Episode Transcript
It is often said that there is no miracles performed these days. But I'd like to challenge this idea with my story of how God healed my cancer. Welcome to the miracle of the 21st century. I am Johnny Wong. Friends, today I want to share with you an amazing thing that God has done in my life. You know, when I read the Bible in 3 John 2, as a Christian, I believe the Bible wants us to prosper in health. The Bible says, in 3 John 2 it says, Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health just as your souls prosper. It was certainly a shocking moment when I went to visit a specialist for skin cancer. I didn't know it was a skin cancer. It was just like a normal irritation on the skin. And I was attending a funeral on a Friday afternoon of a dear friend that passed away from breast cancer. In the middle of the funeral, I had a phone call from the specialist. Seems urgent. Why would the specialist call me at this time, when an email sufficed or when the next visitation appointment worked? But the specialist called and said, johnny, you have cancer. It was such a shock to sit into a funeral whom a person you care for, a contemporary that passed away from cancer. And here you have been diagnosed with cancer. Your world seemed to be turning upside down. My world was wondering, where's the future? I'm still young. What happened to my family? What does that mean in terms of treatment? What's the prognosis? And immediately I was referred to the top cancer hospital in Melbourne called the Peter Mac Comprehensive Cancer Center. When you get referred to this sort of place, it's because your cancer is fairly unique or fairly different or fairly severe that needs greater expertise. And so I was flabbergasted, perhaps shocked. Showed up at an appointment there and I asked the specialist there and they said, look, Johnny, this is a very, very rare cancer. We don't have many cases here in Australia. And I wanted to ask the specialist, how many have you treated? And throughout his whole career, they probably have only seen the top specialists when I've seen only four or five. So where do I get this treatment? I begin to search the journals. I begin to read the medical journals, begin to read and to figure out what I should do. My wife, who is a nurse, of course concerned. She was a prayer partner, a prayer warrior. We begin to get some. We realized that for this cancer we have to throw everything at it, whether it be lifestyle, whether it be spiritual, whether it be physical, nutrition, whatever. The first thing I did was to turn for anointing because we need a spiritual healing. God is the healer. So we had an anointing service with all the elders and the pastors of the church. And it was a very special moment to consecrate time with the Lord. I also had a prayer partner with a pastor that I pray with on a weekly basis and asking the Lord to prepare the heart and the mind and the body to be healed. As I did more research, I realized there was one specialist, one professor in Sydney, that probably would know it better than anyone else in Australia. So I went all the way to Sydney to speak to the professor and to get some treatment. But the professor said, look, it is very rare, very difficult one to deal with. I went and did lifestyle medicine, complementary medicine. I prepared my health and tried different ways of dealing with it, whether it be different compresses, different juicing, different food and so on. It was a very challenging time. Hydrotherapy, we did everything that we could throw at it. After a year or so of doing this, the cancer on the skin didn't recede. And every visit I went to the conventional specialist, conventional medicine specialist. The answer has always been do a big major surgery to deal with it. I said, let's pray to the Lord for direction. Ask God to lead us. Eventually. And during this time, Covid was happening around Australia too. And getting entry to hospitals wasn't easy at that time. Eventually, after a year of doing complementary medicine and lifestyle medicine and preparing my immune system and building that up, it was time to take some surgical intervention and I was put into the hospital. My dear wife couldn't even come because of COVID restrictions during that week. And friends, it wasn't pleasant to be in hospital, and it was challenging. The whole idea is that what they would do is that they would remove that piece of skin where the cancer is and then to do a biopsy of the skin that's been removed to make sure they have the margin or that we have removed sufficiently while that is going on. After the theater, first time in theater, they couldn't cover that skin because they needed to do the biopsy first to check it all out. The first time around, there wasn't sufficient margin. So a few days later, I was wheeled into theater again. Go through another general anesthetic and they remove more skin around that wound. And I came out and waited for three days while