Lynda had a further scan, which was the most detailed to date (an MRI scan) on 18/1/12. We received the result of this scan on 28/1/12 by post. The scan had not been able to find any indication whatsoever of a malignant tumour and they suggested we should take great reassurance from this – which we have been only too glad to do !!!

We want to reiterate how overwhelmingly grateful we are for your prayers which have completely changed the direction of this situation around for us.

We also want to be very clear in giving God and him alone all the glory, all the praise and all the credit for this most miraculous intervention through the prayers of his people.

God is alive, he is good and he able to do immeasurably more than we ask or imagine. Ephesians 3 v20

With much love and gratitude to you all

Martin and Lynda xx
(Hannah, Josh and Abi)

Just want to start this update by giving thanks to all of you who have so faithfully prayed for Lynda and for us as a family throughout this challenging time. The expressions of support, encouragement and care have been truly overwhelming and have brought into our lives in a very meaningful and tangible way an amazing experience of God’s love, grace and ability to supernaturally strengthen us, at what has been a time of great uncertainty.

The consultation today could not have been more different from the initial one back in mid December. Repeat examination and scans today didn’t find any evidence of the “tumour” they told us they had found on those first examinations and were convinced at the time was malignant. There remain a number of small “fluid filled cysts” which were also present during the first set of scans but no evidence of the tumour.

Because their initial tests were so strongly suggestive of malignancy and their initial communications to us so certain and shocking they still have to investigate Lynda with a different type of scan (an MRI scan) in order to be as certain as they possibly can be that the tumour has gone and that any remaining lumps are only benign cysts. Interestingly enough the original lump that initiated the consultation has been progressively shrinking since people started praying and is now only about 25% of the original size. We anticipate the MRI scan occurring within the next two weeks. While no-one is anticipating anything ominous we would appreciate your prayer cover in ensuring that this scan comes back with a positive and conclusive result.

Having initially geared up to facing a very challenging and uncertain 2012 with the prospect of surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy we are by God’s grace looking forward with a very different perspective. For us this truly is a miraculous intervention and rescue by God in response to the prayers of his people. Having started this update with a sense of gratitude to you all for your support and prayers I want to finish it by giving all praise, honour and glory to God. To our God whose grace is sufficient for us in whatever we’re facing and our God who knows how to rescue and deliver us in response to the prayers of his people.

To him be all the glory, honour and praise forever and ever…..Amen.

With many thanks, much love and a huge amount of appreciation to you all

Martin and Lynda xx
(and Hannah, Josh and Abi xx)

Just to say a big thank you for your support and prayers particularly over the Christmas period for Lynda and for us as a family. Through those prayers we found a supernatural grace to ” switch off” to the uncertainty and concerns around Lynda’s health situation and enjoy both the family and the rest.

Now we are in the new year our attention is back on the hospital follow up which Lynda has on Tuesday 10th January. They suggested on our last visit that further scans and tests were needed as a result of the “inconclusive” biopsy results we received on our last visit.

We would be extremely grateful for further prayer for this coming Tuesday. In particular that all the previous examinations, tests and scans that so strongly suggested cancer would be over turned by positive results that would lead them to a clear conclusion that this is no longer the case.

We really believe that the clear and anticipated conclusions they had previously reached were brought into question on the last visit as a result of your prayers. Our heart would be that God would undertake to completely heal Lynda through those prayers and bring about a miraculous reversal of this situation that appeared so dark and conclusive at one stage.

Again thank you so much for your faithfulness, encouragement and prayers they have been appreciated more than you could ever imagine and by God’s grace we trust will result in a very positive outcome.

With love and appreciation

Martin x

2 Chronicles 6:3-4 (NIV)
While the whole assembly of Israel was standing there, king Solomon turned around and blessed them. Then he said: “Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, who with his hands has fulfilled what he promised with his mouth to my father David.

