In the Eye of the Storm

Do you remember the dramatic scene in The Perfect Storm when George Clooney has just navigated the Andrea Gail through horrendous waves and gale force winds to emerge into bright sunlight and calm seas, only to discover he has simply sailed into the very eye of the storm? Knowing the struggles and danger through which they have just passed, with a combination of resolve and resignation, he steers his craft once more into the inescapable fury that lies ahead.

Our situation is not unlike that of the Andrea Gail. By God’s grace, we have survived the initial treatment phase of high-dose Interleukin-2, have shaken off some residual (and extremely painful) complicating conditions that delayed recovery, and are now enjoying (both literally and figuratively) several days of calm seas, bright sunshine, renewed energy and strength. The nightly bouts of fever, sweats, and bone-wracking pain are gone. The pleurisy-like chest pains and abdominal bloating have disappeared. My appetite is back. I am sleeping better. There are even irrefutable evidences of tumor regression! We are basking in His mercy, love and power to heal. Thank you for your prayers and continued expressions of faith on our behalf.

While enjoying this period of respite from the storm, I have had time to reflect on the bigger picture. Unlike the fate of the Andrea Gail, I have confidence that God is going to carry us successfully through the next storm as well, as we enter the second week of the IL-2 treatment protocol. Looking back (way back), I can see how God has prepared me to be able to weather this, the greatest tempest I have ever faced. If you would like a glimpse into those reflections, I invite you to read the appended portion below – it is my story of faith.

I have no idea yet what He has in store for us beyond the gale, but I know the One who can calm the seas with a word. It is with a combination of resolve and expectancy that we head back to UVA on Monday, March 24. Thanks once more for being ‘on board’ with us through the voyage.

Dan
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My Story of Faith

As a child, faith seemed easy. I recall a time when I faced almost certain death – I had lost my older brother Jim’s pearl-handled knife. He was sure to kill me! I prayed for help and God miraculously led me right to its location amidst the thick weeds in the alley behind our Detroit home. When, at age 7, a visiting Baptist evangelist offered an escape from hell and the consequences of sin, I wanted that. So I invited Jesus into my life as the One who could forgive me and make things right. He said it, I believed it – case closed! God became my hero, my helper – I could always count on Him.

Then I became a man. I became sophisticated. I learned life was not all that simple. I wondered if it was possible to be cool and still be a Christian, to be a real man and be a Christian. Besides, there are more ideas out there than just those embraced by Christianity. I explored competing philosophies and competing lifestyles, some of which had credible attraction. I really struggled with whether it was possible to be a Christian and not commit intellectual suicide.

I wrestled with these questions as a young man striving to become a respected and competent physician. Married with one small daughter and another on the way, I was in the middle of a rigorous three-year family practice residency at a hospital in southern California. On the one hand I was overwhelmed with the awesome responsibility of making life-and-death decisions about critically ill patients, the need to never make a mistake and to learn all that I could to become the best in my field. On the other hand, I was allured by those colleagues of mine for whom tomorrow did not seem to matter – they were at ease and pursued excitement more than commitment. I was allured enough that I learned to sail, took up scuba diving, and spent every free weekend either at the beach or hiking in the mountains. We kept a frenzied pace.

At the same time I was clobbered by a call schedule that kept me up all night every three days, and found myself increasingly frustrated by my inadequacies as a “part-time” husband and father. Attending church (when that was possible), became a ritual, if not altogether irrelevant.

Christianity was full of promise – love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, self-control. These things I was supposed to have as a believer. More so, the preacher urged that I was supposed to convince others that this was a lifestyle worth choosing. But I was miserable. I wanted to be modern, to be broad-minded, accepting and acceptable to others. I was, as the book of James describes, a double-minded man… “like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind.”

One night I lay in the upper bunk of a darkened obstetrical call room, waiting while several women moaned with the pains of labor just down the hall. I was laboring in a different way – I was wrestling with the Holy Spirit over the impotence of my professed Christian faith. Then it came to me, like a light in the darkness of that room. I was reminded of the simple key to happiness I once grasped as a child.

Colossians 2:6 reads: “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus, so walk in Him.” I received Him as a child, with the faith of a child. It was by the same child-like faith, that I would learn to enjoy the freedom of a life surrendered completely to Him. That night I got off the fence – I told the Lord I knew I did not have all the answers, but from that moment on I would place my trust in Him no matter what. It was a step in the darkness and it brought me into the light. I did not throw away my mind – I simply surrendered it. I finally began to possess that which before I had only professed.

Since that day, I have learned to rely on the steadfastness of God’s faithfulness. Whenever life’s circumstances have tested the soundness of this reckless surrender to Him, He has brought me through with an ever-increasing confidence in His love. It is with that knowledge of who He truly is, that we have entered this voyage through the eye of the storm.