Finding purpose after cancer often starts with a question most of us never think to ask. In Part Two, my friend David Carpenter tells us the question he'd ask if Jesus were sitting right next to him. If you missed it, start wi.h Part One, where David and his wife Gretchen heard a number nobody wants to hear.
You're in Control Here
Surgery, radiation and immunotherapy came at David one right after the other. Somewhere in the middle of it all, he gave himself up in .rayer. In his words, he told God, "You're in control here."
But what he prayed for next probably isn't what you'd expect. His daughter had just gotten engaged, with the wedding set for January 2024. So his first prayer was simply, let me be at the wedding. He was.
Then the prayer became, let me meet a grandchild. Today he has two grandsons, with a third grandchild on the way.
Right after his surgery, his good friends the Kolkers gave him a little plaque. As David remembers it, it said, "God's got this." If he could go back to the day of his diagnosis, that's exactly what he'd tell himself: God's got this, and we're going to be okay.
Purpose After Cancer Starts With a Question
Near the end of our conversation, I asked David what he would say if Jesus were sitting right next to him. His answer came fast: "What's next? Where do you want me to go? What do you want me to do? Who do you want me to see?"
Did you notice the change? His prayers went from asking God for more time to asking God what the time is for. That's what purpose after cancer looks like. It isn't a plan you build on your own. Instead, it's a question you keep asking.
It's the same answer Isaiah gave when God asked who He should send: "Here am I. Send me!"
That question is why David went back to an Ivy Center event at Swedish just before we recorded. He wanted to thank Dr. Litvack, the surgeon who operated on him, and to keep learning so he can help the next person. He came away hopeful, too. He believes more good things are coming out of places like the Ivy Center, MD Anderson and Seattle's biotech community than ever before.
Take All the Boats
David told the old story about the man on his roof in a flood. A boat comes by, and he waves it off, because God's got him. Of course, the boat was God.
David's point is simple. Take all the boats .od sends, whether it's the doctors, the treatments, or the friends who keep calling. You don't have to choose between praying and trusting your doctors. You can absolutely do both.
Some of David's boats had names. Bob King connected him with a man who had faced melanoma years earlier and gives God the credit. Joe Ellis, a big man of faith, kept praying and never let him get down. And Dr. Jon Huseby told him that if Swedish couldn't take care of him, they'd get him to MD Anderson in Texas or Sloan Kettering in New York. Even if one door closed, there would be other options.
His own story started with hearing loss in one ear and dizziness that wouldn't go away. So his advice, in his own words, is plain: get it checked out.
It Didn't All End Tidy
David lives with the effects of his treatment every single day. He lost the hearing in his right ear, and his balance has never been the same. In addition, the immunotherapy knocked out his adrenal glands, so he'll take medication for the rest of his life. Today he's in maintenance mode, with a yearly MRI and a yearly visit with Dr. Kelly Paulson, his medical oncologist at Swedish.
He calls that a small price to pay for being alive. And then, last summer, a scooter with no brakes on a very steep hill nearly ended everything in about ten minutes. He's still here, and he's still asking what's next. For David, that's what purpose after cancer really means.
What You Will Hear in This Episode
Do You Have a Story to Tell?
If Jesus has shown up somewhere in your journey, your story might be the boat God sends to someone else. Listen to our episode on why telling your sto.y heals you first, then reach out to me through our website.
You Are Never Alone
Whether you're praying for more time today or already asking what's next, Jesus is right there with you. Purpose after cancer isn't something you have to manufacture. He hands it to you one day at a time, as soon as you ask.
If you don't have that relationship with Jesus, or if yours has grown stale or weak, or you're just plain angry with Him right now, please visit our Accepting Jesus page.
No matter what you're facing on your journey with cancer or in life, remember: you are NEVER ALONE. Jesus and the Holy Spirit are always with you and ready to help. All you have to do is ask, then give it all to Jesus and let Him go to work.
READ THE FULL TRANSCRIPT
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This transcript has been lightly cleaned up for easy reading. Blaine's opening and closing come from the notes he speaks from, so a few words may differ from the audio.
