Hi there! My name is Lisa Van den Berg with The Ways of Wisdom, and I want to welcome you to God Today. About 10 years ago, I got the diagnosis that we all fear, the big C word and the doctor was looking at me sitting in his office and he said, “Lisa, you have cancer.” And I remember sitting there going wow, you know, ’cause there’s a couple of days between when they’d take the biopsy and you get the results, you’ve got a couple of days to stew about it, and talk to God about it. And I remember him confirming that I did have cancer and the first words out of my mouth were, “It’s okay, I know Jesus.” But it had taken me three days to get there. I’d been able to talk it through with the Lord. And so, as I went for my treatments, my treatment was radio therapy. They removed the lump and I went to radio therapy, which was five minutes of treatments, every weekday for six consecutive weeks. At the time we were really struggling financially, so I had to walk to my treatment. So I got to leave my house at three, it took me 45 minutes to walk to the hospital, to have my treatment, and then a 45 minute journey back. And I remember sitting there going, really setting out on the first day, going, “Really, God really? Really? I’ve got cancer.” My husband wasn’t able to be home because of his work and I don’t have enough money to have a car or even pay for the bus to be able to get to the treatment. And I was mad. I was mad, right? But clear as a bell, Holy Spirit said to me, “Lisa, I’ve given you an hour and a half every day, uninterrupted time. You’re not working. You’re not in an appointment with anybody. Will you choose to spend it complaining or will you choose to spend it with me?”
Wow. It was such a beautiful invitation. And I remember stopping there and going, “Wow, Lord, thank you. I choose to spend it with you.” And over the next six weeks, walking backwards and forwards to these appointments and all the stuff that treatment involves, I developed such a beautiful relationship with the Lord, because we got to talk for an hour and a half each day. And I talked to Him about my treatment and what was happening in the people we saw there and how we get to pray for people and the stories that would come up. And it’s one of my most precious times in my life where the relationship between the Lord and I really got deep and full and beautiful, because we had this time to walk and talk together. So, whoever’s watching whether you have received a cancer diagnosis or somebody you know has received a cancer diagnosis. I want to pray with you. Know that I am now 10 years cancer free. It has never come back again, and my faith is that it won’t either. But whatever your journey looks like, I want to encourage you, that God is with you, and He wants to be intimately involved with you in this journey.
So Lord, I bless anyone who is watching this. I bless you as you’re watching this. If cancer has touched your life in any way, I bless you to know the nearness of God, His love for you, His desire to be so deeply involved in this with you, to talk with you, to walk with you, bring you through this, to give you encounters with His love and encounters with who He is like you’ve never had an opportunity to have before. And we speak healing over you. We speak healing over your body. I speak healing of your mind. I speak healing over your spirit. Any way that this thing has touched you, I speak the love and the healing and the beauty of God over you as you go on this journey. And we would love to hear your testimonies. We’d love to hear your stories of how you’ve walked through any kind of illness like this, and what it’s looked like to do that with God. Send them in, because testimonies are the lifeblood of how we all get to walk through this and come out the other side well. So I bless you with health and healing and a beautiful journey with God in whatever you’re going through, in Jesus’ Name, Amen.