A Christian and a Storm Called Cancer

By Darren M. Zych and Dr. Kunle Odunsi

Who doesnt like a good storm? The sound of thunder in the distance or waves crashing against the rocks. Having been born and raised in Western New York all of my life, I have seen some of the most fierce winter storms on record. The Blizzard of 77 truly is the benchmark for those who lived through it. Along with that just mention the phrase Lake Effect joined with the unimaginable 4-6 inches of snow per hour it produces and you then get a good idea of what I mean. However the storm I was about to enter into had nothing to do with weather, but rather with my very existence itself!

Darrens testimony of Gods goodness in the midst of the Storm of Cancer is inspiring. Like me, I hope and pray that you are blessed by this book. Dr. Kunle Odunsi. Deputy Director Roswell Park Cancer Institute.

If your facing the Storm of Cancer, this book is a Must! Pastor Chuck Pezzino. Creekside Assembly of God.

In A Christian and a Storm Called Cancer, Gods Ultimate Perfect Will is Perpetuated and Revealed. A Must Read filled with Applicable Truth and Practical, Shareable Resources. Kevin Klenke , Owner Voipteck Solutions LLC & Worship Leader Evangel Assembly of God.

Though this book has an emphasis on Cancer, I found it to be insightful, inspirational and helpful for any storm scenario one might be going through. John OKeefe, Worship Leader & Songwriter for Creekside Assembly of God.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jan 19, 2018
• ISBN: 9781973612759

Darren M. Zych

Darren has been teaching Small Groups, Adult Sunday School, Mid-Week and Sunday Night Service's for close to 30 years.He has a M.A in Theology from Trinity Theological Seminary and performed his under graduate studies through Global University along with Berean School of the Bible. Darren has three 3 grown sons and together they reside in the Western New York area. You can reach Darren at [e-mail]

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Copyright © 2018 Darren M. Zych.

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.

Cover design by Jeremiah Zych.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

WestBow Press

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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.

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ISBN: 978-1-9736-1276-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-1277-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-1275-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017919792

WestBow Press rev. date: 01/19/2018

CONTENTS

Dedication

Special Thanks

Foreword

Introduction

Section 1.   A Storm Called Cancer

1.   The Purpose Behind God’s Storms

2.   A Storm Called Cancer.

3.   Golden Nuggets Along the Way to Encourage & Strengthen You During Every Phase of the Storm.

4.   David Had His Mighty Men, I Had Mine.

5.   Stop Pretending to be Someone Your Not!

6.   The Joy of Small Blessing along the Way

7.   Reflections.

8.   A Much Greater Storm on the Horizon.

Section 2.   Your 90 Day Journal

Section 3.   Your Workbook

1.   Your Storm

2.   Your Golden Nuggets

3.   Your Mighty Men

4.   Your Blessings

5.   Your Prayer List

Special Bonus Section for Pastors, Teachers and Small Group Leaders.

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to all Christians who are facing the storm of cancer. Whether themselves, husbands, wives, children, parents, friends, co-workers, neighbors or anyone else. It is my prayer that it will be a constant source of strength and encouragement that the Lord can and will offer in this seemingly dark and unexpected season of life.

Always remembering that nothing with the Lord is by chance or accident. It is by His goodness and kindness that He has allowed this storm to blow into the port of your life for His ultimate Honor and Glory.

For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory forever. Amen. Romans 11:36

SPECIAL THANKS

To My Family

To Dave & Diane, Mark & Amber, John & Karen, Al & Mary, Chris & Kellie as well as all of my nieces & nephews who kept me in their thoughts and prayers during this time.

To My Church Family

To Pastor Chuck & John, Joe & Mark, Pastor Mike, Kevin & Jeff for their warm & uplifting visits. Also to everyone at Creekside & Evangel Assembly of God for all of their get well wishes and cards along with holding me up in prayer before the Lord.

To My Roswell Family

Special thanks to Dr. Wang & her entire staff at Roswell Park Cancer Institute on all levels who carefully watched over and guided me through my treatment and recovery. To the entire staff on 5 West at RPCI from all the Nurses, Aides, NP’s, Pharmacist’s and to the various Specialists who never left my side for the 35 days I was with them. To everyone from the Leukemia Clinic for all of their help and the same to everyone in the Infusion Center who were with me for my Out Patient Care Therapy. Special thanks to Mike R. for the insertion of my PICC lines on several occasions along with Kevin, my physical therapist who was a constant source of encouragement. Finally, thanks to the many volunteers who I got a chance to know throughout my time at RPCI.

