Article 10:
The Comfort of Prophets, Page 1
By Deborah Hedstrom-Page

I could push my fears aside when I was with my husband. It helped to be close to him, doing little things or simply sitting by his hospital bed. But when the hum of the van engine was my only company on the drive home, when my four children chattered around a dinner table missing a place sitting, when I stared into the darkness from my half-empty bed -- the fears crowded in.

Over and over I tried to sort out all that went with the diagnosis of Art's cancer. I struggled to foresee its effect on him, on our closeness, our children, and our finances. Everything I imaged frightened me and overran the lonely moments of my days.

Then I found help in a place I didn't expect. For many years I hadn't wanted to study the books of the Old Testament prophets. I thought they were too tough for me. But God urged me with an awareness that I'd been avoiding almost one fifth of His Word for twenty years. I had started reading them a few weeks before Art's diagnosis

The morning I read Isaiah's eighth chapter followed a another restless, fear-filled night. Even as I read, my mind clamored, "Will Art pull away from me? What if he dies? How can I ever be a single mom?" Amid my turmoil, the word 'fear' stood out in the text. I stopped to absorb what was being said."The Lord of Hosts, Him you shall hallow; let Him be your fear, and let Him be your dread. And he will be as a sanctuary..." (Isaiah 8:13, NKJV)

I wanted God to be my sanctuary. He wanted to be my fear: only not in a lie-awake, tearful way but in a keep-me-pleasing-You way.

I memorized my verse. I needed something to sooth the stab of my renewed fears when surgery showed the cancer cells had spread. I needed something to clutch when the doctor said, "If it recurs after treatment, your husband will be terminal."

I kept on clutching my verse as Art went through six weeks of radiation and another surgery, yet I could not pray for his healing. The thought of Art dying hurt so hard I could barely gasp for air between my sobs. I told God, "You know how