I am waiting for a second opinion and I am also scheduled for this Tuesday for another bronchoscopy, not a pleasant procedure but not the worst either. This week all of the UCSF cancer doctors are in Australia at a big conference and when they get back the tumor board will be discussing my case.
Yesterday, was the first time I cried and just to let you know I am always slightly embarrassed when it happens, which is very rare by the way. I was listening to a new music group that my friend Josh introduced me to called Beautiful Eulogy and I was at home heating up some vegetable soup when a song called “Blessed Are The Merciful” came on and just full on crushed me with the reality of God’s mercy and grace. Knowing that we have a savior who has already suffered and died for our sins, for my cancer, and who knows my pain better than I can ever express. I felt the love of God poured out and I cried for thirty minutes just knowing the truth of it all.
Earlier that day I received a long text from a friend who challenged me to see my spiritual gifts being used greatly in and through this turmoil. Many others have sent gifts and prayers and each one reminds me of God’s mercy.
Honestly, I feel like my Facebook profile picture is exactly how I feel, confused and concerned. The one thing I have not felt is alone. So many of you have come along side me and let me know that they are praying and even fasting for me. When people come together and become the hands and feet of Jesus it never ceases to touch so many and bring healing. I am so excited about the miracles God will do through this situation and I can’t wait to see God move each of us closer to Himself.
How have you seen God move? What scriptures have you held tightly to while suffering? Have you allowed God to work through your weakness?
Be Blessed
Sean Trank
Sean Trank 
Praying for you here in Santa Rosa, CA. Well your sense of humor may be due to Lead based paint and my analytical paranoid attitude is due to all the chemicals in the lard that we used to cook with and the house filled with tobacco smoke. Sean, may I copy the post you did on Mercy. Would love to give out at church. Loved it! Talk at you Later. Martha
Feel free to post for your church 🙂
So glad to hear you were blessed by that. I just wanted to share some cool music, but God had bigger plans it seems 🙂
Chai was talking to me today about you and these giant tears rolled down his cheeks. I think it is so much more painful to watch a guy cry than a girl…cuz we do it so often.
I won’t tell you what he told me cuz he is writing you a letter. But I want you to know I am so very thankful for you and your influence on his life.
We’ve never met but we have mutual friends, the Pearsons in Virginia, and I just want you to know that I am praying for you and your wife. Beth
I have held on TIGHTLY to the truth of who God is and to any words that God has given to me directly or through someone else concerning what God has done/will do in my situation. Every time I began to slip into doubting what God has told me, I declared what he spoke to me out loud as a battle cry. Faith comes by hearing. It is a fight of faith, but if we continue to be faithful in declaring God’s truth (logos and raima), we can battle through to believing the report of the Lord.
Hey Sean, can’t tell you how many times Ellen and I have lifted you and Sarah in prayer ever since we got the word of your diagnosis. We are praying for you in the things that we sought of the Lord when we both faced cancer diagnoses and surgeries three years ago this month. We are asking God to give you both peace and wisdom. I greatly appreciated having my heart sensitized to the goodness and love of the Lord as I went through the process of treatment and recovery, but I wouldn’t ever have asked for the OPPORTUNITY! Here is a bible passage that encouraged me for the altered perspective that it offers:
16 Therefore, do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day-by-day.
17 For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison,
18 while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not see; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)
Hi Sean, I wanted to let you know about a clinic you may want to check out, if you live anywhere to close to it. My husband and I were buying plants at a nursery in Penryn, California. My sister was having ovarian cancer at the time, and we were talking with the owner. He told us about his wife who in the past was diagnosed with Stage IV cancer. She was considered terminal. I think her cancer was somewhere in the lower GI system.
Anyway, she went to the Gerber Medical Clinic in Reno, and after a few weeks of treatment, she tested cancer free. Her husband was not a believer, but he couldn’t stop talking about this miracle. If you’re interested, contact information is:
Gerber Medical Clinic Michael Gerber, M.D., H.M.D. Homeopathic Medical Physician contact@gerbermedical.com 775-826-1900 Fax 826-0578 24 Hour Accessibility 1225 Westfield Ave. Reno, Nevada 89509 http://www.gerbermedical.com
I wish you the best in your search for a cure and will be praying for you.
