“When they saw the star, they rejoiced with great joy.” 

Matthew 2:10

We see in the gospel of Matthew Chapter 2 that three wise men had come from the east following the star which led them into Jerusalem and the outskirts of Bethlehem. We as believers can be in pursuit of God and while following the leading of the Holy Spirit, find our pathways blocked. I’ve come to realize that this life has ways to absolutely blindside us. But God isn’t caught off guard. Strangely enough, He’s not losing His focus or being frantic or trying to come up with an alternative. He already knew that these events would come into our lives and attempt to redirect our forward motion.

In August 2023, I was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic melanoma in my left lung. He was fully aware that this news would require total focus and a hard brake as to the pace and direction in which I was currently going. Just reading the words of the diagnosis in my email took my breath away. I literally could not breathe, as I realized the worst case scenario with this diagnosis was very grim. My ears and heart could not even fathom the words being said. All at once my world begin to crumble and fall in on itself. My mind raced ahead to very dark and finite timetables with all the things that would have to be done before this disease stole my life away.

My heart was crushed because I’d never see the dreams that I had waited to come to pass. It didn’t take too long for Teresa and I to change the focus of this challenge. God doesn’t use sickness and disease to teach us a lesson. The reality is that we live in a fallen world that is filled with sickness and disease, and the enemy of our soul delights in snuffing out life, especially when you could be on the cusp of God’s plan for your life.

The thought of “why me” never entered my mind. I could give you a list that would fill volumes of books as to “why me” if God was vengeful. Yet God! I have loved God my entire life. Now I certainly can’t say that I had the full understanding and could comprehend His unconditional love. I just knew I loved being at church, and I loved being in His presence, even as a young boy. However, my life was an absolute mess. I wasn’t able to fully comprehend or understand that until I began to dig deeper and deeper into the Word of God. As these events continued to unfold around me, I became aware that my relationship with God was horribly one-sided. My life had become so much all about me and what I wanted, not like where I had started in my teens of giving my heart to God and allowing Him full access to my life and direction.

Psalm 91 was a chapter that I never fully understood because I was never in such a fight like this one. Don’t get me wrong, my life was never quite that easy, nor had it ever been this intense. God certainly had protected me from so many events that could have taken my life multiple times. It took some time for Teresa and I to allow the dust to settle and to process as best we could the events that were unfolding. The first thing that we determined was that God was going to eradicate the cancer out of my body. I refused to die. I was going to live in the days that God had given me to its fullest. I was not going to wait for death to take me. My heart and focus had fully changed back to the place I started in my teens. My prayer now was, “Father have complete control and say in what you want me to do with my life.”

The staff of physicians came up with a treatment plan consisting of intense radiation and immunotherapy every 3 weeks for 1 year. However, the immunotherapy drug they were giving to me to attack the melanoma was now attacking my liver. This hospitalized me in December of last year. The drug given to me to counteract the immunotherapy was almost as bad as the drug attacking my liver. The side effects and the harsh responses were very difficult. Through all of this, Teresa and I would walk the hallways and sing Christmas carols or pray for the other cancer patients on that floor, being that most everyone else but myself was immobilized in their bed. My liver showed recovery; however, the medical staff decided to discontinue the immunotherapy for a few months, as it took time to reverse the effects of the first attempt of immunotherapy. This was to allow my liver to heal.

Our faith and focus was 1 Peter 2:24, which states, “by His stripes you were healed.” I also believe that God gives people the ability to invent and find ways to destroy disease. However, our trust was not in the medicine; it was in God. The next scan showed that the melanoma had spread to various muscle groups. We chose to continue to believe God that He ultimately was going to eradicate this cancer out of my body. The medical staff decided to begin the immunotherapy once again this past April. This time, there were minimal side effects, and I was able to receive it every 3 weeks. 2 Corinthians 4:18 states, “While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” Psalm 16:8 states, “I have set the LORD always before me: Because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.”

The next Pet scan was July of 2024. The results read “internal resolution of previously noted foci.” We questioned the wording and the interpretation of that phrase was “no cancer seen.” No trace or residual remained. I began to weep. His faithfulness and mercy poured out into our lives. We read it over and over again. We sent out emails to all we could just to tell the story of His goodness to us. I was free of cancer. Recently, just before writing this, I have had another Pet Scan that verified the same conclusion that I was and am cancer free. I will live and not die from this horrific disease.

Seeking God this Christmas isn’t just merely going through the motions. The very God that spoke the world into existence is the same that loves to hear your voice calling His name. He longs to have a relationship with you, and His love for us is so deep and so wide and so high. I don’t think I will ever have the words to adequately tell of my thankfulness and gratefulness to Him. I am humbled through these events. The Word says that you did not choose God but

rather God chose you. He has known you before you were even conceived. What we don’t see is the story of our life from this point to the day we see Him face to face. I long to be in His presence. I know for sure that I won’t be able to stand. But I do long to hear His voice and the words that He will say to me “enter into your rest my good and faithful servant.” My mission is to continue to seek Him with every fiber of my being.

Let’s be like the wise men who had just left the king in search of the Savior. “For when they saw the star, they rejoiced with great joy.”
 
Merry Christmas!

Charles Lorentz