Lessons From Cancer: Suffering Leads to Surrender

One of the main reasons why we started this blog to pass on lessons to missions leaders was that this past season of cancer made us realize that our time is limited. In this post, I want to share about my experience of finding out I had cancer, the ways that God met us in our lowest points, and the lessons He gave us from this past season. These lessons are largely a continuation of understanding and experiencing Union with Christ. And a forewarning that these posts will be intensely personal and emotional, and addressing difficult topics like cancer, suffering, and death.

My Story

Learning about Union with Christ was critical in sustaining us through our first years of life and ministry in Thailand. But through this past year, God has been teaching me a precious but difficult lesson – that there is MORE to receive in our abiding and in union.

But my pride and my flesh keep me from truly surrendering to him. And this limits how abundantly I can receive from him.

Over a year ago in March 2021, when we were on a trip to train Thai church planters in Northeastern Thailand, Steven and I were resting in a hotel when suddenly Steven noticed I had begun to mutter. He couldn’t understand what I was saying and called my name several times when suddenly I stood up.

Steven reached me right in time to catch me as I collapsed and suffered multiple grand mal seizures. 

Six hours later, I woke up in the ICU, intubated and with no memory of how I had gotten there. I panicked and my first instinct was to reach up and pull the tube out of my mouth, only for me to realize that I had been tied down to the bed. Thankfully, Steven was there to explain to me what had happened. He was very calm, despite the fact that he had just watched me seize and pass out without any guarantee that I would wake up. 

He very gently explained that I was in a hospital and that while I was unconscious, a CT scan had revealed a 5 centimeter brain tumor in my right forebrain. We needed to go back to America as soon as possible for medical treatment. I’d have to get surgery, and who knows what else and for how long. We needed to leave Thailand and entrust our team and our ministry to God. 

Deep within me, I felt the Spirit and my flesh at war. In my flesh, I was terrified and so anxious – What is happening? Am I going to die? Will I be permanently affected or disabled? Will Steven be OK? What’s going to happen to our teams and our Thai friends? 

A kind nurse had given me a pad of paper to write on. With tears in my eyes, I wrote, “I’m scared.”

But even as I wrote those words, I felt the Holy Spirit come alive within me. In my deepest fear and hopelessness, his love was nearer to me than I had ever experienced, and he put a promise in my mind that has served as my theme for this whole last year. It comes from Philippians 3.

Paul says:

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection that I may share in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible, I might attain the resurrection from the dead.

Philippians 3:10

Over the course of the year, I have been learning what God meant for me in that verse. That to receive more of Christ, to truly have continuous deep intimacy with him, I must fully surrender and die to myself – even if suffering is the means to do so. 

The Breaking Point

We came back to the States in April 2021, and God provided for us in so many ways. I had an amazing medical team, the surgery went really well, and they got the whole tumor removed. But after the surgery, my doctor called and told me that I would need to stay longer than expected because pathology results showed that this tumor was high-grade and cancerous. I would need further treatment of radiation and chemotherapy. And we would not be going back to Thailand. 

All of a sudden, our lives and ministries were forced to take an indefinite pause as we focused all our efforts toward fighting brain cancer. And although God was with us in so many ways, inside me I still felt so much turmoil and pain. 

I vividly remember one day where I was trying to pray. I was recovering from a surprise case of extremely painful shingles, a side effect of my medication.

I had never felt more alone.

As much as they tried, my friends and family could never truly understand what I was going through. I became resentful toward them and started isolating myself.

I felt helpless, and I couldn’t even trust my own mind, because the cancer was in my own brain.

I was trying to surrender and muster up faith for the medical journey to come. But instead, I devolved into rage. I was so angry with God and unleashed all my frustration and doubt and pain and sorrow at him. 

“ME!? Why ME? I do so much for you. I’ve given everything to serve you! And still you take! All you do is take!”

Jesus’ answer came almost immediately:

“I want to go deeper with you. I want all of you. I love you.” 

And my anger disappeared and my pride deflated like a balloon. Jesus wasn’t taking from me – he was trying to show me how much more of his love he wanted me to experience! But it was only after he brought me to the end of myself that God was able to show me where my heart was not yielded. And he wanted those things out so that he could fill those places with himself.

I had nothing to offer him but brain cancer. 

But these are the lengths of suffering that our loving Father was willing to bring me through to obtain true surrender and intimacy with him.

Suffering Leads to Surrender

Lilias Trotter, one of the first women goers to North Africa, wrote this prayer in her book, Parables of the Cross:

“May God show us every withholding thread of self that needs breaking still.”

Lilias Trotter, Parables of the Cross

God used this past season of suffering and cancer to bring me to a level of surrender that I didn’t even think was possible. It wasn’t enough that I had quit my job, moved to Thailand, and lived the goer life overseas. Deep in my heart, there were still huge parts of myself that God needed to break. 

