I Went From Having Cancer to Cancer Having Me

YET JESUS APPEARED WHEN I WAS TRAPPED IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST

by Preston Hipp

CHARLESTON, S.C. — On May 24, 2014, I had an emergency surgery to create a colostomy.  It’s easy for me to remember the date because it was the day after my 55^th birthday. Also, the event was a tremendous game-changer mentally.

I went from having cancer to cancer having me.

Perhaps I should take a moment to explain in layman’s terms. The surgery team cut my colon in two and rerouted my digestive tract away from the rectum. The new route now delivers all solid food waste to a surgically-created hole in my abdomen. The waste empties into an ostomy bag. This is a heavy-duty plastic bag that has openings at both ends. One end of the bag is attached to my skin and the other end is sealed by a clamp. Several times per day, I must unclamp the ostomy bag and empty its contents into the commode.

photo of an ostomy bag

Lovely right? Trust me, I could go on but I will spare you. I really wish I could have a more noble ailment like a heart issue.

Even though I knew the purpose of the surgery, it was still a shock the first time I looked down and saw the ostomy bag attached to my abdomen. It was even more shocking when the nurse removed the bag to show me how the system works and how to avoid trouble. Again, I will spare you the details.

In summary, it was a very humbling and somewhat humiliating experience. But something unexpected happened during my recovery from the surgery that I have shared with very few people, something that has given me the courage to continue to hope.

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The hardest part of any day in a hospital is the middle of the night.

The hours tend to blur together. Sleep is elusive. You are in a strange bed, in a strange room filled with strange, noisy equipment. Even though Laura, my wife, was faithfully by my side trying to get some sleep on a foldout chair, I felt very alone with my thoughts. There seems to be an endless supply of time to wrestle with fear and entertain dire scenarios over and over again. If you finally do manage to sink into sleep, inevitably, you will be awakened in the deepest part of your sleep cycle by a nurse wanting to check your vital signs.

What can you do? It’s a hospital.

This particular night the vital signs had an added twist. The male nurse was dragging a mobile scale behind him. He wanted my weight. Apparently some genius had figured out the best time to obtain your most consistent weight is at three o’clock in the morning. I wish I was making this up, but it is totally true.

I tend to be too accommodating in life, plus he caught me off guard as I had been sound asleep. So I wrangled myself out of bed — tubes, wires and all — to mount the scale. Accurate weight achieved, I re-wrangled myself back into the bed. Eventually the nurse exited, but now I was in no condition to ease back to sleep.

I was officially agitated.

Low points are emotional creatures. Your physical conditions might not change, but they can seem to take on different characteristics. The same hospital room, same beeping machines, and same bee-hive of busy staff that had been my miracle workers just yesterday were now transformed into a hellish prison. My cancer tormented me. I felt trapped like Jonah in the belly of the whale — with no way out. I felt like I was going to die a slow death by digestive juices in the oozing darkness of the beast. I curled up into a fetal position and felt hopeless.

Then I saw him.

I opened my eyes and looked right into the face of Jesus. He was not looking down from Heaven or floating in the room. He was right there, lying in the narrow bed with me. There was no flaw in His features, no crown of thorns on His head. He was regally perfect. He looked directly into my eyes and beamed. His Presence radiated love that vaporized my fears and loneliness. He assured me of his plans for me. He was going to make sure I got out that hospital to fulfill them.

By this point I was too giddy to process the details. I only wanted to bask in the presence of his love. It was like being in a warm Jacuzzi filled with champagne. The bubbles tickled and made me laugh with pure joy.

I have no idea how long that experience lasted. Time did not exist. The saying that “Jesus will meet you at your point of need” sounds cliché, but I can testify that Jesus met me at my point of need that night. He took my fear and gave me peace. He took my despair and gave me hope. He gave me a glimpse of his eternal Kingdom that changed my perspective on the importance of things in our temporary world.

Romans 8:38-39 says, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present not the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth nor anything else in all of creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 

P.S.: After this, I refused to step on that scale again. The nurse was okay with it.

A RESPONSE TO PRESTON’S HOSPITAL STORY: WHERE IS THE SHALOM IN FACING DEATH?

