My teammate Johnny has been one of the most influential people on the race that I have met. I love Johnny as if he were my biological brother. At training camp Johnny, and I had an amazing conversation about life and its hardships. After training camp I called Johnny when i found out my mom had bladder cancer knowing that his mom had the same cancer. He is someone who I admire and whose leadership skills amaze me everyday. He allows Christ to make the decisions in his life and not his own thoughts. He always knows what to say in a situation, whether that be the hard truth or an uplifitng comment. Johnny and his family need all the prayer they can get right now. His mothers cancer has returned. Please read his blog and lift his family up as you pray everyday.
It’s interesting when something like this happens when you are literally on the other side of the world. You think about going home, you think of worst-case scenarios, and you let it take up 110% of your thoughts. You find yourself wanting to be there and try to convince yourself that if you were home that you could fix it somehow. You may even find yourself saying, “All I can do is pray”. But I’ll get to that later.
My mom had bladder cancer before I left for the race and she had surgery to get it removed. She was cancer free as of a month before the I left for my 11-month journey around the world. While I was in Cambodia, which was about a month and a half ago, I got an email from my sister that the cancer came back.
Reading that is like stepping in front of a double decker bus.
The cancer came back to where her bladder once was and a small growth was found on her liver. The question is how do I not let that take over every second of my minds time? My sister Diana who is 8 months pregnant with my first nephew Dawson has been amazing at keeping me updated on what is happening with my mom. She keeps me in the loop with her doctor’s appointments and how she is feeling.
I often feel that if only I was home I could fix all of this. That by me being there I could make the cancer go away. But the truth is that I can’t do anything to heal her. I don’t have the power to heal her and that drops me to my knees.
(mom and I chatting before I left for the race)
This is what it feels like to be kicked while I am down.
All I can do is pray…
“NO JOHNNY! THAT’S THE MOST YOU CAN DO! Direct communication with God, that’s powerful.”… That’s what my friend Tyler Harris said to me a few years back in the back of a car in Indiana. How right he is.
So I’m praying. I’m praying that God will heal her because I cant. I know he can, because he is God. I do find that I have a fear of being let down by God and that if my mom isn’t healed, then that will make God look like he isn’t God.
I find myself expecting questions from back home like “Where is your God now Johnny?”, and that scares me because I cant afford to let God look bad.
There is a spoken word artist named Propaganda and he has something to say about defending God that I love. He Says…
“Trying to Prove God is like trying to prove a lion, it doesn’t need your help, just open the cage”
I’m going to let God be God and me be me. I’m going to trust God and trust that his plan is better than any plan that I have or could think of. I am going to pray like the persistent widow in the bible and try to annoy God with the amount of prayers I am sending up to him.
Where do you come in?
I am asking you to pray with me. I’m asking that you will pray boldly with me. Pray for healing in the name of Jesus and no other name. Pray for wise doctors and effective Chemotherapy.
Please share this blog on your twitter, Facebook, instagram or whatever there is. I want the whole world Praying for my mom. Her birthday falls on mother’s day this year, which is May 12th.
Doctors treat, Jesus heals.
Pray with Confidence with me.
I promise a blog about this past month and what Christ has been doing in me will be coming shortly…
