From the Desk of Jeff King

Little girl, arise

The story of Yeshua raising a 12-year-old girl from the dead is one of the most tender scenes in the gospels. On several levels, it is a beautiful picture of God's mercy and kindness to fallen man.

In Mark 5:41, the Lord takes the lifeless child by the hand and says, "Talitha cumi," or, "Damsel, I say unto thee, arise." According to A.T. Robertson in Word Pictures in the New Testament, the form of Greek implies an endearing term "little girl." With this understanding, you can feel the love of Messiah for this child lift off the page. We can find other examples of God's mercy in this narrative. When Yeshua enters the house and tells the people who are weeping and wailing that the girl is not dead but sleeping, He is ridiculed. But look what He does: He simply puts them outside. When Yeshua is rejected in His hometown of Nazareth (Mark 6:1-6), He marvels at their unbelief, yet He does not condemn them. The people condemn themselves by their words.

After Yeshua restores the child to life, He extends the same kindness as he does to the five thousand in Mark 6:37 – he wants her to have something to eat. Think about that. With the weight of the world on His shoulders, the Lord's immediate concern is that this little girl not go hungry. It is comforting to know that our day-to-day needs never escape His attention. God says a sparrow cannot fall to the ground apart from His will, and we are of more value than many sparrows.

Will you trust Me?

The surgical waiting room at Virginia Mason Hospital in Seattle was deserted and quiet now. It was just me and the big fish tank, and lots of empty chairs and sofas.

At 6:30 p.m. a surgeon entered the room with good news: he had successfully rebuilt my wife's left breast, which had been removed a week earlier in cancer surgery. It appeared the worst was behind us. The first operation removed all the cancer, and the more difficult second surgery – which moved stomach tissue to her breast – was completed without any complications, or so I thought.

I had felt God's peace and comfort all day, until I saw a frantic intern enter the room an hour later and call out, "Are you Jeff King?" He informed me that a blood clot had formed in the new breast tissue and Alisa needed to be rushed back into surgery. I signed the consent form and the intern disappeared out the door. For the first time, I began to worry. My sweetheart already had spent seven hours in surgery, and now faced another six to eight hours in the operating room. I didn't know this until later, but the surgeon did not know if he could save the breast reconstruction. A failed surgery now would have been devastating to Alisa after all she had been through.

I felt numb as I stood alone in the waiting room. Most of the scheduled surgeries had been completed for the day and visitors had gone home. Then I heard Messiah Yeshua whisper in my spirit, "Jeff, will you trust Me?" I answered with mustard seed-size faith, "Yes, Lord, I trust You."

So I sat down again in the big room with the fish tank. And waited. When I called the hospital switchboard hourly to get an update on Alisa, all I got was, "Things are going well." Well, things were not going well. I learned later that the surgeon could only find a small, wispy vein to try to keep circulation moving in the new breast tissue.

At midnight, a nice nurse found my exhausted, 6-foot-3 frame sprawled across two sofas. I had been awake almost 24 hours, and, except for meal breaks, hadn't moved from this room since 5:30 a.m. She brought me a tray of food and moved me to a small, private waiting room on the intensive care wing. At 3 a.m., I heard a knock on the door. It was the surgeon, who told me, smiling, "Our prayers have been answered." That small, wispy vein had saved the surgery. I felt like crying. Yeshua had kept His word and carried us through a very difficult day. We had met only one Christian on the hospital staff, and it was this surgeon. During a follow-up visit weeks later, another doctor told Alisa they had been in the presence of a miracle.

Today Alisa is cancer-free. Even though the lump in her breast was sizeable, the invasive cancer was smaller than an eraser head and had not spread. Alisa did not require chemotherapy or radiation – treatments she likely would have refused under any circumstance because of their harmful side effects. We were beginning to learn that nutrition was a better healing alternative than poisoning the body with chemicals and destroying the immune system. A good resource for people weighing treatment options is the book Stop the Medicine by Dr. Cynthia A. Foster. Her behind-the-scenes look at the cancer industry as a medical student is riveting as well as disturbing. If you are interested in natural healing and health I would recommend looking into the following: Dr. Kurt Donsbach, Daystar Botanicals (check out its superfood formula), The American Botanical Pharmacy, and AIM BarleyLife.

As we look back, we are in awe how the Lord led and spoke to us as we sought medical treatment. The Great Physician told us what to do and what not to do. He even gave Alisa the courage to say no to certain treatments the doctors were pushing. Yeshua also warned us in Psalm 27 about a false witness, who turned out to be the first oncologist Alisa saw. Reviewing biopsy results, the doctor informed Alisa she had a high stage of cancer and recommended chemo, radiation and surgery. We both were crushed. But after reading that Scripture passage we arranged for tests at another clinic, which revealed that the first diagnosis was partly in error, and would have exposed Alisa to agents that could have made her condition worse. We would encourage anyone facing a life-threatening illness to get a second opinion. This trial has strengthened our faith and sharpened our ears to hear His still small voice. Yeshua was our closest advisor and friend. But God shows personal favoritism to no man (Galatians 2:6). We did nothing to earn or deserve His special care. We simply trusted . . . and listened.