In His Name,
Irene Nelson
Sean – We are fervently praying for you and Sarah as well, knowing that nothing is impossible with God. Praying for a miracle in your case – God says we do not have because we do not ask. We’re asking! Have passed your news to many of our church friends who are praying as well. Your open, honest and positive attitudes are inspiring and, if it makes you feel better, I’ve cried many tears for both of you as well. We send our love.
Sean, when I first heard your diagnosis and again when I found out about the severity, it hit me in the face like a ton of bricks. I’ve been in prayer for you with this since I found out.
I just want to let you know how much I admire you right now. Thank you for writing about it and being so open and transparent about the experience. Already, I see the beauty of the God we love shining through your life in your response to the diagnosis. I pray that regardless of the outcome of this battle, countless people would come to know the love of God and the power of the cross that gives us peace.
You’re making God famous, my brother. That’s the best possible thing you could ever do with your life. Thank you for your courageous outlook. Thank you for your surrender and allowing God’s presence to be evident in your life and mindset. Keep writing!
praying for you here in Chile!
the scripture that really helped me and was said to me over and over and often when I was going thru a really tough season/battle and always freaking out is: Romans 8:28 – And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. When I first read this, I thought of that, and every time I see your posts I think the same! 🙂 The other one on my heart for you specifically is: You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. Genesis 50:20 God has GREAT things in store for you!!!! 🙂
Psalm 73:26 & 28
My flesh and my heart may fail,
But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
But as for me, the nearness of God is my good;
I have made the Lord God my refuge, That I may tell of all Thy works.
Sean, I know that God is making this true for you and Sarah.
With you both in prayer,
Martha J
“Lord, he whom you love is ill.” But when Jesus heard it he said, “This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” (John 11:3-4, ESV)
Dear Sean and Sarah,
Aaron informed our church, Lighthouse Fellowship, in Pacific Grove, of you disgnosis.
On Wednesday at our prayer meeting we prayed for you and your family.
This morning as I prayed for you and your family God brought this verse to mind:
“TheLord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid do not be discouraged.”(Deuteronomy 31:8).
Our Pastor Ted was diagnosed with bone cancer earlier this year and we are walking alongside him and his wife Alicia. God is strengthening them and providing peace.God is also strengthening my faith through this.
I will continue to pray for you.
Shabbat Shalom,
Carolina
Sean this is my Life verse. It has been the answer for every Why Question I have ever had. I used to think it was so I could comfort those with the “same” affliction, but that is not what it says, it says the “SAME COMFORT” Our God is unchanging even in this. 2 Cor 1:3-5 3 Praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. 4 He comforts us in all our affliction,[a] so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction, through the comfort we ourselves receive from God. 5 For as the sufferings of Christ overflow to us, so through Christ our comfort also overflows.
These verses have proven themselves over and over to me, in my life and in the lives of so many others, especially when doctors start handing out numbers, weeks, months, years. God does not promise us tomorrow, Today is the day He gives us to use for His glory. HOWEVER He has and will give us the number of days He has determined for us since the beginning of time. That is a PROMISE! Psalm 139:13 For it was You who created my inward parts;
You knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I will praise You
because I have been remarkably and wonderfully made.
Your works are wonderful,
and I know this very well.
15 My bones were not hidden from You
when I was made in secret,
when I was formed in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw me when I was formless;
all my days were written in Your book and planned
before a single one of them began.
And Psalm 56 reminds you just how precious you are to the Lord. Those tears you shed, HE collected each and everyone do not be embarrassed by what Y’shua calls Precious. Psalm 56 :When I am afraid,
I will trust in You.
4 In God, whose word I praise,
in God I trust; I will not fear.
What can man do to me?
8 You Yourself have recorded my wanderings.[d]
Put my tears in Your bottle.
Are they not in Your records?
9 Then my enemies will retreat on the day when I call.
This I know: God is for me.
10 In God, whose word I praise,
in the Lord, whose word I praise,
11 in God I trust; I will not fear.
Continuing to lift you and Sarah up to Y’shua. His Love sustains us in all things.
Hi Sean,
i continue to pray for you and Sarah. I found a verse that I think you will like. Isaiah 41:31.
I hang on to these verses from Isaiah 43:
But now, this is what the Lord says—he who created you, Jacob, he who formed you, Israel: “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior… Isaiah 43 (NIV)
We are praying for you!