Garlows testify about fighting Carol’Äôs cancer

By CYNTHIA ROBERTSON

Though it is often heard in Christian circles that God can transform misery into ministry, nobody actually looks forward to it. There is a tendency to think that such misery will never fall on one’Äôs self. The one trial nobody wants to deal with is the ’Äúbig C’Äù word.

Carol Garlow began what she calls her journey with God through cancer last June. Wife of Pastor Jim Garlow of Skyline Church, she has personally witnessed what the Lord can do through others in her time of need. The result is a stronger relationship with the Lord, her husband and the church.

It all began on June 20 last year when Garlow went to the emergency room because of severe pain after minor surgery.¬Ý

When the doctor came into the room with a paper in his hand, he sat down on the stool very close in front of her, looked her right in the face, and then started reading the report. He said there were masses in the abdominal area, something similar to ovarian cancer.¬Ý

’ÄúI looked at him in disbelief because the word ’Äòcancer’Äô was not in my vocabulary.’Äù

They diagnosed her finally with primary peritoneal cancer, and a week later she underwent a seven-hour surgery. ’ÄúOn the Saturday before the surgery, the doctor came in and he looked at me very directly, asking, ’ÄúAm I the first to say the word ’Äòcancer’Äô to you?’Äô’Äù

’ÄúNo,’Äù Carol replied.¬Ý

’ÄúThen why,’Äù the doctor continued, ’Äúdo you seem to be so relaxed and calm?’Äù

Carol replied, ’ÄúMy husband is a pastor; I am a part-time pastor on our church staff. My primary responsibility in church has been intercession and healing prayer. Many of my heroes have gone through this kind of trial themselves. I pray for people who go through cancer and many other painful trials.’Äù¬Ý

Over the last decade she had prayed for many people with cancer, and she has seen some of them healed, others not.¬Ý

’ÄúI had found that before true healing took place, they needed to have a right relationship with God,’Äù said Garlow, who discovered her own relationship with God growing larger and stronger. ’ÄúI have great faith. Those were the words I used with the doctor. I told him my faith, my confidence in my God was very strong.’Äù

The doctor, who is a non-practicing Muslim born in Iran, responded ’ÄúOh wonderful, you have a faith community.’Äù He was noticeably relieved. He immediately affirmed that faith was important in order to get through the coming treatments.¬Ý

’ÄúThe doctor was up front with us about the seriousness of what we were facing. Jim and I prayed. Our own family and our church family prayed that somehow the doctor would sense God’Äôs presence and help in the surgery.’Äù And he did.

A sidenote is that the Garlows became friends with the doctor, along with the doctor’Äôs wife, who is also a physican and¬Ý a non-practicing Muslim from Iran. In fact, she was Carol’Äôs doctor in the minor surgery that predated the cancer diagnosis by two days.

The surgeon was able to get all of the masses out, over a hundred tumors in all, the largest one the size of an orange. Carol’Äôs surgery was extensive. The sigmoid portion of her colon was resected, along with her appendix and three feet of small intestine. The peritoneal lining (which lines the abdominal cavity) was removed as was the omentum. In addition, lymn nodes were removed and all the cancer was scraped off from her diaphragm.¬Ý

Once over the surgery, she became nauseous for seven weeks. After dealing with that, she received six chemotherapy treatments, three weeks apart, which greatly weakened her body. She lost weight rapidly, in spite of many attempts to stop the weight loss.

’ÄúWe have two grown children, in addition to two teenagers still at home,’Äù said Garlow. ’ÄúWe all had to go through a time period of dealing with emotions, confronting the cancer.’Äù

¬ÝAt the same time, their daughter Janie and her pastor husband, Jeremy McGarity, were starting a new church called ’ÄúSevenSanDiego’Äù in Chula Vista. In addition their son Joshua is on staff at Skyline Church as head of the worship and arts department.¬Ý

Jim found that he really needed to step back from church responsibilities, traveling and speaking and writing. ’ÄúWhen this all initially hit, 7:09 a.m. on June 20, it was so disorienting,’Äù he said. ’ÄúThe word cancer played havoc in my head, and everything that we knew in life had been altered.’Äù He cancelled every single appointment for eight months, in an attempt to care for Carol.

