Brain cancer tests a young pastor’s faith - Health - Cancer. DALLAS — Matt Chandler doesn't feel anything when the radiation penetrates his brain. It could start to burn later in treatment. But it hasn't been bad, this time lying on the slab. He wears the same kind of jeans he wears preaching to 6,0. The Village Church in suburban Flower Mound, where the 3. ![]() ![]() Philippians Study Guide that follows directly with Matt Chandler's teaching. Adrian Warnock blogs about being a Christian in the 21st Century. Matt Chandler; Rice Broocks; Ed Stetzer; Sam Storms. UPDATE: turns out I missed. Baptist Press (BP) is a daily. Lauren married Matt Chandler. Christianity. Another cancer patient Chandler has gotten to know spends his time in radiation imagining that he's playing a round of golf at his favorite course. Chandler on this first Monday in January is reflecting on Colossians 1: 1. Christ and making peace through the blood of his cross. Chandler's hands are crossed over his chest. ![]() He wears a mask with white webbing that keeps his head still when metal fingers slide into place on the radiation machine, delivering the highest possible dose to what is considered to be fatal and incurable brain cancer. This is Matt Chandler's new normal. Each weekday, he spends two hours in the car — driven from his suburban home to downtown Dallas — for eight minutes of radiation and Scripture. At the hospital, Chandler sees other patients in gowns who get chemotherapy through catheters in their chests and is thankful he gets his in pills before going to sleep at home next to his wife. Chandler is trying to suffer well. ![]() In 2011, Preaching magazine. He would never ask for such a trial, but in some ways he welcomes this cancer. He says he feels grateful that God has counted him worthy to endure it. He has always preached that God will bring both joy and suffering but is only recently learning to experience the latter. Since all this began on Thanksgiving morning, Chandler says he has asked . ![]() He wants to grow old, to walk his two daughters down the aisle and see his son become a better athlete than he ever was. Whatever happens, he says, is God's will, and God has his reasons. For Chandler, that does not mean waiting for his fate. It means fighting for his life. But many doctors are puzzled because the operation doesn't carry a 1. Themselves, survey says. The coffee brews itself. Matt wakes up, pours himself a cup, black and strong like always, and sits on the couch. He feeds 6- month- old Norah from a bottle. Puts her in her bouncy seat. The next thing Chandler knows, he is lying in a hospital bed. What Chandler does not remember is that he suffered a seizure and collapsed in front of the fireplace, rattling the pokers. He does not remember biting through his tongue. He does not remember his wife, Lauren, shielding the kids as he shook on the floor. Or, later, ripping the IV out of his arm and punching a medic in the face. During the ambulance ride, Lauren, 2. He is looking at her but through her. She texts the women in her Bible study and asks them to pray. At the hospital, Matt comes to. The same exchange repeats itself five times, always ending the same way, with Matt tearing up. In short order, Chandler is wheeled back for a CT scan, followed by an MRI. Not long afterward, the ER doctor walks in and sits next to him. You need to see a specialist. Chandler had not seen his kids for hours. He had collapsed in front of them. For whatever reason, those grim words from a doctor he'd never met did not cause his heart to drop. What Chandler thought was, . His approach appeals, he believes, to a generation looking for transcendence and power. His theology teaches that all men are wicked, that human beings have offended a loving and sovereign God, and that God saves through Jesus' death, burial and resurrection — not because people do good deeds. In short, Chandler is a Calvinist, holding to a belief system growing more popular with young evangelicals. Let's talk God's words.'. He grew up a military kid, drifting from Olympia, Wash., to Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., Alameda, Calif., and Galveston, Texas. He developed what he calls a small and . That began to change when a high school football teammate started talking about the Gospel. After graduating from a small Baptist college, Chandler became a fiery evangelist who led a popular college Bible study and traveled the Christian speaking circuit. He was hired from another church in 2. The Village Church, a Southern Baptist congregation that claimed 1. The church now meets in a newly renovated former Albertson's grocery store with a 1,4. Denton and Dallas. Chandler has a podcast following in the thousands and