drive with fears and tears and questions and prayers and flickering hope, more tears and many ‘what ifs?” and a wobbly faith trying to answer all those questions.  Even with a faith shaken up, the foundation it rested on was not. It was the rock solid Ancient of Days.  I had given my heart to God as a 9 year old and left it in His hands from that day forward.  And nothing takes God by surprise.  Everything that reaches us passes through His love and goodness filter.  He has a wonderful promise to all who love Him in Romans 8:28: “All things work together for good.”  My faith muscle was getting a good workout.

And now, what was up with this leg pain? We finally made it home around 2:30 am. We dropped into bed so weary…..weary of soul, heart, mind and body. But we woke in the morning with a mission: find a doctor. We were new in the area and hadn’t gotten around to it. My neighbor highly recommended a gyno/surgeon/oncology office in Cincinnati so I called. Although the doctor was double booked before the Fourth of July holiday, she squeezed me in. My daughter who is a nurse advised me, “Don’t eat or drink after midnight before your appointment and maybe, just maybe she will get you right into surgery that very day. The office would be closed for the rest of the week due to the holiday. It was a long shot, but Dr. Bowling was game. “Prepare for surgery,” she said, “we need to get that tumor out right away!” Talk about relieved!  I so appreciated her giving up the rest of her day to help me. But then she added, “That pain in your legs is troubling. I can’t imagine it being clots since it’s in both legs, but nevertheless I want to order an ultra sound before the hysterectomy.” That scan probably saved my life. Both legs were riddled with clots. Surgery could have been a disaster. The hysterectomy would have to wait.  I was admitted to the hospital to begin a series of shots to shrink the clots. So the next day my husband, daughters and grandkids and I  watched the 2012 fireworks atop a hillside overlooking  Cincinnati from Christ Hospital. Tiny explosions of light were going off all over the city down below.  Pat moved my hospital bed so I could watch.

Oh my dear family, how thankful I am for each one.  This storm I was swallowed up in had reached into their own lives bring their own clouds of fear and doubt.  But for now, with fountains of light exploding here and there over the twinkling city lights down below, we forgot about this awful ordeal for a bit as we contemplated our freedom and how thankful we were to live in America.

Later when things were quiet,  I thanked God for saving me from a disastrous surgery and also for the pain that got me to the emergency room less than a week ago.  Without that I would have not known I had a mass on my ovary.  Ovarian cancer is sneaky.  I easily brushed off little warnings with the thought, “with age comes indigestion and bloating.”  I would get full quicker but that made me happy because I was down a few pounds.  My oldest daughter, Karis, though, was the most insightful and even mentioned I was “off” a lot.  Please, ladies, if things just don’t seem right with your tummy, let your doctor know.

The next morning the kind nurse came in with a syringe.  She told me eventually I was going to have to learn to give myself these blood thinning shots.  I let her know in no uncertain terms, “No way Hosea!!  Not me! I could NEVER do that.” She patiently kept administering those shots for me.  That night I couldn’t sleep. I was stressing about the whole shot thing. But God’s voice once again came softly deep within.  “You can do this, you know.”  No, I don’t know.  “You  CAN do this, you know.”  You are not hearing me God.  No. I. Can’t. “Yes you can.” Okay God, I’m glad you have confidence in me…..because I have none.  Morning finally came and so did the nurse with shot in tow.  Her eyes opened wide when I announce, “Give it to me.  I can do this!”  She  showed me what to do and I just did it.  It might seem like a small thing but for me it was huge.  It was God with me, helping me and encouraging me.  If He will help me in this small thing, I can trust Him with the big stuff.

Most cancer patience don’t have to give themselves shots, but this one did.  One doctor said it was the perfect storm. I don’t have that great of circulation in my legs anyway, plus two long drives in the car to Florida and then back, studies indicate that cancer can cause them, plus the pressure of the mass on the veins and wah-lah……you got clots. They had to be on their way out before I could have surgery.  I really needed that surgery, too.  I could feel the tumor’s weight in my abdomen.

Don’t you find waiting hard? As a child I could hardly stand the wait of Christmas morning.  Or waiting for babies to be born.  Or what about long waits in check out lanes?  But waiting for test results and exploratory surgeries is the longest of waits.  What will surgery reveal? Was I to grow old  with my husband on our new retirement land? Am I heaven bound sooner than later? Oh, I didn’t want to be a memory just  yet!  If you’ve been through it,  you know how that feels…. the battle in the mind.  The struggle between faith and fear.  I have a plaque I’ve hung in every home near the front door.  It isn’t fancy but it reads: “Fear knocked at the door, Faith answered, no one was there.”

That has helped me more times than I can count.  Is fear knocking on your door? Have courage! Answer those knocks with faith.  I’ve heard that fear destroys faith. But the direct opposite is also true.  Faith destroys fear.  So, how is your faith? Do you have any faith? Do you believe in God? I’ve heard it said there are no atheist in foxholes.  And my friend, a cancer diagnosis IS a foxhole. Cancer has a way of forcing us to think of life and death and what happens when we are gone. I think that can be a good thing. It can lead us to God.  Let me share with you one of my favorite verses from the Bible. It is found in Philippians 4:6-7.

Another version says it this way: “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be made known to God and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”

Don’t think Paul wrote this in ivory palaces.  No, he was imprisoned and chained to a guard. He had his own storm clouds to contend with.  Reread that verse with that in mind.  There he wrote, chained to a guard and yet he had that elusive peace that surpasses all comprehension.  I want that, too, don’t you?   Like Paul, when fear knocks at your door, open with faith and you will find that peace as well.  And please notice the word ‘everything.’  God would not invite us to pray about everything if everything could not be affected by prayer.  The circumstances may or may not change, but prayer can always change the one praying.

Oh dear one, what is knocking at your door?  Are you afraid?  Are you waiting on a test result? Are you afraid of that ‘C’ word?  Perhaps you’ve been through chemo and you feel these ‘twinges’.  What is it?  Has the cancer returned? Perhaps it is the fear of losing someone.  Fear knocked at my door this morning.  I determined to answer with determined faith.  And that ol’ ugly fear slunk away and hasn’t returned all day.  But if it does, I will be ready for ’em!  Do you hear fear knocking even now?  He has no right to come in and steal your peace. Jesus said even a tiny faith as small as a mustard seed can move mountains (Matthew 17:20).

What that verse tells me is that it is not as important the size of the faith as is the object of  the faith.  For example, let’s say you and your friend are jumping from an airplane.  Your friend is so confident that when he jumps his umbrella will take him safely down. There is no doubt in his mind.  His faith is strong!   You on the other hand are using a parachute but you are not so sure it will do the trick.  Your faith is small. Obviously the parachute was the better choice to put even a small faith in.  So, too, God is the sure thing. He is able to remove mountains of fear even with a tiny bit of faith!  You can confidently put your faith in Him to see you through.  So, take that you big ugly fear! Go open that door with determined faith and see, no one is there!