Christianity: "I've Given You an Isaac"

[ruth]

Thank you for sharing a beautiful story which represents the Father's love.

 

[PineBurrowPeeps]

Beautiful!

 

[English Chick]

A wonderful heart rendering/warming story.... Praise be that you listened to the Lord and that your faith carried you through... God's Blessings to you and your family.......

 

[frugal]

This is the text from a tract that my daughter wrote...

Every morning I wake up and I thank Jesus that I am alive.

At age 16, having survived cancer twice, I was told that I would be lucky to live until I was forty. I don’t believe in luck. I believe in a God who loves me and has taken care of me since the day I was born.

By age 10 I had developed an affinity for running. It came as naturally to me as breathing. My dad quickly realized the gift that God had given me and we began to explore outlets and opportunities to develop it. Soon I was racing at the national level and was training for the AAU Junior Olympics with a goal of the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia.

In 1992 at one of the national track meets when I was 12, my dad, who had always watched me run, asked me if I was injured, because he noticed that I had limped the whole race. However, the only unusual thing that I felt other than frustration and disappointment was how much work it had been to run. My dad and coach would watch me run on the bad days and try to figure out what was wrong. Had I pulled a muscle? Were my shoes wrong? Was I anemic? Was I working out too hard and needed a rest? All I could describe was that my legs just wouldn’t work for me.

Finally it was decided that I would take two months and rest completely. In January of 1993, I had a complete physical and was declared fit. Less than two weeks later as I was doing my morning calisthenics I discovered a lump in my right thigh. Having had an aunt who died of cancer I immediately thought the worst.

What if this was cancer? It would completely change my life. What about my running?

The surgeon we were referred to, Dr. Krag, was a leading surgical oncologist. During the initial visit it was decided that a biopsy was needed to determine if the tumor was malignant and the surgery was scheduled. During the biopsy my surgeon had been able to tell just by looking at it that it was cancerous. It turned out that the reason that I was having trouble running and was limping was that the tumor was beginning to eat into the main neurovascular bundle in my right leg. As soon as I was out of recovery my parents and I met with a panel of doctors and surgeons to determine the best course of action. Dr. Krag talked with my parents and told them not to worry about anything and that he would take care of me.

A hundred questions were crowding in my head all at once. What if it was cancer? Would I ever run again? What about the Olympics? Will they make me do chemotherapy? God, why me? Why my leg, I’m a runner?

After the initial visit I went home and I cried and I asked God what was the purpose. God spoke to me and said, “Trust me and see the work that I will do.” So, I prayed everyday and I waited expectantly as answers came slowly. Yes, I was a runner, but not so that I could go to the Olympics and win gold medals like I thought. God loved me so much that He gave me a gift that saved my life. If I was not a runner we would not have noticed the limping. If I was not in such good shape the tumor would have gone unnoticed for months or years longer. By then it would have been too late and the cancer would have spread throughout my entire body, because it was eating into my nerve and next would have been the vein and artery and my whole body would have been infested.

On the day of the surgery Dr. Krag told my parents that he was not sure if I would be able to walk again due to the amount of the nerve that had to be removed and extent of muscle mass that they were removing. Wisely no one told me! A couple of days after the surgery, Dr. Krag was checking on me. He came into the room and put his hand on my leg. He asked me to try to lift it off the bed. The amazed look on his face when I easily moved my leg was wonderful to see.

Three years later, when I was 16, during a routine check-up with Dr. Krag we were talking about how I was feeling and what was going on in my life. I had been telling him about my headaches and migraines for a while and when I told him that they were still getting worse he told me that he was going to schedule an MRI for me simply because of my medical history. On the evening of the MRI Dr. Krag called my parents after I was already in bed exhausted with a headache. He called to tell us that I had a brain tumor and that he had scheduled an appointment for me with the head of Neurosurgery for 8 o’clock the next morning. When I woke up that morning my parents came into my room to tell me that Dr. Krag had called and that I had a brain tumor. I just looked at them in shock and asked them if they were joking.

At the neurosurgeon’s office we found out that I would die a slow painful death without surgery soon. I had a choice of a relatively new procedure that only one other hospital on the east coast was performing. It would bypass the inoperable low-grade cancerous tumor on my brain stem and relieve the blockage permanently. My parents and I prayed about what to do knowing that I could die from the brain surgery.

Is this a really bad joke? I could not even begin to grasp a reason as to why this was happening to me. Wasn’t once enough? After all I had just gone through with radiation, physical therapy and learning to walk and run normally again I was just beginning to feel like a normal teenager for the first time. Am I going to live through this one? Once I came to grips with reality I understood the fact that I might not live through the surgery. At 16, I had to be able to say, “If I die today, I know that everything will be all right.” The only way that I was able to come to that place was to trust Jesus with my life. As soon as I did, I was at peace and I knew that whatever happened next I would be fine.

To this day every doctor and surgeon that I see tell me what I already know. They tell me that I am a miracle. I do not have the nerves or the muscles to walk or move my leg and yet every day I do. My brain surgery was a complete success and the tumor has not grown since the day it was discovered twelve years ago.

"'For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not
for calamity to give you a future and a hope.’” --- Jeremiah 29:11

Most importantly of all I began to trust Jesus to take care of me; and something began to happen. I began to see how throughout my whole life He had been doing that all along, even when I had been angry and blind to anything but my own pain. Jesus placed the love of running in me so that I would find the tumor before it killed me. He sent me to a surgeon who would not only care of me for the rest of my life, but had the influence to get me the best care in the country for my brain tumor as well.

Through many struggles and great pain I have learned what true courage and endurance is. I would not give up all of the experiences that I have had for a single Olympic Gold medal. What I have gained is worth so much more to me. There is one thing that is true and never changing. My God loves me and is seeking the very best for me.

O God, You have taught me from my youth,
And I still declare your wondrous deeds.
Even when I am old and gray, O God, do not forsake me,
Until I declare Your strength to this generation,
Your power to all who are to who are to come. --- Psalm 71:17-18

Every morning I wake up and I thank Jesus that I am alive.​

 

[ruth]

Thank you - I needed to read that.