Do you feel like you have clouds covering your life? Listen to this week’s podcast to hear how God is in those clouds, even if you cannot see or feel Him. In His time, the clouds will break, pouring rich blessings and mercies when you least expect it. Hear the story of Job and how he worked through the clouds that were covering his life.Contributor: This week we hear from Katie as she shares about a time in her life when she could relate with Job. She will tell how she navigated through a health scare and how she leaned on God to bring her through a cloudy time.

Do you feel like you have clouds covering your life? Listen to this week’s podcast to hear how God is in those clouds, even if you cannot see or feel Him. In His time, the clouds will break, pouring rich blessings and mercies when you least expect it. Hear the story of Job and how he worked through the clouds that were covering his life.Contributor: This week we hear from Katie as she shares about a time in her life when she could relate with Job. She will tell how she navigated through a health scare and how she leaned on God to bring her through a cloudy time.

Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.

Starting with Jesus

Heather Bennett

Reflect and Renew June 2023

An Orphan Becomes Queen

The Queen Who Saved Her People

Faithful Builders

Patient Job


I took a pregnancy test and it was positive. But not long into this pregnancy, I started having some spotting. I was told that I had a molar pregnancy. My doctor gave us the incredibly bad news that the molar tissue had in fact turned malignant. Welcome to Reflect and Renew.

Hey, I'm Katie. I'm so glad that you'll be joining me today. We will be learning and growing together in our walk with Jesus. You will surely be encouraged and challenged as we study week by week and hear from the experiences of others. We've been working on a building project here on our church property.

Watching a building being built or helping with a building being built is pretty amazing. It is definitely a lesson in patience because it takes time. Because it takes time. Foundation, framing, windows, roof, electrical, plumbing, insulation, sheetrock, texture, primer, paint, flooring, doors, trim, cabinets. And then the day came.

Purchasing the appliances. You know for some reason this is what I was looking forward to like the whole entire process. I don't know why but I was. So I was pretty excited when I jumped into the truck, drove to the store, and they loaded the stacked washer dryer and the refrigerator into the bed of the pickup truck. They didn't have strong guys lifting it up and in, no, they used a forklift.

But once I got home, we didn't have a forklift. In fact, we didn't know how we would get it into the house. These appliances were heavy. They were cumbersome, bulky. There were only a couple of us and 1 of the helpers that was there had thrown out his back.

So he wasn't much help. And then our hearts sank. The sky darkened. The sun was hid behind menacing clouds. A monsoon was almost upon us.

You see, out here during the summertime, we get monsoons. Short thunderstorms that bring hail or rain And they can last from 5 minutes to 5 hours. You just never know. But here we were, with the clouds rolling in and we had 2 choices. Move the appliances in now or cover them quick with a tarp to keep them dry.

With only seconds to decide, we chose to cover them and it was just in time too. Once they were covered, the rain came. Our devotional this week talks about clouds, or rather the hard times that seem to stand between us and God. And we'll talk about that today, but first I wanna ask, have you checked out our devotional? Each Sunday morning, starting with Jesus, releases a short devotional called, Renew, Staying with Jesus by Merle Poirier.

And it covers the Bible stories that the kids in the kindergarten and primary that they study. But this devotional is for adults, so it goes a little deeper. Why don't you check it out? StartingwithJesus.com slash renew Our Bible story this week focuses on Job. It is a crazy story.

There are so many details. In fact, we could be here for hours. You have an extremely wealthy man who everyone thinks is blessed by God, and within 1 day, like 1 day, he loses everything. His 10 children are all dead. All of his flocks, all of his herds, and remember those flocks and herds, that was what determined wealth in those days.

Everything is gone. He is bankrupt. Yet in all the loss, Job refuses to blame God. More time goes by and the Bible doesn't tell us how much, but then Job loses his health. His 3 friends come to visit and according to Job chapter 2 Verse 12, they didn't even recognize their friend.

Who's causing all this pain? All this suffering? Is it God? No. The Bible reveals to us, the readers, that it's Satan.

And was Job mourning the loss of his things or the loss of his health? Merle brings out in the devotional that, and I quote, in the depths of his sorrow, Job mourns more over what seems to him his loss of God than he does over the loss of property and family." Have you ever experienced that? Where living in this sinful world we experience the clouds that come in. It might be the clouds of unexpected accidents or loss or an argument, a text that you get or a phone call, something catastrophic that happens in the world around us like earthquake, fire, storm. These are all clouds that stand between us and God.

How do we react? As our devotional says, remember, God is in these clouds, even if You cannot see or feel Him. In His time, the clouds will break, pouring rich blessings and mercies when you least expect it. Lift up your face to heaven. The rain is coming.

Be renewed. This week we're going to hear from Katie who shares with us about a time when she could relate to Job. It was a scary time and it happened not once, but you'll hear, twice. Yet through her health scare, God was there. She was leaning on him and he saw her through.