For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have shewed toward his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister. Hebrews 6:10

FOREWORD

The age-long question that everyone asks when the storm of life hits is: Why me? Why this? The storm could be a serious illness such as cancer, job loss, bankruptcy, accident, loss of a loved one, divorce, and the list goes on. These storms of life do not discriminate: they can strike male, female, black, white, young, old, poor, rich, family, community, and many times they occur without warning. In fact, if you have never experienced a storm in your life, I can guarantee you that it will come, it’s only a matter of time.

In Christian circles, the answers that you get to the questions of why are often not entirely satisfactory. How exactly should we try and handle the storms of life? Are we to have a fatalistic attitude of Ques sera sera (i.e. whatever will be will be)? During the storm, our faith is tried, our eyes dimmed with tears, our ears distracted by the noises of the world, and we can no longer hear the sweet accents of His still small voice. Our cherished plans are thwarted and friends on whom we relied upon have failed or betrayed us. We feel as if a dark cloud is hiding Him from us. We find it difficult to harmonize our situation with His gracious promises. In this book, "A Christian and a Storm Called Cancer," Darren Zych addresses these questions head-on through the lens of his own personal storm with cancer. The problem with many of us is that we are often not prepared for storms, especially when they turn into big storms. This book has encouraged, blessed, and challenged me, and I believe that the lessons and principles from the book are applicable to many other types of storms that may come into our lives.

I have known Darren for more than 17 years since my family moved to western New York and we started attending Evangel Assembly of God Church in Williamsville. For more than 5 years, Darren taught my Sunday school class week after week. It was clear to all of us that he is truly gifted in the teaching of the word. We could never get enough as he constantly used his gift to expound scripture in a unique way, with the highest sense of responsibility and humility, and yet with the right mix of humor, seriousness, and wit. Daren has brought this gifting as a teacher to bear in this book. The result – perhaps the most easy to follow, comprehensible exposition not only of why, but also the how to handle the storm. The book describes the physical, and spiritual aspects of the storm; and how the spiritual impacts the body, soul and spirit. Darren loved to summarize his take home messages at the Sunday school classes with golden nuggets and I could not help but chuckle when I found that once again, he effectively used this approach to communicate some salient points in the book.

When Darren first contacted me to write the foreword, although I felt honored, unbeknownst to him, I also asked in my mind, why me? Apart from the fact that we are both born again believers in the finished work of redemption by grace through the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus, I came up with two additional reasons. These two reasons will color several of my comments.

The first reason is that I am a cancer physician and scientist, and I work at Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI), the same hospital where Darren was treated. My clinical practice and laboratory research are focused on gynecological cancers, especially ovarian cancer. I have seen young and old patients afflicted with cancer and have witnessed how the devastating news of cancer impacts the lives of patients and their loved ones. I consider myself privileged to practice at an institution like RPCI, where we are able to offer hope to our patients by using the very best and latest state-of-the art treatments and also push the envelope with innovative experimental therapies for cancer. Despite the tremendous progress made by modern medicine, I have found that no amount of education and training prepares you for the gut wrenching discussions that occur with patients and their families when there are no further effective treatments. So back to the question of why - what are the reasons for the storm of cancer or any type of storm in the life of the Christian? Of the three reasons put forth in the book by Darren, I will dwell for a moment on reason #3: "… for only the Lord to know."

The fact is that God is sovereign. Divine sovereignty means that God is God, in fact, as well as in name, that He is on the throne of the universe, directing all things, working all things, "after the counsel of His own will" (Eph 1:11). The psalmist goes on to say "Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that He did in heaven, and in earth, in the seas, and all the deep places" (Psa. 135:6).Perhaps the highest and grandest display of the absolute sovereignty of God is found in Rom. 9:18. He has mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth.