Opening
Blaine: Greetings, and welcome back to our Never Alone Faith Over Cancer podcast. Hi, I'm Blaine Millet, your host, and thank you so much for coming back and spending a little more time with us today... I really do appreciate it.
If this happens to be your first episode with us, I'd encourage you to go back one episode and start with David's Story, Part One: At Least We Know What 3:16 Is. You'll get so much more out of today if you take some time to listen to his first episode.
So let's talk about where we left off. My friend David Carpenter went in for brain surgery on what everybody expected was a harmless tumor... and came out facing one of the rarest cancers there is, and a number nobody ever wants to hear. Then came surgery, radiation, and immunotherapy, one right after the other.
In today's episode, we get to hear what happens to your prayers when God gives you more time.
So here's what I'd encourage you to listen for. Listen to what David asks God for near the beginning of this episode... and then listen to what he's asking Him for at the end. To me, that change is the whole story of a faith growing stronger.
And toward the end, I asked David what he would say if Jesus were sitting right here next to him. His answer was short, but impactful... and I haven't stopped thinking about it since.
So with that... let's get back to David and more of his story.
The Conversation
Blaine: So when you're going through all this, I mean you went through what you just described, that's like a tidal wave, right? That's just coming at you from every which direction in a variety of ways. And it's not like one treatment we're gonna go through and do you. I mean, you just got barraged by all that. So you mentioned you know, this the mentor side, and I know Bob King, by the way. And
David: Yep. Yep, I'm sure. Great guy.
Blaine: Great guy. And I think, you know, maybe you could spend just a minute on the mentor side, 'cause that's a great thought and one that I don't hear a lot from people. And, you know, since you brought it up, if you wouldn't mind taking a few minutes and just talking about how that 'cause they're very strong in their faith, I know that. And they had to have been there to help you through it and pray for you and just really I mean maybe can you talk a little bit more about that?
David: Yeah. So right away Bob connected me with a brother that had connected with him when he had melanoma on his scalp. And he I forgive me, I can't remember his name.
But he and I got together and we talked and he was at a place, you know, this was ten years before when melanoma treatment wasn't as good. And he was talked to me a lot about the power of prayer and how he they people wrote him off and said, there's nothing we can do now at this stage. And then he was still alive and he got rid of the melanoma on his scalp, went away and so he was very inspirational. He credits God. And Joe Ellis is a big man of faith. And so these guys just kept on praying for me and encouraging me and not never letting me get down. Right.
Blaine: Yeah. That's big. That's big. I think I mean whether it's you know, mentors, I think that's a great one to bring up. But it you know, even if it's family or if it's a church, I somebody, but you need that group. You need somebody I think you're connected to really help you through that and support you through that. That's I think that's a must.
David: And Dr. Huseby was the one that gave that confidence to me on the medical side. He said, you know, if Swedish can't take care of you, we'll get you to Anderson in Texas, we'll get you to Sloan Kettering in New York, we'll get you wherever it is. He just expanded my mind to say, you know, even if we run out of options, there's other options. The number of trials, it's really fed and based on what I heard last week, the number of companies, pharma bio companies, startups, The fact that AI is now accelerating everything they're doing thousands of times and the investments that are going on here and the trials that are being started, the advancement with glioblastoma, what they're doing with the clinical trials starting up in Canada next year. I mean it's fantastic rate of change. So he gave me that confidence on the medical side that, you know, the doctors are gonna find something for you. We'll we're gonna have something for you. And I just believed him.
Blaine: Yeah. Yeah. So let me just ask one more question while you're talking about that. So one of the I mean with when you're going through a lot of that, it sounds like when as you described it, 'cause this is you know, one of things I hear a lot is people try to kind of manage a lot on their own, but it gets to a point where you're just going, you know, I've gotta surrender this
David: I believed all of them.
