Matt and I were recently asked to write a short letter to our church to responding to the question "How has enduring suffering effected our hope in God?"
The sermon was on Romans 5:3-5 which reads, “Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”
This is something we have a little bit of experience with and it's pretty heavy, but I hope it's also encouraging and helpful to you if you're in a hard time. Here's what we wrote, the link to the sermon is at the bottom too if you're interested in watching that.
Matt:
While it's difficult to summarize our story, "endurance" seems to be a theme that the Lord has for us. We were married in 2010 and shortly after Chelsa was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma, a rare, terrible, and "incurable" bone cancer. We were starting our life together, had just become pregnant, and recently began leading a small church counseling group for people confronting sin and suffering.
Chelsa:
The past 7 years have been very hard...full of hospitals, chemo, cancer, and terrible side effects...so, so much more than we ever thought we'd go through! But, I think that it's because of our hope in Christ that we've been able to keep going. I don't understand why He hasn't healed me, why things often go horribly wrong, but his Holy Spirit really has given me hope to hold onto when things are at their worst. I know that He is with me--that He loves me in this inexplicable way--that even if the worst happens, I am His and He is mine (Isaiah 43:1) and I get to be with God for eternity.
Matt:
I'm consistently impressed and humbled by how Chelsa has endured some pretty horrible experiences while maintaining an incredible amount of hope, faith, positivity, and kindness (even toward the new nurses poking her with needles in the wrong places). She is an amazing reflection of Christ to me. Enduring this suffering with her has stripped away my illusions of having control, which has been a gift. I have spent much of the past 7 years on my knees begging, pleading, shouting, and cursing, but also expressing thankfulness. God has shown us some miraculous kindness through his people, his plan, and his spirit throughout all of this. There have been days when I have been a real mess, feeling like I can't say another prayer, but even those days He has been faithful to send family, friends, our community group, and our church leaders to lift us up in prayer (and sometimes bring us a meal or help us to pay a bill). Just a few weeks back, we were in the hospital and I received this text from a friend: "You're not alone. I've been praying now for years for you two. Nightly I've been waking and I lift you up. I love you both. Thank you for being there for me."
Enduring all of this has taught me that the Lord works with subtlety. He is not a wish-granter to be commanded, and while it's hard to understand why he allows his beloved children to continue to suffer, when I take time to reflect, to look for his work in our lives, and to listen in prayer, his Holy Spirit is always faithful to fill me back up with the assurance of his hope.
To be honest, he still has some work to do with me toward the "rejoice in our sufferings" piece. We are pretty ready for his healing touch and all things to be made right and ask you to join us in praying for this. We may have the opportunity to participate in a new clinical trial with the potential to heal Chelsa this coming year and ask you to pray specifically that it is successful, leading both to her full and complete healing, as well as a clear pathway for others to be healed of this disease.
Here is the link to the sermon—Pastor Matthias reads what we wrote at the very end:
Regarding the clinical trial that we are seeking to get in to, here are some links if you would like to know more:
What is Car-T Cell therapy? (National Cancer Institute): https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2017/car-t-cell-multiple-myeloma
NBC News story about the success of the Car-T Cell trial in China: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/car-t-cancer-approach-has-surprising-success-multiple-myeloma-n768516
One of the trials we are on the list for at Sloan Kettering in NYC: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03070327?term=car-t+cell&recrs=ab&cond=Multiple+Myeloma&cntry1=NA%3AUS&rank=1
The other trial we are on the list for at Stanford in CA: https://med.stanford.edu/clinicaltrials/trials/NCT02658929
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