By Pringle Franklin

After receiving a fatal diagnosis, one must consider what lies on other side of this existence.

According to the Bible, each person will eventually stand trial before the throne of God. (2 Cor. 5:10) When the ultimate judge reviews your case, his piercing eyes of fire will burn away all layers of disguise. In that clarifying moment, the perspective will shift from the temporal to the eternal. You will suddenly see your life from God’s view.

And in that court, no one will be found perfect. As Paul says: “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23

photo by Vtek111

This quote means that even good people make mistakes. Due to the urges of our physical bodies, we act impulsively, based on feelings of impatience, desire, anger, or fear. For example? Most people will shove their way onto a crowded subway car or pounce to nab an open table at a busy restaurant. This isn’t really bad, we tell ourselves. It’s not like robbing a bank or stealing a widow’s pension fund.

However, in God’s court, even our small lapses in respecting others will testify to our shoddy character. Even our petty selfishness will offend the pure heart of the Lord.

God himself, being love, cannot co-exist with meanness. It is against his very nature. He longs to embrace us like children, but he cannot touch us if we remain covered with the grit and grime of our past. According to the prophet Isaiah, sin is a barrier between man and his Maker:

“Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.” Isaiah 59:1-2

photo by Vtek111

Often people complain that God feels remote. Yet it is not God who has stepped away. As Isaiah clearly states, the barrier is created by our own unconfessed guilt. This yawning holiness gap traps us on a lower plain of existence.

From earth. the radiance of God appears diluted and distant. From time to time, we receive reminders of God’s power through the forces of nature: a forest fire, a tsunami, or a major earthquake. But how fleeting is our recognition of our lowly place in the universe. 

By contrast, every inhabitant in the spirit world can clearly see the radiance and perfection of God. The book of Revelation describes how the six-winged seraphim constantly bow down and sing praise to the God “who was and is and is to come”. God’s presence inspires a divine order that eclipses pain and sin in the heavenly realm. When spiritual creatures live in the midst of God’s presence, they move in harmony with his purposes.

Such is not the case for us. The “frail family of humanity”, to borrow an expression from author Henri Nouwen, is populated by awkward creatures—part soul, part flesh. Try as we might, no man or woman can measure up to God’s gold standard. We are as helpless as a colony of bloodworms blindly digging our way through the dirt.

We are simply unable to cross the enormous chasm which looms between God and ourselves. We might as well try to leap across the Grand Canyon on a motorcycle. Bravado will only carry you so far before you crash. The bridge had to come from above, and it did, in the incarnation of Jesus Christ.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16

This well-known quote proclaims the enormity and generosity of God’s love for mankind. Without Christ to claim you as his own, as one whose sins have been washed white as snow, you would be defiled by the unlovely choices made during your earth existence. You would be fair game for the forces of evil to hunt you down and drag away from God.

“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6:23

When Jesus died on the cross, he paid the full price for your sins. He willingly shed his perfect blood in your place. After the anguish of scourging and crucifixion, Jesus endured three unimaginable days of torment in Hell, separated from God, to finish the painful business of settling your debts.

Preston Hipp with the cross in 2014

Now you must decide whether or not to accept this payment on your behalf. It only takes faith a small as a grain of sand to begin. 

“If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.” Rom. 10:9-10

Many people have been taught that once they make a decision to accept Jesus Christ as their savior, they are covered with his protection for eternity. This is not what Jesus teaches. Rather, he says that if someone believes in him, they will actually obey him. Christ did not die on the cross so that men or women could continue to stay intertwined in their selfish habits of sin. Once you open the door of your heart and become a disciple of Jesus Christ, you are a new creation, one who is being made ready for your eternal life in heaven. If you are not striving toward holiness out of love and gratitude for the Lamb of God, you are not in a master/servant relationship.

“Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” Romans 12:1-2

When your mind is open to Christ in this way, he will come to you, through the small still voice that guides and protects you. At urgent times of need, the Lord may even appear in your hospital room, as he did for Preston, offering hope and giving courage with his love. You will never be left alone or undefended, especially as you pass from this life into the next.

And in this, we find our unshakable shalom.