Blaine: I mean, I've just gotta I've gotta finally say I'm either all in or I'm not, but if I'm not gonna surrender at all, then what are you gonna do with that? And if you do surrender at all, what do you know, how did you go through that process at all of saying, you know, I this is way beyond, you know, my pay grade. What I've got to give this to you completely, God and I mean did you go through something like that?
David: Yeah, there were certainly there were certainly times in prayer where I just gave myself up and said, You're in control here and what the driving factor In twenty-three was I wasn't positive I was my daughter got engaged so my now son-in-law came to ask us in the middle of this whole thing ask for her hand ask for permission to marry our daughter and so they scheduled that wedding for January of twenty-four and I wasn't sure I was gonna make it to that so my prayers I think some of the early prayers were just let me be at the wedding, like let me participate in the wedding. And then the wedding that was wonderful. And then it was let me meet a grandchild. You know, let me be around long enough that I meet my grandchildren.
Blaine: Right. Yeah, those are I mean, that's I think when you get to that point where you just say, you know, this is this has gotta be in your hands, God, right? You've gotta take it from here 'cause I don't have the capacity to do that. It's That's a it's a I don't know, maybe you know, maybe you did the but I know when, you know, I've gone through that and talked to other people, there's a tremendous peace that comes from that. That where once you've released it, there's a like a peace that comes over you where you go, Okay, he's got it.
David: Yep. Yep.
Blaine: Yeah, that's big. Yeah, I'll have to tell you something sometime about the since you mentioned the part about the wedding, the about you know, my daughter and my wife's mom that made it just through the wedding. And that was her one wish that she could make it through the wedding and she did. So I can relate one hundred percent to what you just said.
David: Fantastic. Fantastic.
So I want to comment on what you said about I'm experiencing the tidal wave. So I did and I didn't. So the one thing that I never experienced throughout this whole process, I never had chemo. Kelly Paulson said that chemo would not be effective for melanoma or my melanoma.
I never had pain except in the aftermath of the surgery. I was just very uncomfortable for a couple months, totally unrelated to my brain. And but what I did have was these and I want to mention this because this may help somebody else. The immunotherapy, you know, goes through your body and it doesn't It's looking for cancer, right? It's disabling cancer and all that stuff. And it empowers these T cells, but it's not a hundred percent accurate, right? These immunotherapies that we have in '23 compared to what we're gonna have in 2030 and 2040 are just they're barbaric. They're like chemo was compared to immunotherapy. Just they're like you know just flat and everything. So what the immunotherapy did to me apparently is knock out my adrenal gland. And the most critical thing the adrenal gland does is produce cortisol, which is essential to staying awake and the fight or flight reflex, right? So I we didn't discover that though until we tested because what happened in '23, as I'm going through all this, I'm very drowsy. Very drowsy. And in fact, the general manager at the offices where I work, she actually Created a room for me and I was able to put a cot and a pillow and a blanket in there and I could go in there in the afternoons and nap because I just couldn't stay awake at work. I retained my clarity but I was just like tired all the time. So we finally my neuro-oncologist said we've got to take you've got to take a cortisol test.
And we did that and then they got me to an endocrinologist and he got me on a cortisol, hydrocortisone routine, and we started supplementing. And because I was having these terrible dizziness spells still, I still don't actually know what that what caused that. I think it's because the tumor kind of took out the right ear.
That's why the hearing was gone. It also took out the balance. So one of your critical balance signals is messed up. It's sending bad information to your brain. Your brain has a hard time that's stabilizing your body, right? So I was learning for Well, now three years, how to rebalance my body. I remember being on a mountain bike and just crashing on the simplest little turns, you know, on a dirt course and realizing, wow, I have really bad balance now. So I bring that up because we overdid it with hydrocortisone. Because I was having these dizzy spells, the endocrinologist told me to double and triple up my hydrocortisone.
To compensate to keep my brain alert. And so what it was doing is if you know if you know about high cortisol, that's a really good way to store fat. So I was just loading up and I hit my peak weight right about when my daughter's wedding was. So we got that under control then in twenty four and things are better now. But now we're in the maintenance mode. So I just You know, I supplement with hydrocortisone three times a day. And if I'm in a stressful situation or if I'm sick, if I'm catching a cold or whatever, I've got to remember to do what the body naturally does, which is turn up the volume on cortisol. So that's a kind of a weird thing. Yeah. Ongoing. And apparently, according to the doctors, it will never it will my body will never produce cortisol.
