Chris Wark was only 26 years old and a newlywed when he received a devastating blow. That abdominal pain he’d ignored for months? It came from a golf-ball-sized tumor in his large intestine, and he needed surgery right away.
It was just two days before Christmas.
“I’d been serving in the church, playing on the worship team every Sunday morning for years, and it just felt so wrong. It felt so unfair,” he says on an episode of the Hope Through Cancer series on Charisma News. “And I remember saying to God, ‘Why is this happening to me? Why am I the one with cancer?'”
God reminded Wark of Romans 8:28, “We know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” That wasn’t what Wark wanted to hear either. But by faith, he chose to believe his heavenly Father would work things for his good.
After surgery to remove a third of his colon, Wark faced another blow: The cancer was stage 3, which meant it had spread to his lymph nodes, and he needed chemotherapy.
That’s when he began to see the power of God working His purpose out. As Wark recovered from the brutal surgery, he realized he had no peace about the next step in his treatment. “If there’s another way besides chemotherapy, please show me. I don’t know what to do,” he told God.
Two days later, a friend of Wark’s father sent him a book by a long-term survivor of colon cancer. “He had healed by changing his diet. … He didn’t have any surgery, or radiation, or chemo or anything,” Wark says. “And what I realized was … the way I was living was killing me.”
Now more than 15 years post-cancer, Wark has an inspiring message of the physical, emotional and spiritual factors he changed. “It wasn’t just treatment. It wasn’t just life extension. … the goal is total health and healing, long life.” His popular blog, chrisbeatcancer.com, and bestselling book, Chris Beat Cancer, have ministered to thousands.
Hear more of Wark’s inspiring, informative story when you listen to this episode of the Hope Through Cancer series on Charisma News.
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