The Culture of Hope Founded on Faith

By Susan Merritt PhD

When Dan Merritt was diagnosed with a rare cancer called
mantle cell lymphoma, he and his wife, Susan, asked God to show them the fulfillment of the great and precious promises that are guaranteed in 2 Peter 1:3–4. As a result, through the losses and mourning that come with a catastrophic episode like this, they found themselves living in the culture of hope founded on faith.

Follow the story of their journey into their new mission field of medical offices and hospital rooms. Learn how God carried them all the way to healing and gave them a brand new understanding of Him and His promises. Find out how you can follow God and live in the culture of hope even when your life turns 180 degrees from what you expected it to be.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: May 4, 2017
• ISBN: 9781512784237

Susan Merritt PhD

Susan Merritt is a retired teacher who lives in Nevada with her husband. They have three adult children who are each married and have children of their own. Dr. Merritt holds a PhD in Biblical Studies and is the author of The Gift of Seeing Angels and Demons: A Handbook for Discerners of Spirits and Reformation Trilogy. Contact Dr. Merritt at https://www.susanmerrittphd.com.

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The Culture of

HOPE

Founded on

Faith

Susan Merritt, PhD

Copyright © 2017 Susan Merritt, PhD.

Cover Photo: Copyright © 2014 Susan Merritt PhD

Cover Design: Copyright ©2017 Susan Merritt PhD

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

All Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, Authorized King James Version. First published in 1611. Quoted from Zondervan Publishing House KJV Printed in Great Britain by Eyre and Spottiswoode Ltd., London. E11-Z9-January, 1972. Public Domain.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

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Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

ISBN: 978-1-5127-8422-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-8424-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-8423-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017906227

WestBow Press rev. date: 10/18/2023

To Dan,

my husband, best friend,

and companion in faith.

CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1 – The Diagnosis

Chapter 2 – Losses

Chapter 3 – Faith to Believe the Promises

Chapter 4 – To Know Jesus

Chapter 5 – No Shortcuts

Chapter 6 – Mourn

Chapter 7 – Rebuke Satan

Chapter 8 – Choose to Follow God’s Word

Chapter 9 – The New Mission Field

Chapter 10 – From Faith to Hope

Chapter 11 – God’s Pattern of Protection

Chapter 12 – Roads and Rivers

Chapter 13 – Forgiveness

Chapter 14 – Don’t Worry, Be Thankful!

Chapter 15 – What Can I Do to Help?

Chapter 16 – The Story Doesn’t End Here

Chapter 17 – Promises to Memorize

Conclusion – The Secret Place

Notes

Bibliography

INTRODUCTION

In January 2006, my husband was diagnosed with a rare cancer called mantle cell lymphoma. At the time the prognosis was not good; the normal life expectancy for someone with this kind of cancer was between two and five years from the date of diagnosis, and that was with treatment. But an extant clinical study at Stanford was demonstrating a hopeful breakthrough in research for this cancer that was a game-changer for a type of cancer that had not had optimistic results before. During the course of my husband’s treatments with the new medical protocols from that study, we discovered a new level of faith in God and a brand-new understanding of the great and precious promises of God (2 Peter 1:4).

Up to that point, neither of us remembers more than a handful of Christians we had known who, in the face of catastrophic circumstances, demonstrated the kind of peace and joy that the Bible talks about. In the midst of, humanly speaking, tragic events and terminal illness, even Christians expect to be prostrated with despair. But my Bible tells me of a different scenario, one in which hope is made possible by the presence of the Holy Spirit in us.

My husband and I both wanted to see biblical truth confirmed in practice. Knowing that God was about to test us in an enormous way, we prayed that He would, indeed, confirm His Word in us. We also prayed that we would honor God throughout this episode no matter what He would use to rock our world out of its recognizable orbit.

The primary focus of our journey into this aspect of Christianity was the faith required to believe God’s Word. Without faith in what God has promised, we would have missed the blessing of His peace and joy in the middle of the most difficult trial we had ever experienced. Those blessings included the experience of

•God’s uninterrupted presence,

•His still small voice,

•the guarding of our minds and hearts,

•perfect peace,

•refuge and strength in God’s presence,

•victory through our Lord Jesus Christ,

•the perfection of God’s timing.

God brought my husband through the cancer treatments somewhat compromised physically, but the spiritual lessons God taught us over the course of that year turned that event in our lives into one we would not willingly give up. The spiritual blessings and growth of that time far outweigh the physical and emotional toll this hurdle exerted on us.

We are not the only ones who have experienced God’s blessing during cancer treatments. We have prayed for and rejoiced to see this same kind of peace, joy, and closer walk with God in our friends Dave and Pam as well as in Dan and Patty. These two couples are going through rare and life-threatening medical issues with the clear experience of God’s promises in action, just as we had.