they did the biopsy. All the meantime, they were trying to protect that wound from being infected, being bacteria, having bacteria and so on. You have to lay still there because you can't get your wound impacted. Because. Because it'd be too painful. After two or three times doing this, they couldn't find a solution. And all this while I was praying, Lord, please get the doctors to heal me, get the surgeon to use the surgeon to heal me, Lord. And all this while, after many times, they could not find the margin because they cannot see with the naked eye. They have to do biopsy to see this thing. The bleeding and the pain became excruciating. They were pumping me with painkillers, but yet every time they were trying to stop the wound from bleeding, they would put dressings on it. And when the dressing would be soaked with blood, they would remove the dressing. And that pain of tearing it off was terrible. One day, I remember at 3:00 in the morning, I was bleeding for hours in the hospital. I was there already for 30 some days and things were not getting better. They brought in a pain doctor to see me, they brought in an infection doctor to see me, they brought in an oncologist to see me, they brought in the surgeon to see me. There were like five or six doctors that were trying to figure out what to do with this very rare cancer. And so they had no experience in Australia treating it. It's something that they see in cases in other parts of the world, but very rare as well. And I said, lord, what do we do? I prayed, I said, lord, this is too painful as a process. That night the Lord reminded me that wisdom comes from him. And perhaps my prayer was not heading the right direction. I was praying the wrong prayer. I was praying that the doctors and the surgeon will heal me. And I forgot that they are so specialized, all these doctors, they got pain, infection, surgical dermatologists, they got different specialty. And I was praying, Lord, for them to heal me. And God said, you're praying the wrong prayer. You should be praying that I put wisdom in every of the mind of the doctor, that there is unified direction on where to go. So I began to change my prayer. I said, lord, yes, please put the wisdom in the mind of all the doctors because they need a plan. They seem to be running out of plan on what to do with me. Finally, the Lord worked his miracle. God, in this time, even though we're going through pain and tears, God is still there. The Bible says Hebrews 13, 8. He said he will never leave us nor forsake us in that hospital bed. I just was so tired that morning after that bleeding for a few hours that morning, many doctors did their rounds. At 7 o' clock in the morning they asked me, how do you feel I'm going, like, miserable. It's a torture. They said, but what do you think? I said, what is the plan? And they look pretty blank to me. But I said to them one thing. I'll give you three words today. I feel miserable. I feel it's a torture, this process. But I'll give you one final word. That word is called hope. I hope in my God that he will put wisdom in your mind. And they smile and they go like, yeah, all right. Yeah, go have. Keep having hope. It's good to have hope. Well, I knew in mind they are not Christian. They probably don't believe. But I believe in a God that is a healer. I believe in what the Bible Sundays. In Jeremiah 30:17, it says, For I will restore health to you and heal your wounds, says the Lord, because for I will restore health to you and heal your wounds according to the Bible. So I pray, lord, put wisdom in the mind of all these doctors who have their own specialty. But you are the doctor that knows all of these ideas, what to do. And the Lord did that. God brought a visiting doctor from Singapore, who have seen this before to Peter Mac at that time, and he conducted the next surgery. Then God brought another Irish doctor who was on rotation to Australia, and she has done this sort of work before. So after being in theater for six times, 51 days in hospital, the Lord removed all this cancer element from me, not from my wisdom, but it's God's wisdom. It's God's glory. God is the one. The Bible says that he will restore health to you and heal your wounds. Friends, I don't know what you're struggling with today, but I know that whether you're going through a health challenge, they cannot take your belief and your hope in Jesus Christ away. You turn to the healer God for strength and help. He will heal your soul. He will prepare you for your heart for the kingdom of God. Whatever adversity we have today, we have a God that is bigger than that adversity. He is able to reach out to us and comfort us and give us a stronger shoulder. Sometimes we're praying the prayer, lord, take that burden away. And that may be the wrong prayer. Maybe God asks you, lord, give me a stronger shoulder to carry that burden, because you are shaping my character for the better. So may you find courage in Jeremiah 30:17 today.