As cancer brought me low, I learned how weak I really am. How nothing was actually ever in my power or control. I had been taking for granted the gifts that God had given me and was calling them mine. My life, my timeline, my giftings, my ministry. And in weakness and suffering, God was telling me, “Those things are mine to carry. Just give them to me.”

Even though I always knew the “right answer” was that God is in control of my life and of every part of ministry, deep down there were still parts of me that believed I was the answer, that I was in control, and that results happened because of my ability. That if I just set agendas and expectations, then more or less, my plans would come to fruition. One specific way that this came to the surface was the importance I imagined I had in leading our team. As new 25-year-old team leaders, we jumped head first into every problem, conflict, and issue that came up on our team. I would think to myself, ‘if I don’t fix this, it’s going to be catastrophe for everyone.’ In some ways, my intentions were good. I wanted to be a good leader and to make sure the team didn’t struggle. But over time, that desire warped into, ‘only I can solve these issues. These people and this work need me.’ I was putting myself into a position that God alone should occupy.

But cancer suddenly and painfully removed me from ‘being the answer’ for our team. Unable to communicate with teammates or lead in ministry, I was left with no other option but to surrender our team, our work, and more specifically, my self-importance as a leader, to Jesus. Through my helplessness in cancer, he was asking me: ‘Do you trust that the team and ministry belong to me, and that I will direct and guide them in the best way – even without you?’

In having my role ripped away, God was revealing deep roots of pride. Acts 17 says:

The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.

Acts 17:24-25

God himself gives life and breath. My so-called abilities and leadership that I was so proud of, at the end of the day, still depended on whether or not it pleased God to give me breath and health to even operate. With that perspective, things that used to consume my thoughts and energy like people’s opinions of me or always making the right decisions, just stopped mattering as much.

Absolute surrender means that what I do, how I do it, and the outcome and timing is completely dependent on what God has for me, not what I think is best or what I desire to do. It means, realizing truly that God actually is who he says he is, eternal and powerful and responsible for the work of bringing his own glory to the nations. My role is not to be necessary or to fix all the problems, but to simply be his child and follow where He tells me.

Through cancer, He caused me to surrender these things and be free of the burden and weightiness they bring. But to get to this point, I needed the suffering to strip everything away in order to begin to see how much better and how much worthier Jesus was in comparison. 

In her book, A Path Through Suffering, which we read through daily in the weeks leading up to my surgery, Elisabeth Elliot defines suffering very simply:

Suffering is having what you don’t want, and wanting what you don’t have.

Elisabeth Elliot

While your suffering may not look like mine in the form of cancer, I can guarantee that at some point, you will have something you don’t want, or want something you don’t have. These suffering moments, both “big” and “small”, are when we most realize our limits. They give us a lens to understand that our ways and our abilities are never enough in comparison to Jesus. That we must die to ourselves completely. 

It is a merciful Father who strips us when we need to be stripped…He is not finished with us yet, whatever the loss we suffer, for as we lose our hold on visible things, the invisible becomes more precious – where our treasure is, there will our hearts be.

Elisabeth Elliot

Suffering leads us to surrender.

Surrender Prepares Us To Receive From God

And surrender prepares us to receive from God. Paul shows us this in Philippians 3: 

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection that I may share in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible, I might attain the resurrection from the dead.

Philippians 3:10

According to Paul, suffering leads us to surrender to the point of death, like Jesus. Only then are we prepared to receive resurrection life.

Death to self is nothing less than what Jesus himself did. With total submission to the Father, His death was death on a cross for our sins. We can trust him with our surrender, because he did the same for us.

And out of that death, he received resurrection life. Surrender prepares us to receive from God.

Here is what Andrew Murray says about the link between surrender and receiving:

“…Here is the path to the higher life: down, lower down! Just as water always seeks and fills the lowest place, so the moment God finds men abased and empty, His glory and power flow in to exalt and to bless.”

– Andrew Murray, Humility

When Jesus told me, “I want to go deeper with you,” on the day of my breakdown, he was actually saying he had so much more blessing for me. More power and more glory! But for me to receive, I needed to surrender all. 

When I went in for brain surgery, the doctors told me their goal was to aggressively cut out every tumor cell that was trying to kill me. In the same way, God was performing a spiritual surgery. Cutting out idols of ministry success, control, and expectations of long life with Steven.

With those out, I could then receive his unconditional love for me, security in His will, and gratitude for each new breath that I have.

Trust him with your full surrender.

Because the other side of surrender is true abiding. 

The other side of surrender is intimacy with Christ. 

The other side of surrender is resurrection life and power! 
Absolute surrender prepares us to receive all from God. When we are surrendered, we are finally low enough and emptied enough to even begin to receive all that God desires to give us.

How Do You Surrender?

