"The
Father's Activity in My Life"
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Healing
from Prostate Cancer
Heflin,
Jerry
Although
my father and his brother both died of prostate cancer, I
never thought about it for a moment- until June 9 of 1995
when after an examination my family physician discovered that
I had an enlarged prostate with a PSA reading of 19. He sent
me for a bone scan and a biopsy. I was not expecting a negative
report and my wife did not go with me for that particular
visit.
I
am one of those characters who thinks that reading the Bible
daily is important. Interestingly, that morning I had read
in 2 Chronicles 20 about Jehoshaphat's distress. A doom's
day army composed of Ammon, Moab and Mt. Seir came against
Judah. In essence they said, "Have you made your funeral
arrangements? We are here to destroy you." The king got
the people and they fell on their faces before God and said,
"We don't know what to do, but we are looking to you."
God responded and assured him that He was in the war room
with them. That passage aligned my heart and spirit with the
purposes of God and re-established my life mission of ministry.
At
the appointed time, an older doctor gave me the report of
the biopsy. A high grade of cancer had shown up in all six
sticks. He quoted statistics and figures and percentages about
survival and non-survival. In effect, what I saw and heard
and felt from him gave me no hope at all. When I left the
office, I had to go on errands for the church before returning
to tell my wife of the report. I kept hearing Dr. Henry Blackaby's
statement ringing in my ears, "When you face a crisis,
the next thing you do really reveals what you believe about
God."
At
that very moment I made a decision that I think set the direction
for my future. I refused to be a static statistic. I did not
buy into what the doctor told me. My identity was based on
life mission.
Later,
at home, my wife sat on the couch, and like King Jehoshaphat
of old, we had a very precious worship service- just the three
of us. All the fear about the future faded away at that moment.
As oncologist Dr. Bernie Seigel emphasized in LOVE, MEDICINE
AND MIRACLES, I had the three elements that produce survivors:
faith, hope and love. These three the Apostle Paul said would
remain when everything else was gone.
My
identity and life frame was and is bolstered by that incredible
description given by Paul in Ephesians 1-3. For three chapters
I think he was saying, "Before you take on fifteen jobs
in the church, first, sit down and let me tell you what you
have when you have Christ in you. You are sainted, blessed,
chosen, holy, without blame, predestined, adopted, accepted,
forgiven, redeemed, inherited, sealed, made alive, earnested,
seated, brought near, loved, accessed, and built up."
I was lying on the beaches of God's grace and enjoying every
moment of the heavenly sunshine.
I
had three surgeries: laproscopy to check the lympth nodes,
prostate removal, and bilateral orchiectomy. I was fortunate
to be teamed with Dr. Robert Webb, a wonderful Christian Urologist.
After the prostate was removed my PSA was 11. It should have
been "0". I had another surgery and later my reading
was 0.7. Since that time it has remained below 1.0. On November
2, 1999, Dr. Webb looked at the report and said, "There
is nothing normal about you." I responded, "Dr.
Webb we know the answer, don't we?" He said, "Yes,
it looks like the good Lord is going to keep you around for
awhile."
These
five years I have had time to reflect on these matters. These
episodes resurfaced as I was reading FIGURING OUT PEOPLE by
Drs. Bodenhamer and Hall. (If you haven't read it, it is MUST
reading). I can reaffirm that anchoring in Mission and spiritual
trans-mission in the hierarchy of logical levels has a powerful
effect on everything on the lower levels. I am refusing to
think of myself even as a cancer survivor. First and foremost,
I see myself as a Child of God with a living Lord. It is He
who has the final say about my life.
That
passage in 2 Chronicles gave me my strategy. The cancer cells
are Ammon, Moab and Mt. Seir. The Bible passage says that
none of the enemy escaped. I created a picture of confusion
among the cancer cells. I also portrayed my killer cells as
SEALS, the good guys, who go in and hunt down the bad buys
and destroy them. I found the submodalities that seemed to
drive this image in moving color with all the attending sounds
and a life-giving blue light. I maintained this strategy for
months but now feel that it has fulfilled its purpose.
God
also has His ways of reassuring us of His continuing purposes
for our lives. I am involved in prison ministry. I was reading
the assignments the same as the inmates. One particular week
we were to read Psalm 118, a chapter I have probably read
one hundred times. But that day, when I came to verses 19-20,
for lack of a better term, I came unglued. All I could do
was weep for about five minutes. My dear wife thought I was
having a heart attack. I could not verbalize what was happening
in those moments of divine confrontation. God reassured me
through those two verses that I would lay hands on my great
grandchildren and bless them, especially my eleven year old
grandson in Wyoming. Again, there is that divine sense of
mission and identification with what God is accomplishing
in the world.
Each
day I am confessing, "The joy of the Lord is my strength"
and it is. I refuse, doggedly refuse, to become a static statistic,
but rather a living, in process, vibrant reminder that we
have a great God who is working within us. After all, if man
can make penicillin out of a moldy piece of bread, what can
God do with one person who is clay in His hand?
Jerry
Heflin
613 E. Dickerson
Goodlettesville, TN 37012
jgheflin@bellsouth.net
Taken
from www.neurosemantics.com
©2000
Jim Heflin All rights reserved.
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