One of the challenging things in the midst of any crisis is to hear the voice of God. For me this has been especially true in the midst of what have been at times overwhelming levels of emotion and a desire for a “positive” outcome to the health challenges Lynda and the family have been facing at the current time.

During the week between Lynda’s two initial consultations at the hospital and as we wait for further follow up I have been especially cautious in listening to God. I have been all to aware that I could easily convert my own personal desires to avoid loss and suffering into “prophetic” promises from God. Experience has taught me that converting our desires into his desires and promises is always far less sound than aligning our desires with what he is saying and wanting to do. In the midst of a multitude of thoughts, desires, fears and played out scenarios, how to hear the voice of God has been a significant challenge. But God is faithful both in his desire to speak and his ability to make his himself heard above the plethora of other voices that so easily occupy our hearts and minds. With this confidence I decided to wait upon the Lord, not striving, grasping or clinging with desperation to hints, suggestions or possibilities but resting in his eternal nature and in the eternal nature of his work on the cross and trusting him to raise his voice and speak with clarity should he so desire.

Into that context I’ve heard one clear encouragement. The encouragement is simply two words ……….”dream on”. Three times and through three separate sources God spoke
with a clarity that has raised these words above all other words and voices and given me the confidence that he has supernaturally spoken. A confidence at this time of uncertainty to continue to “dream on” in him.

One of the most difficult things to do is to keep on dreaming in the midst of disappointment, discouragement, fear, pain and circumstances contrary to all you’ve desired and believed for. But men and women of faith are called to be habitual dreamers, dreaming against the odds, against the circumstances and continuing to dream in the midst of insecurity, pain, disappointment and fear.

Without a basis of significant substance for habitual dreaming we above all men should be pitied as those continually setting themselves up to repeatedly fall over the hurdles of disappointment and dismay throughout our lives. Wishful desires and thinking just can’t deliver consistently enough throughout life to make the investment worthwhile.

However our call to “dream on” has great substance to it. It is a divine call, a call to co-work with the one who has called us to walk with him not by sight but by faith. And the substance of those divine dreams is none other than God himself. Our God, David’s God, Solomon’s God……the God who promises with his mouth and fulfils with his hands. The nature of God is that he is continually using his mouth to speak his word, his dreams, his desires, his promises and is continually using his hands to fulfil every aspect of all his has spoken.

I’d love to say that I’m such a great man of faith that “dreaming on” has always been like falling off a log throughout my life. I think that is genuinely how it is for some people and I envy them greatly for their simplicity of faith. Unfortunately that’s not the case and never has been for me. Continuing to be a dreamer for me has involved frequent and repetitive rounds of “wrestling”. Wrestling to keep hold of God, wrestling to keep hold of his word and wrestling to stay soft hearted in the midst of disappointments and challenges has often been my “behind closed doors” experience. However it is also been my experience that the wrestling, while hard, is always ultimately worthwhile. For me it’s part of what Paul was referring to as “fighting the good fight of faith” …..it’s a good fight, it’s a worthwhile fight. The fight, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to stay soft hearted towards God and his word and to keep living life full of God’s dreams is a worthwhile fight.

To fail to ” dream on” is to miss the heart and the nature of walking by faith with our great God. And our great God is someone who from the beginning of time has been promising with his mouth and fulfilling those promises with his hand.

My prayer at this time for me and my family is that God will always give us such a strong confidence in his love, his nature and his word that we never stop dreaming the dreams he is placing in our hearts.
 

Having been told last week, after several scans and examinations that we were going back this week primarily to see from the biopsies the type of cancer Lynda had, the extent of the spread and to discuss dates for treatment, we ended up being told that the biopsies were inconclusive. This means they neither confirm the presence of the cancer nor conclusively confirm it’s absence. They therefore want to repeat some of the tests we’ve had and undertake further scans of a different nature. Unfortunately these can only be meaningfully undertaken if the existing bleeding and bruising from multiple biopsies last week has settled which in effect means that they want to wait until after Christmas.