Blaine: Mm-hmm. Right. So is that something you're ongoing then? So that's an ongoing? Okay. Okay.
David: So I'll just have to take that forever. So I gotta keep that in mind and always have that emergency supply with me. Yeah. But it's a that's a small price to pay for being alive and for not having chemo and you know not losing my hair and all that good stuff. So
Blaine: Right. Now that's you know, it's it is just 'cause even my cancer I went through, which was bladder cancer, mine was all immunotherapy treatment after surgeries. It I there was no chemo that can attack that and it was all immunotherapy. So I relate really well to that.
David: So now we're in the maintenance mode and now we just verify at first it was every two months and then six months and then now we're at every year. So I see my neuro-oncologist, we do an MRI, I had one just this week, and I see him every year, and I see the medical oncologist, Kelly Paulson, every year. We do blood tests to look for markers. She's very good at As seeing what is stimulating melanoma by looking at your blood levels and your blood tests. So I have a huge confidence in her. And then I see my endocrinologist annually to make sure that everything else is being regulated. And I think we're kind of just managing it now.
Blaine: Yeah. Well that's yeah, that's quite a journey. I you know, I just as I think through all the things you're describing, there's you went through a lot in short periods of time that you know, sometimes can get spread way over, but you know, you took on a lot during that time. Did was there you know, was there ever a spot where you know, wondered where God was in your journey? Was there any time where you're like, Okay, so where are you? You know, I need you to show up right now and I'm not feeling that or seeing that. Is there any did you ever have any of those kind of moments?
David: I don't recall that I did. No. I had certainly days when I had down days. I had days of, you know, why is this happening to me? But I didn't blame God. And I'm not saying I was perfect, you know, perfect faith or anything like that, but I didn't I never blame God and I never got down on God at all. I just turned it to the positive and said, you know, this is such like today I've got the two grandsons and one grandbaby on the way and it's just like life being able to experience this part of life is such a blessing. That yeah, I can't look back At this other than just a big learning experience and a you know value of life experience. I think I really have a new appreciation. I had a near-death experience last summer. I was gonna talk about, but I hopped on a very steep hill in Lake Chelan on a electric scooter that apparently didn't have brakes, didn't have working brakes. And as I'm cruising down this hill with no apparent path out, I did have that's when it flashed in front of me. I said God is it really I'm gonna survive cancer and I'm gonna die on a scooter? I'm gonna die on the rocks of Lake Chelan or I'm gonna kill someone or I'm gonna run into an uphill bound you know ATV or something. And when I got going fast enough I just decided you know what, if I follow this to the end of the hill I'm gonna hit a fence and I'm gonna flip off this thing. Best case. Worst case I'm gonna flip onto the rocks.
But I'll be going 40 miles per hour by then. And so, worst case, right now, if I just bail, I'm just gonna get beaten up and banged up and I'm wearing a helmet and life will be good. So I bailed on the gravel, and the next thing I knew, I was in my truck being driven to the local hospital, and I was repeating myself every 30 seconds. And my three questions I was asking everybody around me, my wife included, was what happened?
And why? Why did I do this? Why was I in a scooter? And was I wearing a helmet? And then I just they would tell me, they'd reassure me, and then I'd repeat myself 30 seconds later because of concussion. But so my life did flash in front of my eyes and I wondered, is this it?
And I'm still around. So that was just a another life is good appreciation point to be thankful for life.
Blaine: Yeah. Wow. Yeah, that's that was probably that's probably more terrifying than your whole cancer journey right there.
David: And it all happened inside of you know ten minutes, yeah.
Blaine: Wow, that's crazy. It's crazy you'd probably even do that. So given that and your cancer, I guess one question I would ask is how has this changed your relationship with God or how you pray or how you know you act going forward? 'Cause I know it certainly has for me and I know it has for other people, but has it changed how you know, what you do, how you approach God, we know what how you pray different I mean, it what changed after all of this happened?
