.JPG)
DON’S MOST RECENT UPDATE ON HIS BATTLE WITH CANCER
November 15, 2010
Thank you for praying for Ruthanne and me as we battle this giant called cancer. Your love and prayers help us to keep our gaze and focus on Jesus as our ultimate source for healing and strength during this time of testing.
Here is the most recent update regarding what the doctors call Stage 2 Lung cancer located in the lower left lobe of my lungs.
The cancer has shrunk slightly but the tumor has moved closer to the lining of my lungs and my Oncologist is concerned the cancer cells will get in the blood stream and spread. I will go back for more testing in a few months.
I praise God that I don’t cough as much now and rarely do I feel pain. My strength is gradually coming back and I feel better most of the time.
Many of you have phoned us, emailed or spoken words of great comfort and encouragement as you assured us of you love and prayers. I regret that I am not able to respond to each of you but be assured that we love and appreciate each of you standing with us in faith. One of our dear friends and sister, in the Lord, Mary Bishop, sends us “Holy Spirit” selected Scriptures each morning. This morning, November 15, 2010 she sent; "Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer." From Romans 12:12.
Before I opened her email this morning, I had my devotional time in the Word and prayer and I wrote this in my prayer Journal:
“Thank you Father for the joy and peace you give me as I see the cancerous tumor in my lungs shrinking and going away. Thank you for what you have been teaching Ruthanne and me as we battle this giant of cancer. Help me, Father to be patient and trusting so You get all the glory and praise for all you are doing in my life. Thank you Father, when my Oncologist and primary physician discover that You have healed me, and all of us will give You the glory, praise and worship You deserve.” (My primary physician and Oncologist are Christians)
Some of you have faced, or now facing, your own “giants.” You have inspired us by the way you have let God work in your life and situations.
God is teaching me that Faith is the gaze of my soul upon my loving, saving and healing God. I am learning to keep my spiritual eyes more on Jesus than my problems.
The Word of God has inspired and encouraged us during this time of testing. I especially appreciate Hebrews 12: 1-15 in the Message Bible
1. Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins.
2. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God.
3. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!
4. In this all-out match against sin, others have suffered far worse than you, to say nothing of what Jesus went through—all that bloodshed!
5. So don’t feel sorry for yourselves. Or have you forgotten how good parents treat children, and that God regards you as his children? My dear child, don’t shrug off God’s discipline, but don’t be crushed by it either.
6. It’s the child he loves that he disciplines; the child he embraces, he also corrects.
7. God is educating you; that’s why you must never drop out. He’s treating you as dear children. This trouble you’re in isn’t punishment; it’s training,
8. the normal experience of children. Only irresponsible parents leave children to fend for themselves. Would you prefer an irresponsible God?
9. We respect our own parents for training and not spoiling us, so why not embrace God’s training so we can truly live?
10. While we were children, our parents did what seemed best to them. But God is doing what is best for us, training us to live God’s holy best.
11. At the time, discipline isn’t much fun. It always feels like it’s going against the grain. Later, of course, it pays off handsomely, for it’s the well-trained who find themselves mature in their relationship with God.
12. So don’t sit around on your hands! No more dragging your feet!
13. Clear the path for long-distance runners so no one will trip and fall, so no one will step in a hole and sprain an ankle. Help each other out. And run for it!
14. Work at getting along with each other and with God. Otherwise you’ll never get so much as a glimpse of God.
15. Make sure no one gets left out of God’s generosity. Keep a sharp eye out for weeds of bitter discontent. A thistle or two gone to seed can ruin a whole garden in no time.
I would appreciate your email response, even though I may not be able to respond to each of you.
Please use this email address: LifeCoachDon@msn.com. My phone number is (408) 363-9547 and my web site is www.drdonphillips.com
If you wish to see the video, “If this were my last sermon” I shared at Christian Community Church In San Jose, last June. Click on this address or copy and paste to your browser: http://www.blip.tv/file/3943817/