In 2016, about 2 months after my first baby turned 1, I took a pregnancy test and it was positive. This is always exciting news, right? It was made sweeter knowing I would be having my baby within a week of 2 other good friends of mine. But not long into this pregnancy I started having some spotting. This hadn't happened in my previous pregnancy and so I waited a few days to see if it would just go away.

When it didn't, I called my doctor and was sent for blood work. That same afternoon, I was then sent for a STAT ultrasound. The next day, I was told that I had a molar pregnancy. What is that? A molar pregnancy is when tissue that normally becomes a fetus instead becomes an abnormal growth in your uterus.

Sometimes this molar tissue can turn malignant and metastasize. The treatment for this mole meant a DNC surgery to remove the molar tissue and then weekly monitoring of my HCG levels, that's your growth hormone or your pregnancy hormone. So they would follow my HCG levels back down to basically 0. After my DNC, I immediately felt better. When I woke up from surgery, no more nausea.

My HCG numbers started dropping very rapidly. But unfortunately, 3 weeks later, I ended up back in the emergency room hemorrhaging. As we drove to the emergency room, my husband called my doctor and learned that my lab results from just a few days prior showed that my HCG had not continued to drop but instead had spiked. In the emergency room I went and had a CT scan and right before I was wheeled into the operating room for a second DNC surgery to stop the bleeding. My doctor gave us the incredibly bad news that the molar tissue had in fact turned malignant and was seen on CT in both my lungs and my liver.

Now at this point we were working with a whole team. I had a gynecologic oncologist in Sacramento. I had a medical oncologist in Grass Valley where we live. The gynecologic oncologist was leading the diagnosis and treatment of what at this point was called Gestational Trophoblastic Neoplasm, or GTN. He staged me as high risk for several factors, but mainly because of metastasis to my liver.

And because of this stage, it was strongly recommended that I quickly start an intensive chemotherapy regimen. We consulted several other physicians. Everyone was on the same page, and so I started a regimen called EMACO. Each letter in that acronym stands for a different chemotherapy drug. I was not thrilled to be taking these medicines.

They kill cancer, but they also have pretty nasty side effects like infertility, neuropathy. Those are more immediate. And then long-term would be 20 years in the future, like leukemia. But due to the nature of this rare disease that moves very rapidly, we felt that this was the most prudent thing to do, and I also did do drastic lifestyle changes, juicing, all sorts of things as well. So here we were, trying to just grow our family, and cancer had shown up.

It was a very scary and very dark time. In fact, it felt like the more doctors and tests I met with and went through, just the worse the news seemed to get. But it wasn't long after this that a physician friend of mine in Boston decided to do a little work and research and she found that someone worked in the same area as her and specialized in GTN in Boston. And so she reached out to him and he looked at my chart and he said he didn't really think I had cancer in my liver or that I was a high-risk case. Now if these 2 things were true, that would mean I didn't have to take this really powerful, scary chemotherapy regimen.

I would just downgrade to 1 chemotherapy that didn't have as many nasty side effects. When I heard this, oh, I could hardly believe it. It seemed too good to be true. But we had developed this plan, we had prayed about it, we had consulted with people, We'd even begun to carry out the plan. And now our plan was changing.

And so we were very confused. All of this happened very quickly. And we still had 2 second opinion consults that we hadn't gone to formally. This was at Stanford and Mayo Clinic. So we decided to pray that these 2 specialists would agree with what we had just heard from this Boston physician.

And if so, then we would know that this was the Lord's leading. So I prayed first, and I still remember exactly where I was when I prayed. I asked that God would give our consulting physicians consensus, and then I blurted out, and Lord, please help our doctor here in Sacramento to change his mind to agree with what the Boston physician is saying. And when I said that, I immediately thought, why did I say that? Doctors don't change their minds.

And they especially don't call the patient to admit they're wrong. But it had come out of my mouth. I hadn't planned on saying it. It just came out. Well, 2 days later, I was talking to my physician friend in Boston.

She had given my radiology images to a GI radiologist at Harvard. This is someone who looks at images of livers all day. And he said he was 100% sure there was no metastasis in my liver. While I was on the phone with her, I got a text from our doctor here in Sacramento asking us to call him. And when my husband called him, he stated that he had reviewed my case with several other colleagues and changed his mind that I did not have liver metastasis, nor was I high risk, and he apologized for his earlier error in staging.

Can you believe that? What an answer to prayer. I could not believe that God had me pray that seemingly impossible prayer, only to answer it 2 days later in such an amazing way. And this experience was a major faith builder. After that, I knew everything was going to be okay.

And so I started a single agent chemotherapy regimen for 3 months and finished in December of 2016. Unfortunately, my story doesn't end here. We had to wait for a whole year, we were told, to wait for a whole year until we could start trying for another baby. We were anxious to give our daughter a sibling, and yet we were worried and scared, and we were just praying about it. Well, in August, so it had been 8 months since I finished my chemo, in August I went for my monthly lab draw, and because of a mix-up, the results of this draw ended up going back to this doctor in Sacramento.

