God ~ My Under-Rower

The lady pictured is Murlene. She held a national record ~ the longest living Canadian with cancer. What a record. This dear servant of the Most High God struggled several decades with the dreaded disease and did so with grace and joy. Did she tire along the way? To be sure. Yet look at her smile. This was the Murlene we knew and loved. This month she went to Heaven.

I attended a mission-sponsored learning-styles seminar back in the mid-1990s, and Murlene was there. When the instructor asked us to complete the sentence "God is my...", many of the missionaries volunteered answers like Refuge, Strong Tower, Help, Best Friend, Savior, and more. But we were all taken aback when Murlene spoke with confidence, "God is my Under-Rower."

This dear lady explained that in biblical times slaves were chained in the belly of the ship's bottom-most tier and rowed to the beat of a drum. These men had the most difficult task of plowing oars through the water's depths "three-stories" under. Although they received no recognition and knew they could well die at their posts, these men were essential.

Those of us who knew all Murlene endured understood the depth of that statement. And her Under-Rower carried her through another decade plus of cancer until He carried her Home. But there's more I'd like you to know about this precious sister in Christ. She became our under-rower.

Three months after that learning styles seminar began the toughest period in our lives. Our 16-year-old daughter ran away from home, she accused us of child abuse, department of social services tried to take all our children away, our to-be-adopted special-needs son nearly faced deportment, and much of our church leadership (and ones we thought were friends) turned their backs on us. To this day I cannot fully express in words the horror of those nightmare years.

We shared this pain with our mission board, and they put us on the prayer chain. Several wrote to us, but the most poignant letters we received were from Murlene who expressed her deep sorrow at all the pain we were going through and said she wished she could take that pain and carry it for us.


Wow. When my husband and I read this, we wept. What kind of servant ~ one who suffers every minute she breathes ~ says she'd do this for us if she could? An under-rower ~ one who knows the importance of having someone in your life who will carry you across the rough sea when you cannot travel it yourself. Murlene would bless us with several more letters over those turbulent years.


Thank You, God, for being Murlene's Under-Rower and, in turn, her being that to us. Lord and Savior, thank You for taking on the form of a servant and coming to this earth to die for our sins so that we could be adopted into Your family. And thank you for going through the rough waters with us and rowing when we have no strength to do so. In Jesus' Name, Amen.

Our A-Typical God

Last month doctors discovered our son had a grapefruit-sized tumor under his kidney. Tests before surgery didn't alleviate our fears. The PET scan showed an active tumor, most often associated with cancer. Our son has neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1), a genetic tumor-growing disease, and this mass was a result of that. These particular tumors are transformers and often become cancerous.

We waited three hours before our son's surgeon approached us in the waiting area. There he told us our son's mass was an a-typical NF1 tumor ~ that most of these tend to spread tentacles into other areas, making them much harder to remove. Our son's had not done this. "It was as if it were all patted into a neat ball-like object," the surgeon shared. As he demonstrated with his hands, one question came to mind.

Had God cupped Min's tumor in His Hands and commanded, "you aren't going anywhere"? This is what this "nicely" formed, a-typical growth meant to me. I believe God chose to do that. Not only did He command that mass to stay put, but He also surprised us with the amazing news that the tumor, although precancerous, hadn't developed into full-blown cancer. How we praise our God!

I've heard the term a-typical before in our family's medical journeys. I've come to think of this as a God-description, not unlike the word "miracle." Truly the one who formed the world in His Hands and scooped up clay and breathed life into it could very well have ordered that awful tumor to stop. He's been known to command the elements, and even the wind obeyed.

Although the past few weeks have been a whirlwind of shock, exhaustion, and more, we thank God for being the Miracle-worker ~ God of the a-typical ~ One we can trust even when facing threat of cancer. It's likely we'll take this same journey again, as our son has other plexiform neurofibromas. May we remember what the Great Physician has done and continue to place our son in His Hands.