A Father's Love

A few months ago, I wrote about my dad's pancreatic cancer and how his blood tests seemed to indicate that the cancer was gone. Well, this week, his CAT scan results were finally read and there is no cancer in his body. Anywhere!

Please go back and read the story so you can understand how powerful this is. Pancreatic cancer is not a curable cancer. He did not have a successful resection surgery. He was given months, then weeks, then days to live.

Now, over three years later, his cancer has completely disappeared.

It is difficult to put into words the range of emotions I've felt during the last few years. He was diagnosed the day I gave birth to Clam. Recovering from the birth, I was unable to attend his surgery and felt very disconnected in the first few weeks.

From the first moments we were told he had cancer, Dave believed that he would be miraculously healed. Every time the subject would come up in conversation, Dave would pipe in with a, "But the Lord's going to heal him."

And I despised Dave for it.

I felt like he was glib and unrealistic and that we needed to prepare for what we were told was imminent demise. As I watched my dad literally shrinking before my eyes, I knew God was capable of healing him. But I didn't really expect it to happen this time. It just seemed too big.

I prayed for him, but always with a "Your will be done," out for myself. If he wasn't healed, I could always just say, "well, it wasn't the Lord's will," and save myself the embarrassment of explaining.

But then, he didn't die. And more than that, he changed. Dramatically.

My dad has always been an incredibly strong man. Strong of convictions, strong of opinion and strong of faith. But after a family tragedy about 15 years ago, he had turned inward. So far inward that we rarely glimpsed him. We saw anger and frustration and empty words, but the spark was gone.

And now, during a fight for his life, his passion had returned. Barely able to rise from the couch, he would speak of God's love with such compelling force that the room would be moved to tears. Always having bestowed affection begrudgingly, he now poured out, "I love yous" and initiated hugs. A hermit for nearly a decade, he began a weekly men's Bible study in his home. And when we would leave , Dave and I always joked that we were "coming down from the mountain."

His faith (and my mother's) became contagious. I began to pray, not, "Your will be done," but, "I know that it is Your will to heal." (James 5:14-16). I began to, in the words of Dutch Sheets, stand before death and ask for life.

And more than anything I began to realize that God is not limited by our minds. We cannot ask too much. We cannot ask too often. We cannot ask enough.

God healed my father's heart. He healed my heart. He has touched countless people through my dad's story.

And now, He has healed my father's body. And I can't stop smiling!