Five Times with Cancer, Full-Time with Christ

[Editor’s Note: On April 23 we hosted a Christ Talks event in State College, PA, where 10 speakers shared their insights on the person of Christ from their unique perspectives. In his Christ Talk, Chris Grella shares his experience of facing cancer five times and how it impacted his walk with Jesus. You can watch the video or read the blog, which is based on the video of his Christ Talk.]

Cancer. That six-letter word can bring fear, anxiety, and dread. Probably most of us have been affected by cancer in some way—through family members, someone we know, or even ourselves.

When I was younger, in my twenties, I knew very little about cancer. If you had asked me about that disease I could have shared very little. But in 2002 that all changed for me for the rest of my life.

First my dad, then my wife’s grandmother, then my mother-in-law, and then my own mother were all diagnosed with cancer in the span of two years. Eventually they all also died from cancer, the last being my dad who died last summer.

But it really hit home for me in 2004.

That was when my wife Angie, at the age of only 34, was diagnosed with cancer, only one month after we heard the news about my mom’s terminal cancer.

While I was processing all this news, I found myself with Angie at the world-renowned Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. Our family was living just a few hours away at the time with our two young sons who were one-and-a-half and three-years-old.

I was sitting in this huge waiting room on the 12th floor of the Mayo Clinic. The whole floor was devoted completely to oncology.

Journey of Discouragement

I was still in seminary and reading a book for a class that was entitled Self-Leadership and Soul Care. The chapter I was reading was about when in life you actually feel the closest to Christ. The author’s conclusion was that you feel closest to Christ when you go through trials and challenges in life. You feel closest then because you come to the realization that it’s not about you anymore and that you can’t rely on anything or anyone else.

I looked up from the book. I was upset. I was discouraged. In some ways I felt very alone. I looked around the waiting room and all I saw were older people in their sixties and seventies.

Cancer was for older people, not for Angie and me in our early thirties!

Feeling frustrated, I said out loud, “I’m not supposed to be here.” I am NOT supposed to be here!” It felt like a dream.

That day I began a four-month journey of discouragement.

I watched my mother go through cancer treatments. I watched my wife go through cancer treatments—during the same time.

I grieved the loss of my dreams at such a young age. I grieved for my life and for my family. We weren’t supposed to be going through this!

But over time I also discovered something wonderful about the powerful love and grace that only comes through Jesus Christ. I experienced Christ’s love in what I later saw as three phases of Biblical grieving. These three phases are denoted by three words that begin with the letter P.

Jesus: Familiar with Pain

First, I needed to pay attention to PAIN from Scripture.

When you study Scripture you see pain. I studied the life of Job. I studied the Psalms, two-thirds of which are laments to God. I saw that Christ identified totally with where we were at that time in our lives. He had come to be born and to live in our sinful, fallen world.

I paid attention to Jesus’ tests and trials throughout the gospels. I saw that it was Christ I had to trust in fully—regardless of the situation—to handle the pain and discouragement.

I also experienced freedom over time, as I trusted in his Word and plan for my life, even though at times I didn’t understand it.

Jesus: Fostering Patience

Second, I learned that I had to be PATIENT and wait on God and his plan for my life.

Psalm 37:5 was a great comfort to me. It says, “Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will act.”

A prayer from my journal was, “God, please help me in my unbelief. Please help me in my doubt. Please help me in my discouragement.”

Christ enabled me to trust in him, as he alone can deliver hope and new life regardless of the situation.

We had prayed over Angie. We wanted to see a miraculous healing. But the healing that God provided in her life came through time. It wasn’t a one-time, one-moment healing. Hope in healing came through cancer therapies, surgery, radiation, and especially Christ’s love and grace to us.

I realized that hope doesn’t come through a change in circumstances. I could not control them. I could not control health. But what I could do is trust in God’s timetable of healing, even when it seemed as if he was silent.

Jesus: Shifting Perspective

Third, Christ taught me that I needed a change in PERSPECTIVE.

Our lives were more about Christ than cancer. I began to see that Christ had something different for my life than I had planned. What was past had to give birth to something new.

In other words, life wouldn’t necessarily be better, it wouldn’t necessarily be worse. But life from 2004 on would be different.

I hope you’ll remember this point about having a Christ perspective by this popular toy, a Transformer.

When you first look at a Transformer it looks like a robot. But when you simply move it a certain way, it looks like something totally different. It changes to a new shape—it looks like a rocket.

Whether you like it the first way or the second way is up for debate. We all have our own opinions on that.

However, when this Transformer was created, the manufacturer believed that both shapes were valuable and important.

That’s what I learned about my life in relation to Christ—about having his perspective. I saw his immense love for us at all times—both before Angie’s diagnosis and now in the “new normal” of life after cancer.

Cancer definitely impacted our family. At this time, though, Angie has only annual visits to the doctor. And we rejoice that though Angie went through another serious bout of cancer in 2009, she is now cancer-free.

Going through cancer, didn’t make life worse or better, it was just different.

Christ Is Trustworthy

Christ was calling me to trust him, regardless of what we were going through—regardless of what we will go through. I can trust him essentially because he is trustworthy. I can trust him in my perspective because he has always been with us. He had lovingly watched over me up until 2004, he was there through the years that we faced cancer, and he continues to be with us now and always.

I want to remind you of a song from years ago that Bette Midler sang. You see, Bette Midler’s perspective was wrong. She sang that God is watching us from a distance. From her you get the impression that he is just cosmically watching us—not caring, not involved with us, his creation.

But in fact the opposite is true. God sent Jesus to be with us—to sit with us through the pain, and to walk with us as we patiently wait on his plan.

Because of these things, my perspective is now that these light and momentary afflictions are nothing when compared to the surpassing riches of his grace and forgiveness because of his constant presence.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Chris Grella

Chris Grella is Associate Pastor at State College (PA) Evangelical Free Church and has been in Christian ministry with a variety of churches and ministries for over 23 years. Chris is a gradutate of Virginia Tech and Bethel Seminary (MN) with an MDiv in Transformational Leadership. Along with his wife Angie of 19 years, they have two teenage sons.