Want to be Resilient? A living connection with Christ through faith is our only way to “living Hope”.

<p>Want to be Resilient? A living connection with Christ through faith is our only way to “living Hope”.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Restoration International

Northwest Family Retreat 2023

Tom Waters

Alane Waters

Identity Crisis

Effervescent Love

Happy Helpers

Living Hope

A lot of plans and a lot of work goes into preparing.

You know, the Apostle Paul says we are prisoners of hope.

Is that a good thing to be imprisoned by?

Yes, we need to be thankful that God has blessed us with a living hope and it's there for us to accept, to receive, and to live by in faith.

I want to take you back to quite a while ago in our marriage.

It was just 1 month before our 15th anniversary.

And so does anybody know how long we've been married?

So this was 1 month before our 15th anniversary.

At that time our children At that time our children were 8, 11, and 12.

As we were lying in bed 1 night, I noticed a strange lump in my wife's abdomen.

She was rather slender when I married my wife, she was 105 pounds, and she was laying on her back there and I just, you know, we were cuddling, we like to cuddle morning and evening, been doing that for all of our married life.

Went right along with the message about hugging, right?

For those of you that were here when Oswald and Betty shared their message.

So my wife and I, we both have medical backgrounds.

I was in radiology, worked in the x-ray department, was the director of the School of Radiography, and my wife was an intensive care nurse and so there was a lump that was there that shouldn't be there in her abdomen.

So when you're more medically oriented that's just not a good thing to feel.

So we went in, we we had some tests, we were living in Montana at this time, and The ultrasound, which was the first thing that they did, so I was in radiology and I knew what the protocol was.

Again, sometimes it's not always good to know all those things.

And so the lady was very nice that did the ultrasound and then she said, I just need to step out for a moment and speak with the doctor.

Well that said something not really pleasant for my wife and I when we heard that because they just don't do that normally.

The doctor came in, continued with a few of her own views on the ultrasound, And the doctor was very kind, thoughtful.

And again, knowing what we knew in our background, to be diagnosed with ovarian cancer was not a very nice thing, never is.

And so all the thought processes begin to happen.

We ended up talking to the family and Elaine's brother at the time was a vice president for a medical center in California that was a top cancer facility, 1 of the top in the nation.

So when he found out, of course big brother wanted to make sure that little sister was taken care of.

So did further testing and he encouraged us to come out there and we did and got connected with a doctor out there but The diagnosis that we got, the final diagnosis, was 30 minutes before we were due to have guests come into our home for the weekend.

And the call came in from the doctor from that facility and said that it's confirmed it's ovarian cancer and we need to get surgery scheduled as quickly as possible.

So there my wife and I were with our young family, all kinds of thoughts going through our minds, and then our guests arrived.

So we were young, and we had young children, And now the guests arrive 30 minutes after the phone call from the surgeon.

I mean, do you think we were just feeling on top of the world?

But 1 thing we knew is that we had hope in the Lord regardless of the outcome.

And we knelt together after that phone call.

Of course, our children don't know any of this yet.

We knelt together and we prayed and we said, we know in whom we have our faith and trust.

These people are coming, they don't need to have this burden and we don't need to carry this burden because there's nothing we can do about it 30 minutes before our guests come.

So they arrived and we ended up having a beautiful and providential connection because those guests, there was a doctor, he was a doctor.

And they ended up asking us some questions, and we found out he was a very practical doctor and was very concerned and we, you know, were able to privately share with them.

And 1 of the first things that they said was to us, we just want to thank you for the peace that we found in your house.

Now that we know what you had 30 minutes before we came, because this came much later in the weekend as we opened our hearts to them, We just are very encouraged that you are trusting the Lord in the situation that you're in.

And we're thankful that you didn't cancel our visit and we're thankful that we can be here to give you some encouragement, which was a real blessing.

So we headed out to California shortly after this family left.

Of course, we began to introduce to our children what was going on.

And of course, as a father, I had to deal with thoughts that could be a reality that in 6 months or less, I would be without my wife with an 8, 11, and 12-year-old.

And you can't just ignore those thoughts and neither can we, if we have a living hope, Let those thoughts destroy us, right?

And so, we got out there and I remember when they took my wife into surgery, the receptionist in the surgical waiting room, and for a part of the surgery it was several hours, I was in there alone, and she said to me, so when the surgery is over, the surgeons will call me.

They will let me know and you can meet them and they will tell you the results.

Well, we found out that before she went into that surgery that they had brought a specialist, a lady who was a specialist from UCLA Medical Center to the hospital where we were having this, she was having the surgery.

And her specialty was trying to dissect cancerous tumors to keep them from spreading into other parts of the body.

So these 2 surgeons, our doctor and her, worked together.

And so I'm sitting in this waiting room for hours.

Do you think I was having all kinds of thoughts going through my mind?

I tell you, the great controversy was playing out in my mind as the devil was telling me what was going to happen to my wife and what was going to happen to my children and what was going to happen to me as their father.

The devil was telling me and the Lord was telling me, and I'll never forget this, the Lord was telling me this, I will never leave you or forsake you.

In that still, small voice, as I would pour out my heart to the Lord, sitting in that waiting room, praying for the surgeons, praying for my wife, praying that God would sustain my faith, and then the devil would come back and he would throw these thoughts into my mind and I would go back and forth and and finally the lady at the reception desk called my name.

And when I got up, again, I'll never forget this, when I got up, the devil just hit me with such horrendous thoughts of the outcome of my wife's surgery.

And he was not, it was not coming, or it didn't feel like he was talking to me in a still, small voice.

It felt like he was yelling at me, taunting me.

And then as I approached the door to meet the 2 surgeons, the Lord quietly reminded me, I will never leave you or forsake you.

The Lord did not say that your wife's gonna be okay.

He told me I will never leave you or forsake you.

And I walked out of that door trusting with a living hope in a living God when I met those surgeons.

And do you know what the first words out of the main surgeon, what his words were to me?

Those are the words that came out of his mouth.

Is that a strange thing for a surgeon to say?

He said, I see peace on your countenance.

And that's a whole other story, but God gave us an opportunity to have some special time with that surgeon, the main surgeon, not the specialist from UCLA.

But they were both standing there And I praise God that I chose, by faith, against some of the screaming feelings that I was having and some of the taunting of the devil to believe that no matter what the outcome was, that I had a living hope in God for the days ahead.

The next words out of his mouth were, I have great news for you.

We dissected a tennis ball sized tumor in your wife's abdomen.

And if you don't know what that is, it's basically abnormal skin or, how do you describe that, dear?

And he said, 1 of the most amazing things is that your wife's abdomen was full of endometriosis and she wasn't even crying out in pain.

Most people who get that if there's a quarter of an inch piece of it there in terrible pain.

Well, that was just a blessing of the Lord.

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Series

Northwest Family Retreat 2023

Living Hope

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Parts

Identity Crisis

45m

Effervescent Love

54m

Happy Helpers

38m

Living Hope

30m

Sound Doctrine