David: I wouldn't say anything dramatically changed. My wife and I pray. My wife never lost faith. I never lost faith, never doubted God. All the way through we thought good things were gonna happen. I was when I was coming back into my company, apparently I don't remember it, but apparently I took six or eight weeks off.
After the surgery. I don't remember that at all. I didn't even make any succession plans. Like and my oldest son works for me, so he would have been the natural. I just was like, no, we don't need him. I'm good. I'm here and I'm gonna make it and we don't need to worry about the business. I'll be here. And I think our marriage has gotten stronger through this because of the almost dying twice essentially. And we don't have any doubts about God and I think it's just made us both better husband and wife, better parents, better grandparents and more optimistic about life and about the future.
Blaine: Well, you know, I mean it's kudos to you guys for maintaining such a consistent, strong faith 'cause that's I don't I wouldn't I would say that's not the norm. That's for all the people I get to talk to and in the podcast and be another, that's not the norm. So, you know, my hat's off to you for that because that consistency is rare, but it's also pretty impressive. I mean I'm pretty blown away by you know being able to be that consistent through the whole journey is amazing and that's an amazing faith that, you know, you and Gretchen have. So
David: I'll give the majority of the credit to Gretchen. So she's very strong willed, strong faith. She's she just expects good things to happen and she just made sure that they did.
Blaine: Yeah. Well, I would say the exact same thing about my wife. I don't think I would have gotten through a lot of that with without her being the rock and going through all that, 'cause I'll tell you really need that kind of support and you know, you had Bob and other people, but yeah, there's nothing like your wife being there to take charge and demand and right and make sure it all works the way it is. So here's an interesting question I'm just I just thought about is Okay, so if you were just sitting here and Jesus was sitting next to you, what would you say to him about this journey?
David: What's next?
Blaine: Do you really want to know? Yeah, do you really? Yeah.
David: What where do you want me to go? What do you want me to do? Who do you want me to see? Am I in the right path?
Blaine: Right. Well, so that would lead me to a second question, which is I, you know, it's a phrase and a quote that I heard a long time ago, and it really stuck with me even, you know, when I was going through mine, but even afterwards, was you know, when I asked God, you know, why did he send me into this darkness and into this situation?
And he answers, so you'll know the way out when I send you in for someone else. And that really stuck with me because it's, as you describe this as well, is I fully believe that we have trials, but it's what are we gonna do with these to help somebody else and do this for, you know, the glory of God. What are we doing with it now?
So I guess I'd pose that question to you is do you think about that as far as, okay, you've given me this phenomenal story. How do you want me to share this? How do you want me to impact people's life? I mean, you're doing a great job here sharing it with a podcast and it's gonna reach thousands of people. So that's awesome. But, you know, that's question still always haunts me is am I doing, you know, what am I doing to make sure that I use this story? Well, what do you think about that?
David: Yeah, I do want to be if I can inspire someone, you know, who is where I was.
And I hope and I pray I can. I it's actually the reason I went to the Ivy Center event last week is because I it's mostly about glioblastoma, but it's the same doctors that treated me and I it and I wanted to reconnect with the original surgeon, Dr. Litvack, that took care of me and talked to him and thank him and I wanted to hear from him. And it and he did say, you know, well you I'm sure he looked at me and was like, he's still living.
You know, I'm sure there's some level because especially around the glioblastoma world, the survivability as of today is not yet where it's going to be next year and 2030. And there's so many good things out. I just really wanted to be a survival story so I could be an inspiration to at least one person. Because so many of you know, I guess we treat it like we go to the hospital when we need to be in the hospital and then we're gone. We're gone. We're not around to help or inspire anybody else or answer questions. And I've been to the Ivy Center events before when there were more patients. And yeah, if you're not careful it can be very sad. Very sad talking to loved ones of the glioblastoma patients who don't have a lot of hope and don't have a lot of faith. And I think what I learned this last time was that melanoma is kind of melanoma 15 years ago is sort of where glioblastoma is today. Where there weren't a ton of great treatments and the There weren't a lot of I don't I think the first immunotherapy debuted like twelve to fifteen years ago. So there wasn't a there weren't a lot of things. And they were treating melanoma with chemo, which they now know is not effective, at least for most of them. So I think we're on this great verge of where I did come away from the event with a tremendous sense of hope. And I thought the doctors were talking about hope and the research people were talking about hope like they had never done before.