He said that in Carol’Äôs and his wedding vows to each other 37 years ago, they had promised that they would hold onto each other until one of us placed the other in the arms of God.

In the initial days after the diagnosis, he found himself figuratively ’Äúclutching’Äù her as he was fighting for her life. ’ÄúI was battling in human strength, and I knew I could not win this,’Äù he admitted.

’ÄúI had to go through a ’Äòknot-hold’Äô ’Äî the ’Äòknot-hold’Äô of letting her go. In this cancer battle, I had to ’Äòresign.’Äô I finally said ’ÄòOkay, if the worst case scenario occurs, I will let her go. Yet, I will not follow Job’Äôs advice to ’Äòcurse God and die.’Äô I will love God all the more, and I will know that God loves me and Carol ’Äî regardless of what happens.’Äù¬Ý

’ÄúOnce I got through the ’Äòknot-hold’Äôof release, I could fight for her life, not ’Äòclutching’Äô any longer, but now with an open palm ’Äî an open hand.

’ÄúI am a fighter by nature. If there’Äôs a wall, I’Äôll go through, above, around it or under it. To me, a wall is not a deterrent, but a challenge. But I realized I had finally found a wall I could not get over or around or under or through. I needed a supernatural touch of God to get over it,’Äù said Garlow.

Fighting cancer is a fatiguing process, and there were days and nights that all Carol could do was lie in bed. In moments of weakness, the joy of the Lord can come through, and she experienced that one Saturday night.

’ÄúMy whole body was feeling badly after all the tests, I couldn’Äôt sleep, and some wonderful church people had brought me a music CD,’Äù she said. ’ÄúSo in listening to the CD, each song had a very specific message to me. The song ’ÄòI Am Abandoned to You, O Lord’Äô was about the need to totally abandon myself to God.¬Ý

’ÄúThe main thing that I wanted to do was to worship Him. When I had prayed with other people, I always got this clarity that the most important thing that God wanted was to worship Him and to have a strong relationship. That it was more important than us even praying to Him. Then He can take care of the other things. That Saturday night before the surgery, listening to the CD, was my time period when I felt like I was giving worship to God while others were praying for me.

¬Ý’ÄúI had to abandon my dreams, desires, my family, the whole thing in order to make it through. I had the most wonderful time in union with God than I had ever had,’Äù she said.¬Ý

Though the temptation is to think that God will always miraculously cure one from cancer, Carol was hearing something a little different directly from God. ’ÄúHe said to me, ’ÄòCarol, you’Äôre going to have to go through everything, through all of it, but the Lord said he would be with me all the way through. I held on to that idea of abandoning myself to God.’Äù

That idea became central to her journey through cancer. She explained that when God gives a Word, you can believe that Word He gives you, trust it, and operate within it.¬Ý

’ÄúSo I had the assurance from that statement that He would be with me all the way, that no matter what I had to deal with, He would be there. I went through most everything you can go through as a cancer patient. It was very difficult, getting so depleted ’Äî I couldn’Äôt eat and I was very tired.’Äù¬Ý

The response from the congregation at Skyline and people from all over astonished both Jim and Carol, strengthening their own resolve to walk the walk that God had placed before them.¬Ý

’ÄúI am truly impressed by San Diego, the quality of Christian faith I have seen,’Äù said Jim, with tears in his eyes.

Thousands of cards, letters and e-mails poured into their home and church, where the Garlows have been since 1995. One particular Christmas letter Carol received helped her gain insight and perspective into her own illness. At the end of that letter was the reference to Habakkuk 3:2. ’ÄúLord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, O Lord. Renew them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy.’Äù

’ÄúThe Lord was saying that what He did in the past he will do in the present and future as well. So I read that verse at Christmas dinner to my children and my four young grandsons, wanting them to remember that He will always take care of us.’Äù

Jim wrote blogs on the church website, updates about Carol, and the response to them has been incredible.

