Cancer and God

                        

I promised a post on Cancer and God, so here it is! 

When I was 18yrs old I had my first experience of God. I worked in a clothes shop in Belfast City Centre and one of my work colleagues was a  devout Christian. I didn’t believe in God and he used to preach to me and my other colleagues everyday. 

One day he asked me to ask God into my life, I just laughed and shrugged it off, but later on that year I personally wasn’t in a good place, I had just broken up from my girl friend and it just happened that he asked me again around that time. 

So I asked him how do you ask for something to come into your life without even seeing or witnessing it. He told me its all about faith, ask God to forgive your sins, ask him to save you from the bad things of this world and ask him to help you grow in faith. 

So I done as he said, as I was asking God to come into my life I felt a strange feeling of calm and comfort which I can assume was the presence of Jesus. I felt good afterwards and did attend my friends church for a while. But unfortunately as time went by my commitment and faith reduced to the point of not even thinking about God anymore. 

In 2006 I encountered God again and again I was going through a tough time personally, my faith increased and I and my family attended St Anne’s Cathedral for a few years until we started to attend our local church St Finians. Here we met the minister Jono, and its where my faith has been growing ever since with guidance from Jono.

 2012 is when my faith was tested to the limit. My first diagnosis of cancer was a real test of my believe in God. I challenged God as to why I got cancer even though my faith had been increasing over a period of years prior to my diagnosis. But through reading the bible I began to get messages I believe was from God, messages of support, preserving when times of trouble and many other messages.

You see God doesn’t give you Cancer or any other illness for that matter. These illnesses are naturally occurring, I believe in what it says in the bible verse Isaiah 41:10
                                         
My faith was tested for the second time round when my Cancer came back and has not been shaken this time because I have felt the power of God in 2012. It has only strengthened it more and I pray everyday that he helps me to get through these troubled times, yes I still get bad days but those are days I look forward to God giving me a helping hand.

I really could talk about this subject all day, but I will bring it up from time to time in future posts to let you see how God is working in my life.

Thanks

Richard