I think that there's more good things coming out of places like Ivy Center and Anderson now and the Seattle biotech community than ever before. So I think there's a lot of reason to be hopeful. And if you're listening to this, I think you're in this situation today for a reason, because there's more cures and more therapies and better doctors, better training.
More possibilities of curing you and helping you than there were even three years ago, let alone 15 years ago.
Blaine: Right. Well, and you said something early on that was interesting. In fact almost right when we started here was that, you know, when you looked at the medical treatments is you know these are all driven, you know, driven by God, that He wants the treatments to be in there and it so it kind of ties all the way full circle back to the end right here where you're talking about it, right? That these are not by accident, right? God's using people to help us do this and
David: He's using some so someone said that to me just a couple of weeks ago. They said, You know the story about the guy in the flood, and he gets to his roof and the boat comes by and he says, You know, can you get in? We'll save you. He goes, No, I got this. God's got me. God's got me. And the story go, you know, it's like, well, that was God. God sent the guy in the boat. That was your last chance. You were on the roof.
It's like this is what God's sending. He's sending you the immunotherapies and these cancer institutes and these fantastic oncologists. He's sending you and there are people who say, I've got a really good friend in Chelan who believes in his prayer group, he believes that some people have been cured just because of prayer.
But I don't know. I don't I guess my faith is not strong enough to believe that's all you need. I think you need to take all the boats that come by. The ones you know you need to take what's offered to you. Yeah.
Blaine: Right. No, I agree. I think there's you know, he works in so many ways. How you know, how can we say, I think he works in this way but not in this way? I mean, how could we even say that? We have no clue how he's working, right? So we have to we have to take them all, you know, kind of on that basis. But, you know, one thing, and I ask several people this and I've thought about this as well, is If you could rewind the tape back to, you know, the day you found out the diagnosis and doing that and you know where you are today, what would you do what would you tell yourself if you could go back in time on that first meeting and have that conversation? What would you tell yourself then?
David: Our friends, we have good friends, the Kolkers, and they Allison got me a I think Allison got me this little plaque right away, like right after the surgery, and it says, God's got this. Or it said, I got this, God, or something like that. It was something like that. I that's what I would have told myself on that day. Like, I've got this. We're gonna be okay.
That's what I would have told myself.
Blaine: Okay. Yep. I think that's you know, we all have we all have that rewind, right, to go back and say what would we have told ourselves at that point in time and I think that's the best possible phrase I think we could tell ourselves is don't worry about it. You know, God's got this and you know, no matter what happens, he's gonna be with you and give you some peace and hope and help you through it all. So
David: Yep. Yep. And if you are listening and you have hearing loss, especially in one ear, or you have dizziness issues, do not let people do what they do to my mother-in-law and just send her off and send her off and send her off from the hospital. Get it checked out. Find out what's going on there. Because even if it's you even if they you know they do Testing or surgery and it's not cancerous. 999 times, the one time it was, is worth it.
Blaine: I couldn't agree more. In fact, there's a the gentleman that's did a podcast very early on, Greg Taylor, who was a physician, and he you know, he ended up with that and he'll tell you the same thing is things just didn't feel right. Now he's a doctor, right? So he would know that, but he says when that happens, you gotta go all in on getting to somebody and get things checked out because there is a reason things are out of sync.
So yep, nope, I agree with that completely. Well, is there anything this has been awesome, the great story and some really good insights here. I really appreciate this, David. Is there anything that you'd like to end with or leave our listeners with before we sign off?
