In this episode Gina has a conversation with Christine Burke about her journey through a terminal diagnosis, overcoming cancer, and the powerful ways Jesus has provided, spoken and brought much more than physical healing.
Christine’s Beat the Beast resource for anyone battling cancer.
Christine’s list of Healing Scriptures.
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Listen below starting at 13:31 to follow along.
God – The Loving Provider
Christine:
I think I’ve spoken to over a thousand, maybe a couple thousand people about it. So, like you mentioned, I’m an evangelist, and it’s been a sweet season of ministry for me. It sounds crazy saying this, but compared to my work life, I have such a better quality of life with it now even though I don’t have the huge salary that I had with the work life, but it doesn’t matter because God’s been providing in most crazy ways you could ever dream or imagine.
Talk about Ephesians 3:20! That’s another thing that’s marked this whole experience for me. When I first got diagnosed, I thought for sure, I’d be going back to work. I had a couple friends say, “Hey, maybe you shouldn’t work.” And I was like, “Who’s going to pay the bills? I have to work.” Then I had a Bible study leader who also encouraged me, “Trust God that He’ll do it.” And I was like, “It just seems impossible.”
I struggle with that with provision more than I do with my own health stuff. I think it could be from the fact that my dad did die when I was 11, even though we were fine and my mom worked and I always had a meal, she paid for college, I had nothing to complain about. But one thing I’ve learned through this whole thing, I think there’s something deep in there, about my belief in provision and in losing my dad, like he’s the provider and he’s not here.
So then I decided, “Well, I guess that needs to be me now.” Even at 11, I basically started taking care of mom and sister. It was a great lesson in learning that I can trust God to provide for me. I didn’t know God as a child, and then I went back into that child mode in 2008 thinking, “Oh, I better start providing, becaused John’s struggling.” I had been working for this new company for four months when I was diagnosed.
And when I went there four months before, it was a hectic time because we were kind of selling a company to them and I had to sign all the HR papers, and I didn’t sign up for disability insurance. My husband and I have always had disability, we pay it every month, and I didn’t even do it. My husband thought that it was because the tumor was resting on a judgment area, so he thought maybe my judgment was off, and it could have been.
So I had nothing. They called me in the hospital and said, “So we can give you a three days vacation.” because I’d been there for four months, so that’s another reason why I thought that I had to go back, but luckily I was able to pray through it and meet with some mentors about it. I finally decided I’m going to ask the owner of this company and it’s like a half billion dollar company who barely knows me, if he’ll help me.
I thought it was crazy. I wrote out this letter, I kept praying about it. I didn’t even send it for two weeks. I just kept praying about the letter. I was explaining how I didn’t sign up for the disability insurance, and this is what I would’ve got if I did. And is there any way that you could help me with this? And I thought, “What the heck, the worst thing they can say is no.”
So the HR company called me one day and I was like, “I know that they’re wanting me to quit.” I was nervous about the phone call and I didn’t take it. So I decided, because I wanted to talk to the owner first and then I decided, “Okay, I’m just going to send this.” So I remember it was nine in the morning.
I sent it off where I basically asked him, will you help provide for me? and I can’t work. And literally two minutes later, the owner of a half billion dollar company emailed me back. And he is like, “I am so sorry that you had to write this email.” Because in the email I kept saying, “Oh, I feel so bad, and I’m embarrassed, but I really need help, and I don’t know what else to do, and I feel God’s calling me to ask you.”
And I have no idea if this guy is a Christian or not. He said, “We were calling you yesterday to tell you that we want to basically pay your salary, and because we feel bad about what you’re going through and we want to help you. So we’re willing to figure out what you’re getting from the state and then whatever’s left over, we’re going to make you whole, so it’s like you’re getting your full salary until the end of the year.
I couldn’t believe it. I was doing nothing. I knew the guy for four months. I pray to God, “Can this man help me?” And then afterwards I told him, I’m like, “God used you to answer a cry of my heart.” He kept saying, “God would never use me. I’m a terrible person.” I’m like, “Well, I’m telling you the truth.” Then after that year I went in there to thank him.
I made an appointment with him. I said, “I just want to come by and thank you.” And I was still in full treatment, there’s no way I could have worked, and I said, “I was wondering if I could buy my medical benefits from you.” I’m done with the work you said through the end of the year, and is there any way? And he is all, “Yeah. If it’s legal, you can.”