In order to fully abide, you must surrender all. You must learn that the gateway into abiding starts by telling God the dreaded words, “I give up. I can’t do it. So you must.” 

As a military term, to surrender means to yield yourself to the possession or power of another. Surrendering in these situations means giving up control and entrusting your fate to another, likely an enemy. But thankfully in our case, we are not yielding to an enemy. We yield to our best friend who knows us, who loves us, and who never withholds. 

I have experienced firsthand how difficult and painful surrender can be. But your good Father is waiting on the other side. He is poised and ready to bless you! And as you practice surrendering, here are some things to consider. 

1. Learn The Lesson in Suffering

A friend previously shared with me that it seemed like her friends in full-time ministry seemed to experience suffering more painfully and more often than others. Because of this, she was afraid to surrender more to Jesus because of the suffering that might follow. Even though this may be true, this statement makes me so sad. Jesus is better than any suffering we might endure. May we rejoice when we are counted worthy to suffer for his name. 

In the gospels, Jesus guarantees to his disciples that, “in this world, you will have troubles. But take heart, I have overcome the world!” Suffering is guaranteed for the life of a disciple. It’s not something we are actively looking for. But when you encounter pain and suffering, my encouragement for you is that you would not waste those opportunities. And these opportunities come each and every day for us. 

As you go through it, as much as you can, try to learn the lessons in suffering that God gives, to surrender and receive from him. Surrender your pain, your timeline, your expectations, your results. And wait and see what the Lord does.

2. Make weakness your aim. 

Elizabeth Elliot says, “the experience of weakness puts us in the position of seeking another’s strength.”

I don’t know if it’s just me, but I have a harder time accepting the fact that I am weak and unable, more than I do the idea that I will need to suffer. There is something in us that cannot accept uncertainty, failure, or powerlessness. But apart from Christ, that IS our constant state. Much like in suffering, God uses weakness to drive us toward humility and dependence on him. 

Don’t run away from situations you can’t control. Don’t grit your way through difficult circumstances. Embrace situations where you can be weak. These are opportunities to learn greater surrender and to call upon God to be your strength! It is okay to be weak because Christ is strong.

We often quote Hudson Taylor as a good example of someone who lived out of union life. But even Hudson Taylor would still struggle with weakness – but instead of trying to will his way out of hard situations, he would realize those were times to draw near to and draw from God. Whenever he felt himself weak or overwhelmed, he would very simply pray, “God, I thirst.” 

Sometimes, he would pray this 20 times a day! “God, I thirst.” And by acknowledging his thirst, his weakness, Hudson Taylor was able to experience deep comfort from God.

Paths of Righteousness

I want to conclude with an encouragement from Psalm 23. This is a popular one, full of the promises of God. The Lord is our shepherd, he will lead us to green pastures, and he will make us lie beside still waters. But there is a disturbing verse right in the middle: 

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. 

Psalm 23:4

Why are we talking about death in the middle of one of the most uplifting Psalms? A teammate pointed out to me that perhaps it is actually connected with the previous verse – “He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.” 

After this past year, I am convinced that the good shepherd’s path of righteousness includes the valley of the shadow of death. 

And yet even there, we do not fear evil because he is with us the entire way.

The end of Psalm 23 is beautiful. David starts the Psalm speaking about God in the third person – He makes me lie down, he leads me, he restores. But in and after the valley of the shadow of death, David changes his language and speaks to God directly. You are with me. Your rod and staff comfort me. You prepare a table for me. 

David’s language changes from the distant ‘he’ to the personal you, because David has walked through death and seen his good shepherd with him the whole way. This is why David has the confidence to say, surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. Before the valley, David said he shall not want…but after the valley, his cup overflows. These promises are ours to receive, if we would walk with him through every path of righteousness, even the ones that feel like death. 

As you pursue deeper abiding through surrender, I hope that this Psalm is a comfort for you. That in suffering, in exhaustion, in the deepest valleys, in the lowest points of surrender, your good shepherd Jesus is with you. And even the valley of the shadow of death is his to use as he guides you on the path of righteousness.

Don’t fear suffering. Don’t fear surrender. He is with you, and he desires to go deeper in abiding with you until your cup overflows.

Questions For Reflection

If you feel the Spirit pushing at you in any way, my encouragement with you is to stop and listen. Listen to his voice. Tell him that you desire deeper abiding. Examine yourself and the places where you are not surrendered. Here are some questions that you might bring to him:

• Where have I been self reliant or prideful? 
• Where am I afraid to suffer or to be weak?
• What situations am I going through that make me anxious, afraid, or angry? 
• Where have I let ministry come between me and God?
• Where have I not forgiven? 

If you’re walking through a season of difficulty or suffering, we’d love to hear from you, encourage you, and pray for you. Please reach out at contact@missionsleaders.com.

In the next post, Steven will share about what is received out of absolute surrender – receiving resurrection life and power.