’ÄúWe have ministered to more people than we ever expected because of the website page with my picture on it. Many cancer patients have benefitted from it, and Jim has been able to explain about the cancer and all its stages so that people can understand it,’Äù she said.¬Ý

In his blog on Thursday, Jan. 31, Garlow wrote about him and Carol able to attend a gathering of 700 pastors and spouses at a luxury resort in San Diego Bay. He compared that experience to just a few months ago at a conference in Los Angeles.¬Ý

’ÄúDuring the evening banquet, I looked around the room at 1,000 pastors and spouses. Almost every man had his wife beside him. I did not. Carol was home, very ill,’Äù he said.

That was his first night to be away from her since her diagnosis of cancer. ’ÄúI thought of all the men I knew whose wives had died, and they had to go on living without them. The fear of losing Carol hit me that night. As I looked at all the happy couples, I thought, ’ÄòI don’Äôt want to be alone, without her.’Äô’Äù Garlow said.

The bottom line for the Garlows is that they prayed and asked the Lord for a strategy. ’ÄúOur family rose to the occasion, our church was exceptional. If ever a church did right, they did so. It was like the church was led by the Holy Spirit, because they instinctively knew when to back off ’Äî when I needed alone time ’Äî and also knew when to come alongside me.

’ÄúThe church people rose up. Some took care of my son Jacob because we needed help, some took over for my daughter Josie, and others took over the other personal projects for me. My church board was patient with me, gave me the time I needed, and the other pastors and staff lifted our load,’Äù he said.

Carol was nauseous for one seven-week period after surgery. Jim, as primary caregiver, found himself functioning far differently than the role of megachurch pastor, author or speaker. He was functioning as an at-home nurse. On his hands and knees cleaning up messes, Garlow felt that the Lord was telling him that he was being most like Jesus in those times.¬Ý

’ÄúI remember one night, I heard Him telling me that this was the best ministry I had ever done,’Äù he said, choking up.¬Ý

Sometimes the simplest of gestures touches the deepest. In the earliest days after the diagnosis, Garlow reported that he became totally overwhelmed when he arrived home at midnight from being with Carol in the hospital to realize that he was out of almost all groceries ’Äî including bottled water and his all time favorite, popcorn. The lack of bottled water and of popcorn was small, in and of itself, but it was a symbol of his helplessness and, candidly, his fear and desperation.

The word about that leaked to at least one person, because when he arrived home from the hospital the next night at midnight, the entire kitchen counter was covered with boxes of bottled water and bags of popcorn. People from the church had done that for me,’Äù he said, shaking his head from the memory and gratitude. When he talks about this experience, he states openly, ’ÄúJesus brought me water and popcorn! That sight of water and popcorn became a symbol of God’Äôs provision ’Äî that He would see us through the scary days ahead.’Äù

People also came to the house and did the juicing for all the fruit and vegetable juice Carol had to drink.¬Ý

Carol’Äôs laughter was like music when she admitted that eating organic vegetables was not very exciting at times. ’ÄúI got used to eating veggies with a little olive oil, not much else.’Äù

When asked what she thought God was ultimately doing through her with this cancer, she admitted she doesn’Äôt fully know just yet. ’ÄúI have had to set seven months of my life aside, stop being mother, wife, stop being a homemaker. I had to stop doing my work at church. But I can say this: In the past, I’Äôve prayed for so many people, and now I have had to learn to let other people pray for me and care for me. People keep telling me that I need to focus simply on getting better.’Äù

Jim, reflecting on the last seven months, says it this way, ’ÄúI have fallen more deeply in love with God. I have fallen in love all over again with Carol. It is as if we are newlyweds. As horrible as it is, cancer does have some wonderful side effects!’Äù

And then he warns, ’ÄúDon’Äôt ever, ever take anything for granted. Just having your spouse able to walk and talk and drive and do things. I will never ever again take any of that for granted. Life is precious. Very precious.’Äù

For more updates on Carol and Jim Garlow’Äôs journey with God in getting through cancer, visit www.skylinechurch.org.