From DayBreak Ministries' Blog on Thursday, March 13, 2008:

Some of you may know Sarah, many of you do not. Sarah is a DayBreak staffer and fellow Frontliner who has been on full time disability for the last year or so due to her three year battle with breast cancer. Diagnosed at age 25, Sarah has gone through countless procedures and treatments to tackle this deadly disease. Over the course of the last three years, it has spread to her liver, lymph nodes and now her brain. Right now, she is undergoing whole brain radiation and chemotherapy to treat the tumors that reappeared in her brain after they attempted to remove them this past November. On Monday, they admitted her to the hospital due to the intense pain that she was experiencing in her head, an extremely low blood pressure, and vomiting. Last night, I talked to her and she was feeling much better. Hopefully she will be able to go home soon, but she said that she really doesn't mind the hospital stay as they are taking wonderful care of her there.

While it seems like such a tragedy for a young, beautiful woman to be going through this, that is not Sarah's perspective. She is truly a living example of someone who can say authentically, "To live is Christ and to die is gain." She has learned how to say, "It is well with my soul," and truly mean it, and she knows that God is "affectionately sovereign." Her prayer is that her life be used for His glory no matter what the cost.

In Daniel 3, there is the familiar story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, three men who refused to bow down to the golden idol that King Nebuchadnezzar commanded all to worship. The king was very upset and said that if they did not worship that idol, they would be thrown into the fiery furnace. He even mockingly said, "Who is the god who will deliver you out of my hands?"

"Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego answered and said to the king, 'Oh Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God who we serve is able to deliver us from the fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up." Daniel 3:16-18

They ended up being thrown into the furnace, yet they were not consumed. God was with them, and he delivered them from death. Praise God for His faithfulness.

Yet, would God have been any less faithful if He would have allowed them to die? Notice that the three servants of the one true King, acknowledged that God was able to deliver them, but even if He didn't, they would not stoop to worship any other god. Their allegiance was to the King of kings, and they saw Him to be faithful, no matter what.

Beth Moore has a Bible study on Daniel and in the study on this portion of scripture, she points out these three possibilities when God's people go through "fiery trials":

• God can deliver you from the fire.
• God can deliver you through the fire.
• God can deliver you by the fire right into His arms.

Notice that all three possibilities include deliverance, and while we may all wish for the first possibility to be true in our trials, how gracious our God is even when He allows us to "walk through the shadow of death." He is with us and we get to experience a sweeter intimacy with Christ as a result, even to the point of being literally in His presence if he chooses to take us to heaven. That is certainly not a tragedy!

While Sarah believes that God is able to deliver her from this cancer, she rests in His sovereign hand, knowing that God is in control. Please pray for her, that her faith would continue to be strengthened and that she will have the courage to stand firm through this stormy time. May each of us learn from her response to God, and be able to say, "I will praise you, no matter what!"