He was kind of off the case at this point. So he called me the next day and left a voicemail with my results, which were still negative, and so this was good news. But then he called me the next day, and this time I was with my phone and answered, and I thanked him for the call and explained the Quest mix-up. And then he offered that it was extremely rare for the cancer to come back after this long, so if we wanted to, we could try again to have another baby. It didn't hit me until later that day that he went out of his way to call me twice to offer that information unsolicited.

I thought, maybe this was God answering our prayer for guidance and peace. So on the 1 year anniversary of finding out that I had cancer invading my body, I found out that I was pregnant. Thankful and yet fearful, we made plans with my obstetrician. We started following my HCG every 48 hours. We scheduled ultrasounds, but within a week I learned that my HCG was falling, not rising, and then my body started the process of miscarriage.

But not long after that, my HCG started to plateau, and my body stopped the process of miscarriage. And to complicate things, my ultrasounds started looking very similar to my molar ultrasounds the year prior. Oh, this was the real test of faith. Yes, the year before I was blindsided with a horrible diagnosis when all I wanted was a baby. But I clung to God, I clung to His promises, I kept my faith, and I— and when the storm calmed, I think I subconsciously expected to be like Job, who went through terrible trials but was doubly blessed in the end.

But here I was staring at the possibility of a second molar pregnancy. God was not blessing the way I thought he would or should. He wasn't blessing me with a healthy baby 1 year later or twins, right, to be doubly blessed? No, God was blessing me with an opportunity to seal the lessons I had learned the year before. It was at this time that I had to practice surrender and waiting on God like I never had before.

Many weeks later, my body did complete the process of miscarriage. We followed my HCG numbers back to the normal range. We were relieved. We were thankful. And my husband and I prepared to travel to the Amen Conference to share our story, which we had committed to doing many months before.

On the way to the airport in a car full of people, my OB called me and told me that my most recent HCG level was elevated again. During the conference, I went for another lab draw, which showed my HCG was still on the rise. I was so distressed. The morning Stephen and I were supposed to share our story, I got a text from a good friend saying that she had been praying for me and that God had been strongly impressing her with the thought, do not fear. Immediately after I received this text, God led me to this quote, which I felt was confirmation.

In the darkest days, when appearances seem most forbidding, fear not. Have faith in God. He knows your need. He has all power. His infinite love and compassion never weary.

Fear not that he will fail of fulfilling his promise. He is eternal truth. Never will he change the covenant he has made with those who love him. And he will bestow upon his faithful servants the measure of efficiency that their need demands. We were able to share our story at Amen, which led to many people praying for us.

And by the time we got home, I had another lab draw and an ultrasound, and both were completely normal, as if nothing had ever happened. Another miracle to add to the list. God truly is so good. I know that many of you have stories of loss, pain, sorrow, disappointments too. Christ's Object Lesson tells us on page 33, none who receive God's word are exempt from difficulty and trial, But when affliction comes, the true Christian does not become restless, distrustful, or despondent.

Though we cannot see the definite outcome of affairs or discern the purposes of God's providences, we are not to cast away our confidence. Remembering the tender mercies of the Lord, we should cast our care upon him and with patience wait for his salvation. Sometimes he turns our sad situations into beautiful ones that we can see and experience. Sometimes we have to wait for them for heaven. But we can know that our God is faithful.

He answers prayer. He cares for us. He loves us. And He will truly make all things beautiful in His time. Casting our cares on Him, waiting with patience.

Is that what you do when the clouds roll in? When they threaten to hide God from you? Trusting, relying, even when you can't see, when you don't understand, but knowing that God is still in control? I hope so. Our challenge this week is to take time to review our favorite Bible stories in the Old Testament.

It might be 1, it might be 2 or 3, but we've completed all the stories in the Old Testament over the past year and a half and actually next week we're going to jump straight into the New Testament stories. So stop and think. What have you learned? What did they teach you about God? In what ways do you maintain your faith when God's presence isn't felt?

And I challenge you to Write it down in a notebook, in a prayer journal, on the notes app in your phone. But think and process about the Bible stories, how God has spoken to you through them. If you wanna share your thoughts with us, oh, we'd love to hear from you. You can write to us at renewatstartingwithjesus.com. Let's pray.

Dear Lord, trials come. There are times when it seems like the clouds are hiding us from you or hiding you from us. Help us to be able to look with the eyes of faith, to trust, to rely on you, even when we can't see, to know that you will bring forth blessings in your time. Be with each listener today. Give them a special blessing.

Help them to see and catch a glimpse how much you love them today. In Jesus' name, amen. ♪♪ This podcast is sponsored by Starting with Jesus. To find out more about other programs or to find out the links that were shared in this podcast, just check out the description box below. You

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Reflect and Renew June 2023

Patient Job

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Other Teachings in Series

An Orphan Becomes Queen

14m

The Queen Who Saved Her People

15m

Faithful Builders

14m

Patient Job

20m

Sound Doctrine