David: If you have that support system you've got a spouse that supports you and you're in this situation just never take that for granted and use your family and your church your community your neighbors take the help that they'll give you take the support they'll give you and you know, don't sweat the small stuff. Like let the like the little interruptions, the little nuances, you know, the little distractions life just let them go. Just focus on the big stuff.
Blaine: There you go. Good advice. Well, hey David, again, thank you so much for taking the time and inspiring others out there. And we know there's a lot more left in your story of what you're gonna do with all of this for sure. I mean it's if you're riding scooters down hills at 40 miles an hour, there's a lot more you got to do. So let's hope that let's hope that's not a repeat. Yeah, let's hope that's not a repeat. All right, thanks, David.
David: Hope so.
Gosh. Never again. Never again. Yep. Blaine, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much. Take care.
Closing
Blaine: "What's next? Where do you want me to go? What do you want me to do? Who do you want me to see?"
WOW... that is one powerful answer. I asked David what he would say if Jesus were sitting right next to him, and that's what came out. What's next?
Did you notice how David's prayers changed during his cancer journey? At first it was, Lord, let me be at my daughter's wedding. Then it was, let me meet a grandchild. I can truly relate to this. When my mother-in-law had cancer and wasn't given a lot of time, she asked God for one more thing...to make it to our daughter's wedding. He granted her that gift...and she not only made it to the wedding but danced. She danced. She passed away a month later...but her prayers were answered.
For David, his prayer changed from asking for more time to... what's next? Where do you want me to go? What do you want me to do for you?
That is a faith growing stronger, right in front of us. His prayers went from asking God for more time... to asking God what the time is for. Let me repeat that because to me it is absolute gold. His prayers went from asking what he wanted God to do for him in his journey to prayers that were now asking God what he could do to help Him build His Kingdom and bring others to Jesus. WOW, that is an incredibly powerful transition if you ask me. And one I believe all of us are on in our cancer journeys and in life.
And here's why I bring that up. Most of us, me included, pray hardest for more time. And you should absolutely keep praying that, boldly. Jesus wants to hear it. But somewhere along the way, I hope you'll add the prayer David prays now... Lord, what's next? Who do you want me to see? Because every day you're given is a day He has a purpose for. Even the hard ones. Even the ones spent in a treatment chair.
I shared this quote with David earlier in our conversation, and it's important enough that it's worth hearing again. It says, "I asked God why He let me go through so much darkness. He answered: so you know the way out, when I send you in for someone else." That's what God wants from all of us on our journeys.
So here's what I hope you carry out of David's story. When God gives you more time... ask Him what it's for. What's next.
Now, I would be remiss if I didn't share one more thing, because I think a lot of us need it.
David told us that old story about the man on his roof in a flood, turning away the boat because God's got him. And the point is... the boat WAS God. David's advice is simple. Take all the boats He sends. The doctors. The treatments that didn't even exist fifteen years ago. The friends who keep calling and refuse to let you get down. You don't have to choose between praying and trusting your doctors. You can absolutely do both. Jesus sends the boats.
And none of what happened to David was luck. Not the doctors who walked into his life, not the treatments, not the friends who kept praying. Jesus sent every one of those boats, and Jesus gets every bit of the credit and the glory.
And David would be the first to tell you it didn't all end tidy. He lost the hearing in his right ear, his balance has never been the same, and he'll be taking medication every day for the rest of his life because of what the treatment did. A miracle and a cost, side by side. If that's where you are living right now, you are in good company... and your story is far from over.
David, thank you, my friend, for trusting us with your story.
And to all of you out there listening, if you have a story of your own, or know someone else who needs to share it... if Jesus has shown up somewhere in your journey, or theirs... I would love to hear it. Go back and listen to our episode, Why Tell Your Story, It Will Heal You First, then reach out to me through our website. Your story might be the boat God sends to someone else.
Until next time, thank you so much for listening today. And please remember... whatever tomorrow holds, Jesus is right there with you, and you are NEVER ALONE. Never. May God bless you, and I hope you have an absolutely awesome rest of your day.