And I did consult an attorney. I knew it was legal since he was a privately held company that he could. And I’m like, “Well, you should check with your HR and let me know.” He’s “I have no problem.” Then as I was walking out the door, He said, “Wait a minute. Do we really have to do this whole, you quit, and the benefits thing? Why can’t I just keep paying you until you’re better?” So he paid me another year!
Gina:
Wow. That’s crazy!
Christine:
Then eventually he had to stop paying me obviously, but by that time there were so many other ways, like people doing fundraisers for me, and I feel like God’s just taking care of things in crazy ways.
The Journey of Full Healing
Gina:
Isn’t it amazing how it’s never just about one thing? Your health is obviously a huge thing, but God is this great economist with His grace and His power and His love. I love that you brought up about your 11 year old self. It’s so interesting, because I just did a podcast interview yesterday with pastor Joe Johnson, who has an inner healing ministry, dealing with those things, and absences in our life and those wounds that we have that cause us to then kind of make those vows. “I will always be my own provider” or “I will never be like this.”
For our own self protection and for maybe for the people around us, but really for ourselves, we kind of construct these little presumptions of what my role is, and who I’m supposed to be, and what I need to do to survive, or what I need to do to take care of myself or my family, and the Lord very lovingly and gently comes along and starts to deconstruct those things and go, “Well, actually, I didn’t design you to do that.” And it’s time for you to learn how to, let me be your Dad.
Christine:
And through this, I felt a real connection to God, but I always refer to Him only as Jesus, I have trouble with the Father part. So I’m working on that to call him Daddy or Abba Father.
Gina:
All of us will gravitate towards someone in the Trinity that we feel good about. But the Trinity is God – equally in pursuit of us – equally for us. I think there’s a purpose in the enemy’s relentless pursuit of distorting our understanding of God as Father, and distorting our understanding of what actual relationship of intimacy with God is. That’s why this podcast exists.
We were made for relationship. What is the greatest commandment? To love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, your soul, your mind, and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself. The implications in those two verses are far reaching, and it’s all about intimacy. Religion turns it away from relationship and into what I have to do.
Like, “I gotta take care of this.I’m going to provide, I’m going to be strong. I’m going to memorize all the things. I’m going to do all the good things. I’m going to be moral. I’m going to share Jesus with X amount of people.” Which keeps us wholly distracted from what Jesus died for.
He died to forgive us of our sins, but the point of forgiving our sins is to take away that barrier between us and the Father. So that instead of being like Adam and Eve and hiding in our shame, where God has to say, “Where are you? I miss you. Come back. I love you so that we can experience John 17.”
You know, Jesus’ prayer. His whole life is a demonstration of intimacy and dependence. I think one of the hardest lessons to learn is dependence. And that’s this whole journey for you, someone who’s been so strong, so self-sufficient, able to juggle all the balls, to care for everybody, provide, and do all the things. Then suddenly you find yourself in a place where you have to surrender.
Christine:
I was so concerned about my kids in the beginning as well. They were 15 and 18 when I was diagnosed. It was really hard for both of them, but God strengthened their faith. I believe that He made them more empathetic towards anybody who’s suffering. He really strengthened our relationships too, not that I had a bad relationship with them, but my son ended up living at home until he was 22.
He could have moved out, he had plenty of money saved, and he was going to auto trade school. But when he finally did move out last year after I found out that there was a growth on my brain. They thought the cancer came back, but I had a brain biopsy surgery and they took three pieces of the part that was growing. I had already been back on chemo for two months and the biopsy came back saying “No evidence of tumor.”
So I gotta stop the chemo at that point. I was over with the two years of the head device thing. So my son said, “I think I’m going to move out. I just feel like you’re okay now, so I can go.” So that made me feel really good that I didn’t even know that he was sticking around for me.
I’m very thankful for the time that I got with him. I was sad that he was moving out, but I understood that he needed to spread his wings and fly, and he’s loving life. And he was working full time, he had already graduated from the auto school and he got a job and was just doing his nine to five thing from home for me.
