In the decade since Daniel Dean’s diagnosis at age four with Burkitt lymphoma, an aggressive, devastating cancer, life for the family has been filled with the usual ups and downs. Daniel, now 14 and an avid basketball player, continues to get a clean bill of health at his annual cancer screenings. Thanks to Daniel’s experience, Mom Tricia found a new calling and became a nurse. She also beat breast cancer. Dad Curt faced COVID: both as a patient and as a minister officiating at funerals of coronavirus victims. While some of the challenges have been daunting, the Deans are quick to point out that they are focusing on counting their blessings. The Mother’s Day Offering, which helped pay Daniel’s monumental medical bills, was a big one. The Dean family’s gratitude for that gift of love is just as real now as it was then. “We see the goodness of God blessing us, first, with the health of our son,” Curt said. “And in financial resources graciously provided so we were not also having to deal with the weight of an insurmountable financial burden. People who gave don’t realize the magnitude of the love they expressed.”
Through the years, the Deans have discovered that life has no guarantees: they found themselves on roads they had no idea they’d be walking. They also found they were not alone. “There are wonderful people who believe in this Offering and are willing to help people they will never meet this side of eternity,” Curt said. “It lets families know there’s someone willing to walk along with them and bear some of the financial burden, so their walk will not be so severe.” This is especially important now, with the pandemic. “If we can keep our focus on the Lord and not circumstances around us, He has promised to fill us to overflowing with his peace, presence, and provision to help us weather the storm,” Curt said. That promise was made real through the Mother’s Day Offering. “Thank you so much for this blessing,” Tricia said. “You released the burden that was on us.”
By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. –John 13:35
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. –Romans 5: 1-2
And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. –Hebrews 11:6