It has been a long time since my last post. I would apologize, except I really haven’t been clear enough about … well, about almost anything. And my head is just starting to form legible thoughts. So maybe you should thank me for not writing until now. :-)

Quick recap: I was diagnosed with cancer in May. In June it was confirmed that it was melanoma, and that was pretty much everywhere and spreading fast, and that my prognosis was grim. In July I started treatment. I had targeted radiation on 4 brain tumors to buy a little time, but was told that it did not heal anything. And I started immunotherapy, but had a bad auto-immune reaction to the drugs. In August they stopped all treatments due to my reaction, and I have had no treatment since. But people prayed for me. Lots of people prayed for me. They asked God to heal me, to make me cancer-free, to give me 7 more years of fruitful ministry. On December 10, 2019 a series of CT scans showed all of the cancer was gone or dead. And a high-resolution MRI confirmed that there are no tumors in my brain. I was healed.

My friend, Bryan Hollinger still prays for me. I got to share my story with the staff at Esperanza Health Center in Philadelphia, who all prayed for me.

This week I had another series of CT scans – my 90-day follow up - and met with my oncologist. My healing is confirmed: NO CANCER!!! No new leisions, and no old ones either. I am cancer-free by the power of God and in answer to the prayers of people who called on Him on my behalf.

You can imagine the overwhelming sense of relief, joy, gratefulness, thanksgiving, and liberty that I feel. What might be more difficult to understand is the sense of raw humility, question, confusion, and even guilt that I am still sifting through. I know that some of those emotions don’t make much sense. But they are real. I can’t really put into words what it has been to work through some of those. Hence the long silence.

I took a few weeks off during the holidays to process, but frankly didn’t get much time to work through stuff. When I returned to work, we had a lot of catching up to do. Some of that involved traveling again, which I enjoy. For the past couple of months I have done a lot of traveling. I call it my “Thank You For Praying For Me Tour”. I have had the honor of sharing my story face-to-face with over 30 groups of people in 11 states. I am in a season where pretty much all I am is grateful.

These 2 brothers prayed for me daily since June. I got to meet them in person a couple of weeks ago.

I can always find some humor in this. People are excited to see me, overjoyed that I am healed. But privately when we are alone they get a very serious look on their faces and ask me how I am feeling - like maybe I’ll drop dead any minute. There is a funny verse at the beginning of Acts in the New Testament. It says “After Jesus was raised from the dead, he spent 40 days with his disciples, giving them many convincing proofs that he was alive.” How many convincing proofs do you need! What did that even look like? Well, that is what I feel like I am doing… visiting people and giving them many convincing proofs that I am alive! I might have a tree fall on me tomorrow, but I am not dying of cancer!

There is somberness in all this, too. I recently had a call from a lady who I know through CCHF. We needed to talk business; but she began our conversation by saying, “Steve, I haven’t heard anything from you in a long time. How are you feeling. I have been praying for you.” She had not read my blogs since November, and had not heard about my “all-clear” report. So I shared my good news with great exuberance, and thanked her for praying for me. I could tell she was pretty emotional, which I took to be her being overcome with joy and gratefulness like I was. But after a long, emotional silence, she told me that last year her son had died of cancer. He was almost 20 years younger than me. He fought hard. It was ugly. He suffered alot. She said, “I didn’t pray any harder for you than I did for him.” Her grief, still very fresh, broke my heart. I’m so grateful that she had the courage to share that with me.

I don’t have an answer. I don’t think God loved me more than him. I don’t think God loves my family more than hers. I don’t think my faith was greater than his.

“Messiah” is a series on Netflix that I recommend. Not good for kids, and not “Christian”, but very thought provoking. The writers get a lot of things right.

There is a series on Netflix called “Messiah” that I like. It is not Biblical, and it is certainly not Christian. But it is well done, and portrays a “messiah” figure in a way that makes you wonder how Jesus would have been perceived had he been born in this century instead of 2 millenia ago. In one of my favorite scenes a young follower witnesses part of an encounter between the main character and a suspicious woman. The young girl is disillusioned and hurt. The messianic character never offers a defense, though he was innocent. And he never directly answers her question. He simply gives her the right to ask it, and says, “You are not going to understand everything that happens. You have to trust that I have a special place for you.”

It is not for me to defend God. He doesn’t need me to. I am convinced that God grieves with my friend over the loss of her son. I believe that He suffered with her son and that He never left him.

As for me, I can receive only what I am given, which is this amazing gift of miracle healing and extended life. I will praise Him for than, even though others grieve. We only taste of the power of an age to come, an age when the enemy called Death will be vanquished forever.

My gratefulness is amplified, knowing that this sweet friend prayed for me, even in her grief. In spite of her painful loss, she prayed for my gain. In our phone visit that afternoon, we grieved together and we rejoiced together. And we both praised God for His goodness – His goodness to her and to her son, and His goodness to me and to my family.

Some people, including some close friends, treat my healing as though I have been lucky. “Good for you, Steve. Wonderful news. It doesn’t work for everyone, but good for you”, as though it were fate or chance. I have grace for them. I haven’t figured it out yet either. I don’t have all the answers. But I don’t believe God is fickle or erratic. God doesn’t wake up and arbitrarily decide to heal 50 people today, and throw his blessings into the masses like some rich tourist throwing coins into a crowd of begging children. I am fickle. You may be fickle. God is not fickle.

God does, however, dwell in mystery. The Greek word for ‘mystery’ is different than what it means in English. It doesn’t mean some secret we will never know. It means something that we can know only because it is being revealed to us. Mystery is not an excuse. It is an invitation to seek Him. He promises that if we seek we will find. The more I seek Him, the more I realize how little I know. But I increasingly realize how beautiful He is. He is worth our attention. He certainly has mine.

I have a few more things on my mind. I promise to try to share them more frequently. Thank you for praying for me, and for the gift of your time. Thank you for walking with me down this often dark and often beautiful path.

Convincing Proof That I am Alive…

This unflattering pic is of me sharing with a group at a health center that has prayed for me faithfully since last June. Part of my “Thank You For Praying” tour last month.

Weapons into Garden Tools

My friend Tom and I visited Shane Claiborne, a guy for whom I have mad respect. I get to tell my story before Shane speaks at the CCHF conference in Cincinnati later this month.
(The garden tools were forged from firearms from Shane’s neighborhood. Micah 4:1-4)