But against this background of His sovereignty, He is also a God of love and exercises His sovereignty with mercy, compassion and grace. Take the greatest example in the history of mankind, our Lord Jesus Christ. Facing the agony of the cross, He was in great physical, mental, emotional and spiritual distress, to the point of beseeching the Father whether there might be another way to redeem us, but there was none. Jesus went to the cross, not out of weakness and defeat, but out of strength and faith in the Father, who loved Him. Our Lord trusted the Father’s heart of love and compassion, and His purpose. The storm that Christ endured at the cross provided the cure for the spiritual form of cancer, sin, which man by himself cannot cure. Because of the storm of the cross, we can be spared the eternal storm of death and hell. As Darren puts it in the book, God has the same love for you as He has for Jesus, and even in your storm, you are nothing more than a servant of God subject to His plans and purposes for His and only His ultimate honor and glory.

While the book dwells on deep theological truths that form the foundations of our faith, it is at the same time very practical. Darren’s experience illustrates how we need a solid support system from family and friends to go through our storm. In one of the golden nuggets, Darren highlights how we can still bring a sacrifice of praise to God during the storm. Over and over again in scripture, God’s people face annihilation by their enemies, and many times their weapon is praise. In the example of King Jehoshaphat(2Chr 20:15, 21-22), the Lord said:"Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army. For the battle is not yours, but God’s….. After consulting the people, Jehoshaphat appointed men to sing to the LORD and to praise him for the splendor of his holiness as they went out at the head of the army, saying: ‘Give thanks to the LORD, for his love endures forever.’ As they began to sing and praise, the LORD set ambushes against the men of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir who were invading Judah, and they were defeated.How do we praise? Note that the praise by God’s people was while they were under siege by their enemies, i.e. while the storm was raging. Such praise must have been sacrificial. Hebrews 13:15-17 tells us how; Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise-the fruit of lips that confess his name. And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased." We can always praise God in the storm by understanding that He is our sufficiency. He meets every need, and sees us through every trial. Each one should strengthen us. And sometimes, praise alone is enough to lift our hearts to victory.

In Golden Nugget #7, Darren quotes from James 1:2-4: Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. This is tough! Easier said than done! Joy in the face of trials or storm? James explains that we should be joyful because the testing of our faith develops a quality of character in our life that is like that which Christ exhibited, perseverance. Without perseverance, when the going gets tough, our effectiveness for the Lord will diminish. That is why the Lord allows storms of many kinds to come our way.

This leads me to the second reason why Darren asked me to write. You see, my family and I experienced our own major storm on Father’s day a couple of years ago. I clearly remember that Sunday morning. We had everything going for us – kids were doing well, my wife got a new job that she loved, I had just been promoted at work, life was good, praise the Lord! My wife and I had gone to the early morning service. It was a great service, and in fact, we sang one of my favorite songs:

Every blessing You pour out, I’ll

Turn back to praise

When the darkness closes in, Lord

Still I will say

Blessed be the name of the Lord

Blessed be Your name

Blessed be the name of the Lord

Blessed be Your glorious name

Blessed be Your name

When the sun’s shining down on me

When the world’s ‘all as it should be’

Blessed be Your name

Blessed be Your name

On the road marked with suffering

Though there’s pain in the offering

Blessed be Your name

You give and take away

You give and take away

My heart will choose to say

Lord, blessed be Your name

After the service, we went on to Sunday school. Shortly after settling down, we got a phone call from our eldest daughter that her husband, Don was not feeling well, and she had called an ambulance. I responded by saying to let me know when they get to the emergency room, in case I needed to speak with the doctors. Our daughter called back about 10 minutes later stating that the paramedics were giving Don chest compression. To cut a long story short, Don barely made it to the hospital. All efforts to resuscitate him were unsuccessful and he went home to be with the Lord at the young age of 32 years. All within one hour of the first phone call! To shed more light, they had been married 7 years and Don had become a son to me. Before Don, I had never seen a man with such great faith and passion for the Lord. He was extravagant in always praising God with his lips. With almost every sentence that came out of his mouth was some way of thanking God such as we thank God and King Jesus reigns.We were all devastated. It just didn’t make sense, and the age-old question on everyone’s lips was why?

Think about it. Within one hour of sitting in the church pew and singing "When the darkness closes in, Lord Still I will say Blessed be the name of the Lord", tragedy struck. To this day, I still don’t have the answers to the why, but I know that He