speaks at large conferences. The Chandlers meet with Dr. David Barnett, chief of neurosurgery at Baylor University Medical Center. The weekend had brought hope: A well- meaning church member who is a radiologist looked at Matt's MRI and concluded the mass was encapsulated, or contained to a specific area. But Barnett delivers very different news. He saw what appeared to be a primary brain tumor — meaning a tumor that had formed in the brain — that was not contained. Talk it over with your wife. He schedules it for that Friday, Dec. He is scared. Questions start to haunt him. Am I going to wake up and be me? Am I going to wake up and remember Lauren? The surgery begins around 2 p. A biopsy determines that it is, indeed, a primary brain tumor. As far as Chandler knows, there is no history of cancer in his family. His tumor, like most others, was likely caused by a genetic abnormality, Barnett says. There's no way of knowing how long it's been there. The surgeon is aggressive, pushing to remove as much of the mass as possible. It's in a relatively good place in the brain's . Barnett uses it twice during Chandler's surgery. I wanted to get as much of the tumor out as humanly possible, but I also wanted to be careful not to permanently injure him. It's a fine balance between the two. His left side is numb. His facial expressions are frozen and his voice has no pitch, what doctors call a . How much of this will be normal? How much of this will be the new normal?'Tuesday after surgery. Barnett meets with Lauren and Brian Miller, chairman of the church's elder board. The final pathology results are not in, but Barnett shares what he knows — the tumor was malignant, fast- growing and mean. Though he removed what he could see, such tumors send tiny fingers of cells beyond their borders — and eventually a branch will reach back and grow another brain tumor, Barnett says. Barnett asks Lauren and Miller to keep the diagnosis to themselves for a week so Matt can concentrate fully on recovering from surgery. On Dec. 1. 5, Barnett shares the pathology results with the Chandlers. Tumors are designated by grade — with Grade 1 being the least aggressive and Grade 4 being the most. Chandler's tumor is a Grade 3. The average life expectancy in such cases, Barnett says, is approximately two to three years. The doctor says later, in an interview, he believes Chandler will live longer because of the aggressive surgery, treatment and Chandler's otherwise good health. There's also a chance that . Let me run with it and do the best I can with it. He has seen how people handle life- changing moments. He called Chandler's attitude one of the most amazing he's seen. Chandler says learning he had brain cancer was . You take the shot, you try not to vomit, then you get back to doing what you do, believing what you believe. I can honestly say, we haven't asked the question, 'Why?' or wondered, 'Why me, why not somebody else?' We just haven't gotten to that place. I'm not saying we won't get there. I'm just saying it hasn't happened yet. There was one moment when he looked at a Christmas card, saw a picture of a man who chronically cheated on his wife and thought, . Morning breaks with 4- year- old Reid singing . Matt sits at his laptop in the dining room, nursing a cup of green tea. He's preparing to drive to a homeopathic clinic for an infusion of Vitamin C to bolster the immune system, followed by the long drive to downtown Dallas for radiation. He's in the midst of a six- week program of radiation and chemotherapy, to be followed by a break and more treatment. Chandler never thought such a trial would shake his faith. But until now, that was just hope in the abstract. Those things have been warm blankets, man. He believes he has responsibilities: to use his brain, to take advantage of technology, to walk in faith and hope, to pray for healing and then . He has tried to steer attention to others, including a 6- year- old Arizona girl with cancer. At church, he has deflected sympathy with reassurances that this is a good thing, that he is not shrinking back. Chandler has preached the last two weekends and is planning trips to South Africa and England. He recently lost his hair to radiation but got a positive lab report last week and feels strong. But he is drinking life in — watching his son build sandcastles at the park, preaching each sermon as if eternity is at stake — and feeling a heightened sense of reality. Peanut butter and jelly dipped in honey for the kids, turkey chili for the adults. And peppermint ice cream. It is a diaper changed, dishes done. Matt Chandler takes his chemo pills and goes to bed, grateful for another day. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
October 2017
Categories |