God desires His people to go ever deeper into Him, and He uses every event in our lives to lead us in that inward journey. James 1:2–4 exhorts us to Count it all joy when you fall into divers [trials]; knowing this, that the trying of your faith works patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that you may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

There are no shortcuts to knowing God better or to becoming closer to the perfect conformity to Himself that Jesus requires of His disciples (Matthew 5:48). We, as His children, are called to simply know and apply the truths of Scripture (2 Timothy 2:15) in both the everyday commerce of human life as well as in the big events that disrupt all our preconceived notions of how our lives should unfold. All of us will, at some point in our lives, experience events that feel like the end of the world.

Each of us needs to allow God to prepare our hearts in advance for times of devastation through study, memorization, and meditation on His Word. It is like training for a marathon. We don’t get up off our couches without any prior physical fitness preparation and win a marathon. In the same way we are unable to rest in God’s Word and His Promises if we don’t know them.

Based on that premise, this book explores the role that the biblical promises of God have in the lives of Christians as we experience pain, trauma, and loss in this world. In addition, we will examine the function of faith as the basis of the hope that is inherent in biblical Christianity and the Christian walk.

Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost. (Romans 15:13)

CHAPTER 1

The Diagnosis

The Symptoms

For over a year, I had been encouraging my husband to go to a doctor about what appeared to be sleep apnea issues.

No, no, he said. It’ll be all right.

Beginning in April, 2005, I frequently woke Dan up in the middle of the night, frustrated with my often and abruptly interrupted sleep. My earplugs no longer blocked out the sound of his loud gasping for air after increasingly long periods of time of not breathing at all. I told him I would continue to nag him about his apnea and his need to go to the doctor. More often than not, he slept in his recliner in the living room because he couldn’t breathe lying down.

That summer, Dan appeared to have developed allergies as well. Everyone agreed that it was a bad allergy year.

Go to the doctor, I said. He would at least give you something to relieve the symptoms.

No, No, Dan said. It’ll be all right.

He didn’t go to the doctor and continued to become more and more exhausted for lack of sleep. He rarely stayed awake long enough to carry on a conversation once he sat down after work each day. His head would fall forward and through his shirt I could see his chest muscles working desperately to take in air. Unless his head was upright, he was unable to breathe at all. Nor was he able to sleep for much more than a minute at a time.

That fall, the allergy symptoms worsened. He would come home from choral rehearsals for the annual Messiah performance with severe backaches and exhaustion. He did sing the bass solos for Messiah the first weekend of December, but he had no resonance and found it exhausting. He finally made an appointment with the physician assistant.

The PA told him he was allergic to the cat we’d had for sixteen years, and he gave Dan medications to dry things up. Dan was not convinced the diagnosis was correct so, after some pressure, the PA agreed to order a CT scan.

The report we received from the scan indicated enlarged adenoids. The possibility of lymphoma was also noted because of his age so Dan was referred to an ENT in Reno, Nevada. The appointment was made for more than a month later. When Dan told me, I was angry and told him the appointment needed to be right away, not six weeks out. I even offered to make the call myself.

He said, No, no. It’ll be all right.

A week later Dan finally recognized that his condition was rapidly deteriorating and called the doctor’s office to see if we could get in sooner. We were able to get an appointment for two weeks later, December 27.

The Bottom Falls Out

Dr. Hudson, the ENT doctor, put the CT scan from our local medical facility up on the light panel and outlined a large area in the center. He said he would like to know what that mass was. There was a minuscule opening in front of the mass, the only place Dan had to breathe through. After he did a nasal scope procedure that gave no new information, Dr. Hudson was able to get Dan in for an MRI late that afternoon; he made a follow-up appointment for two days later.

By that time, we knew that this was not going to be a simple adenoidectomy. We canceled travel plans for January and decided not to say anything more about it to anyone until we had a firm diagnosis. We felt like liars for having indicated first allergies and then adenoids to well-meaning friends and family who asked, because they were praying for us. We did not want to make any more misleading statements. There were those who were offended and angry that we did not share information with them. Praise God for those who accepted that we had no information to share.

Today the bottom fell out of our life. So reads my journal entry for Thursday, December 29, 2005. On that day we visited the ENT to view the MRI taken of Dan’s head two days before. What we saw on that film gave us pause to do a double take even before the doctor began to speak. An inverted, cone-shaped tumor two and a half inches across by three inches down was lodged at the base of Dan’s brain behind his nose. It was impinging on his Eustachian tubes, nasal passage, and soft palette. Dr. Hudson made it clear that, whatever it was, it could not be removed by surgery because of its proximity to Dan’s brain. The doctor made an appointment for a biopsy to be done at Washoe South Meadows Hospital on Monday, January 2.

Before heading home that day, we went to Washoe South Meadows for a pre-op EKG. The following afternoon, the doctor called to say that there was an anomaly in the EKG and the anesthesiologist would not proceed without a cardiologist’s okay. Our doctor’s office was closed already, so we went to urgent care in order to get a referral. After a two-hour wait, the PA Dan had seen two weeks before saw us and hedged about making the appointment because this was a holiday weekend. He might be able to get an appointment in two weeks.

I lost that spiritual battle with impatience