This gives us some renewed hope but continues to leave a huge uncertainty over what we are facing. We do feel God may be working quite miraculously at this time in answer to the prayers that many of you have been submitting to God on our behalf. But in truth it is far too early to claim a miraculous deliverance (as desperately as we want to).

We are hugely encouraged by the support and prayers that we have received from you all. We have all felt a remarkable grace from God in the midst of the challenge we’ve faced and continue to face. We have to admit to a fresh ray of hope breaking in with the surprise of yesterday’s results but have to remain somewhat guarded in terms of drawing to much encouragement from them, particularly as the hospital continue to remain suspicious of the biopsy results in light of all their other tests and findings. Hence their commitment to further investigations.

Your prayers around the following issues would be appreciated:-

1. For God to miraculously and supernaturally intervene with his healing power and bring about   complete rescue for Lynda.
2. For further results and tests to come back negative.
3. For us to have grace to live with the ongoing uncertainty (particularly over Christmas and the new year).

With many many thanks

Martin X

Psalm 18 is where I’m living at the current time.

V1 says “I love you, Lord, my strength”.

V1 is our starting place in the midst of the challenge we find ourselves in with Lynda having breast cancer.

At this point we have no idea what we are facing. How extensive the spread and how aggressive the cancer is both of these factors have a huge impact on the medical approach and outcome.  While i am clearly praying for miraculous intervention and healing (and know God can do it) there is at this time a significant challenge.

The big challenge for me is to reach the place where I can give Lynda completely over to God and settle the issue that it might be a time in which God wants to take her home to be with him. Am I willing to give her to God and to allow him to take us on a journey of suffering and death that brings glory to him and brings many others into an experience of his glory. Sometimes the glory goes to God through supernatural rescue and miraculous healing but sometimes it comes through the cross, through suffering and death.

I’m absolutely desperate to avoid suffering for my wife and my children. Because they are the most precious thing God has ever given me. I’m  desperate for his glory to come through supernatural healing and rescue rather than through taking us through the valley of the shadow of death.  I feel like we’re in our own personal garden of Gethsemane. Crying out to God that if it be possible that he would let such an hour pass from us. But I love God, he is my Lord, my wife’s Lord and the Lord of my children. I have no doubt about his power and goodness or his ability to save and rescue. And death itself holds no fear for us. Our Jesus has had complete and total victory over death. The one who loves us also holds the keys of death and hell. He has granted us eternal life, clothed us with the imperishable and gone ahead of us into the Father’s presence to prepare a room for us. Our lives, my wife’s life is hidden in Christ with God. He has set our lives into the context of eternity. Therefore we can say with confidence to live is Christ but to die is gain.

My great desire for us as a family is that our love for the Lord will cause us to say like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego  in Daniel chapter 3 as we enter this fiery furnace of trial and challenge ” Our God is well able to rescue us from this furnace but even if he doesn’t our worship and love steadfastly remains towards him.

Psalm 18 starts with the most precious thing we can give to the Lord…..our love. My starting place for this trial is the love of my family for God and his great love for us. God has demonstrated his love for us once and for all through the cross. The cross has said it all. No more needs to be said or proved by God to us on that issue. We feel wonderfully and extravagantly loved by him. And we will not reinterpret  his heart for us or love towards us through these light and momentary troubles. Nor will we interpret his eternal character and his nature as described in scripture and demonstrated through Christ and the cross through the temporary nature and troubles of this fallen world. God who sits in the context of eternity sees the beginning from the end. He sees in full, we see from our limited temporary perspective only a small part. And the one who sees the beginning from the end says to us,  as we set our hearts towards him with our love, that nothing can separate us from his love. Romans 8:38 “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,  neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

We love you. You are our Lord at this time. And you are also our strength at this time of trial and uncertainty. Thank you whatever we face we can face it with you.