Spread It Out Before the LORD

When King Hezekiah was told he would die, he turned his face to the wall, prayed, and wept. Later, when a letter full of threats arrived, he carried it up to the temple and spread it out before the LORD. Afterward he wrote one of the most honest poems in the Bible about being sick, being afraid, and learning to walk slowly all his years.

Spread It Out Before the LORD is a 30-day devotional through the life of Hezekiah for people facing cancer: newly diagnosed, in treatment, finished and waiting on scans, facing a recurrence, or living with advanced cancer. It is also for the spouses, caregivers, and churches who walk beside them. Along the way you'll follow Lonzo, a 46-year-old line-crew foreman in a small West Virginia river town who starts chemotherapy for stage III colon cancer, and Ida Mae, a 78-year-old infusion-room volunteer who has lived with cancer twice. Their Tuesday conversations, in the infusion room, on her porch, and at the old pump house on the Ohio River, carry them through the port and the pump, side effects and fog, a pathology report he is afraid to read, a friend in hospice, a young man with lymphoma, a scan that comes back clean, a friend's recurrence, and a long, slow faithfulness.