Gina:
Wow. That’s a big deal. It’s so interesting how you were saying, “It solidified their faith.” I think when you walk through something like this, and it doesn’t have to be cancer, it could be so many things. It could be the death of a family. It could be an accident. It’s those circumstances that rip the rug out from under you and just disrupt our lives.
Those are the things that finally get you to where you go, “What do I actually believe? Do I actually believe that You’re who You say You are?” It really takes you back to the beginning. “What am I doing? What do I believe? Why am I here? Where are my doubts? Lord, I believe help my unbelief.” And as you kind of pull back, that’s when you start to see His presence and His provision.
Christine:
I even got to see a tiny bit of evangelism in the two of them. I don’t think that’s their spiritual gift. Maybe it is, but they both posted on their Instagrams or Snapchats and asking for prayer for me for the first brain surgery. A teenager doesn’t usually post pictures of their mom, so I was pretty excited to get a spot on Instagram asking for prayer.
Gina:
So you had the initial surgery, you did hundreds of rounds of chemo. You had the device that was on your head. So I know that you’ve had some significant milestones in the last year. So where, where are things at now?
Christine:
I was six months off the chemo. That was a huge celebration when I found out I didn’t have to do chemo anymore, even though I knew I still had to do the head thing for another year. I was just so thankful not to have the chemo. And then like the next scan, I was still getting scanned every month. It showed a little spot starting to grow and then the next scan, it got bigger, and then it got bigger again. After four or five months my doctor said, “You’re going back on chemo.” And I was like, “No, please.”
It’s hard to read in the scans, because a tumor looks the same as necrosis, which is dead tissue, and radiation damage causes dead tissue a year to two years after your radiation. So she was like, “I don’t know if that’s radiation damage or if it’s tumor, but I think it’s tumor and I think you should be back on chemo.”
Then she wanted me to start chemo on my 50th birthday, literally on the day. I was able to push it out a week, and then I was so sick, even sicker after being off it for six months. I ended up in the emergency room. I didn’t sleep for five days. I actually got second opinions on the tumor piece that was growing, and I ended up changing my oncologist to a different neuro oncologist in LA.
He’s been practicing for 22 years, my other oncologist, 12 years. And I was very honored that he shared this with me, he said, “In the beginning years, I tended to over treat because I was scared and didn’t want to lose anybody. And that could be happening here. I’m not saying that for sure.” He gave me all these specific reasons as to why he thought it wasn’t cancer.
And he wanted to try and see how I did off the chemo for a couple months. So I ended up moving to him and I tried going off it for two months, but it still kept growing. He finally said, you can do what you want, but if you would like, I’d like to do a brain biopsy, which is basically brain surgery. So they have to drill a hole in your head and all that.
And if you don’t mind, I’d like to do that to determine, is this really cancer or is it radiation damage? That was the surgery that I did up in UCLA in September, 2019. So just a year ago when I did all the other second opinions, some doctors said, “Oh, all this is cancer.” Everyone had different opinions.
Everyone agreed that the spot itself probably was cancer except the guy at UCLA. So when I met with the surgeon, he said, “Okay, I’m going to biopsy this piece right here.” And I said, “Well, can you biopsy the one above and the one below as well, since you’re just going straight down?” And he said, “Yeah, I could do that.” And because I knew that other doctors had said that was cancer. I couldn’t believe he said that he would do that, but it never hurts to ask right?
Gina:
Would you pay me for two years? Great! Hey, would you biopsy other stuff? Great!
Christine:
They told me we’re going to test it while you’re in surgery. And if it’s a tumor, then we have to keep taking more and more, so we can figure out how much it is.” But the surgery ended up being really fast. And when I came out, I remember John and my sister told me there was no evidence of tumor for all three spots. And now that piece is completely gone.
Maybe three months later, it just disappeared. And I have new spots, and the doctor just thinks that’s how my brain is going to work dealing with the radiation after effects. So I just keep trusting God. So that was in September, since then he’s been letting me go every three months for an MRI, which is a big deal in the brain tumor community to get to three months. That’s where I’m at with the glioblastoma.
Check out the rest of the conversation: Fighting Terminal & A Survivor’s Message
Check out a related blog on Alice Houtenville’s fight with Cancer: Healing in Chronic Sickness
Check out the Dwell Meditations
