A prayer for hope written by Wendy Vanake and read by Kelly Givens.

While Jesus was still speaking, some people came from the house of Jarius, the synagogue

leader.

Your daughter is dead, they said.

Why bother the teacher anymore?

You're hearing what they said, Jesus told him, don't be afraid, just believe.

Mark 5, 35, and 36.

I've often wished I had never heard the words, your husband has cancer.

They are hope sucking words.

Those four words were the ones silent and I heard a few months after marriage.

And then, two more times in the years since.

Each time the doctor has spoken them, I felt God whispered into the dark corners of

my heart, time and time again.

Just trust me.

I don't think anyone likes hearing the phrase, just trust me.

But sometimes that is just what God requires of us.

When I'm worried about what is going to happen next, when I'm stressed out over what

the doctor's results will say, or when I feel like I have no hope because I can't see

my dreams ever being reality, that's when I hear it, quiet, firm, just trust me.

One thing I've learned in the almost four years since silence, cancer diagnosis is that

when the rest of the world says there is no hope, Jesus is standing there saying they're

wrong.

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