Mark 5:26 Thoughts on a Healing

The first time I got cancer was 1996.  They told me to start chemo right away.  I said I wanted to pray about it first.

Over the course of the next few weeks, I found dozens of Scripture passages in my regular Bible reading that seemed to speak to my situation.  I ended up turning down the treatment.

This time I had a strong sense that I should be public about the whole thing.  Getting cancer is something that will impact most people, either directly in themselves or indirectly through their loved ones. 

Frankly I’m not thinking too much about all this.  I have too much else I’m doing in my regular life.  I’m rarely praying about it.  I do read the Bible a lot.  I have always done that. I follow a regular routine, so I’m not going out of my way looking for passages that might deal with anything that is going on here.

So far, I have written about two passages I believe God gave me regarding all this.  Several days ago, I read Mark 5.

There was a woman who had been sick for 12 years with an issue of blood.  I understand that as a menstrual cycle that never shut off.

Jesus was being mobbed by people, and this woman forced her way through the crowd to get to Jesus.

Her whole experience is instructive for people with serious health issues and who are looking to God for help.

Mark takes great care to note that this woman spent everything she had on medical care, much of her suffering was caused by it, and she ended up worse off than before she started.

Mark 5:26:  and [she] having suffered many things by many physicians, and having spent everything she had, and having benefitted nothing but rather got worse. [my translation]

We are constantly told that we must do all that we can before we should expect God to work.  Someone has said: act as if everything depends on you; pray as if everything depends on God.

I don’t think that the Bible is holding this woman’s experience up as an example here. 

Now over the last 4 years, I have spent a lot of time with doctors, nurses, and hospitals.  Way too much time.  But that’s another story for another time.  Wonderful, wonderful people.  And modern medicine is amazing. 

Often, too often though, modern medicine is about trade-offs.  This medicine or procedure will or can help you, but you may or will get these side effects.  And you decide which you would rather have.

They said I have an enlarged prostate.  My choice was a medicine with an undesirable side effect or a surgery that would eliminate the possibility of certain important (to me) prostate functions.  hmmm!  I prayed about it, and it’s now much improved without either.  [see the update at the end.]

The first time I had cancer, I had no medical treatment at all.  The second time I had cancer, I put off treatment for a long time, expecting that I wouldn’t need it.  I kept getting worse until I had to quit my job, and then eventually I started treatment.  The treatment (chemotherapy) had little effect for a long time.  Later though I went from stage 4 to 0 in a very short time, when the doctor was not hopeful at all. 

The first point here about the woman with the issue of blood is that I don’t think we should assume that medicine is either our first option or even our best option.  We need to be praying about these things every step of the way and not assume that we know the answer until we do.

A second point of instruction here is that she did not ask Jesus to heal her.  Jesus wasn’t even aware of her healing until after the fact.  Yes, I know that Jesus is God, but in His human body, there were certain limitations.  He did not know who had touched her.  When He asked who touched Him, this was not a rhetorical question to enhance a teaching moment.  He didn’t know.

The point is that we often think of healing as something we pray about and God may or may not answer that prayer.

We forget that our bodies are programmed to heal itself.  If you are injured or sick, the body will do what it can to restore you to normal without any thinking or effort on your part.

The woman saw Jesus as wanting to heal people and just filled with the power of God.  She only had but to receive it.

Then in verse 34, Jesus makes the astounding statement: “Daughter, your faith has saved you; go in peace and be well from your affliction.”  Mark 5:34

It was her faith that made the difference.

We always want to give God credit for any victories we have.  But just like we might say that God delivered Goliath into the hand of David, if David hadn’t gone out to meet Goliath in faith, it wouldn’t have happened.  If the woman hadn’t forced her way through the crowd to touch Jesus, it wouldn’t have happened.

She believed that if she would simply touch Jesus’ garment, she would be healed.  David was confident that Goliath would fall at his hand, though everyone around him wouldn’t dare attempt what he did.

When David saw the challenge that Goliath made to Israel, he ran to meet him.  When this woman heard about Jesus, she forced her way through the crowd to get what she needed.

When you are faced with a challenge like this, do you run toward it expecting a miracle, or are you fearful, unsure of what to expect from God?

 

Update:

I saw the oncologist Monday.  He said my bone scan is clean.  Does that mean the cancer hadn’t progressed that far, or that it has regressed from my bones?  We’ll never know.

He ordered another test.  A new kind of PET scan.  He saw some lymph nodes that he doesn’t know whether they are leftovers from the lymphoma or something that this prostate cancer triggered.  I will have that test in two weeks.  And then I’ll meet another doctor and then back to the oncologist. 

They said I had/have an enlarged prostate.  Whether it was/is from the cancer, he didn’t say.  Men often get them.

The prostate surrounds the urinary tract, so that when it gets enlarged, it restricts the flow of urine.  So your bladder doesn’t empty.  You feel like you still need to go after you finish, and you end up going a lot more than usual.  Often with sudden very strong urges.

He prescribed medicine for that.  The medicine is effective, but it messes with the function of the prostate.  No, thank you.

Now when I pee, I have been commanding the urine flow to flow freely and the bladder to empty.  In Jesus’ Name.  And they do.  I was getting up to pee up to six times a night.  Last night it was once.  I was peeing usually sitting down and just waiting until it was done.  Now I’m peeing standing up, and it seems pretty much back to normal.  Is the prostate still enlarged?  I don’t know.

Is this too much information?  The older men here will be thanking me.