Doctors said she had 10 days! Robin Luftig shares how precious is the time.

You know the old song... Live Like You Were Dying?
Robin Luftig shares what happened when the doctors told her she had a massive brain tumor and just ten days to get her affairs in order.

Guest Bio:
ROBIN LUFTIG is founder of Renew Ministries She is also a nationally-known speaker for Stonecroft Ministries and contributor for Leading Hearts magazine and online publications such as OneChristianVoice.com and CBN.com. Robin and her husband Lew have five children and live in central PA.
Connect with Robin at https://robinluftig.com
God's Best During Your Worst: Living Under His Umbrella: https://amzn.to/3EhN0kh

Host Bio:
Teresa Janzen, M.Ed., ignites a passion for abundant living through radical service. She is an international speaker, author, and podcast host. Her experience in leadership and global ministry drives her to share inspiring stories with wit and insight. Her candid and personable style is sure to capture the heart of any audience.
Connect at https://teresajanzen.com

Transcript

0:02

What would you do if the doctors told you you have a massive brain tumor and 10 days to get your affairs in order? How would you spend that time listening to today's guest as she tells us exactly what she did? And while you're here, take a moment and subscribe. Welcome to Radical Abundance. I'm your host, Teresa Janssen. Have you ever cried out to God? Why? Why is this happening to me? Well, today's guest is Robin Luftig, and she knows all about how God's best is available even during some of your worst times. That's hard to imagine, but that's what we're talking about today. Robin, welcome to Radical Abundance. It's great to have you on the show. Thanks, Teresa. This is my treat for sure. I want to just jump right into the heart of your story, and I know that anyone who talks about and writes about something like God's Best during Your worst must have had a time when life seemed pretty much at its worst. Can you. Take us back there. What was it like that launched you on this journey of discovering all about the goodness of God in the midst of tragedy? It was a wonderful day. In April in 2007, when out of nowhere I had a seizure nowhere and left me paralyzed on my right side, and I was unable to speak. I had just started a speaking ministry, so I was a little confused. I thought God was calling me home. They called the ambulance, came and took me to the hospital and we found tests, did test. Then they found a tumor on my brain about the size of my doctor's fist, and they said, You have 10 days. If you have any place you wanna go, anybody you wanna see, or anything you wanna do., you have 10 days to do it. I was just rocked. My world was rocked. And in those 10 days, I can tell you there now looking back, that those 10 days have been the sweetest 10 days of my entire life. I can't even imagine what it's like to have someone say, You have 10 Dave to resolve it. 10 days. Anything you need to resolve, do anything you wanna do. Right. And my children don't live near to me, so I had to call them and tell them this information over the phone, which was heartbreaking to hear the silence on the other end or to hear the tears. I mean, they're grown. They were grown child, they were grown adults, but they're still my babies. You know, You know how that goes. And it was just heartbreaking. And they., they were struggling with it as well. Sure, yeah, of course. And they're in the midst of their lives and it, so it was out of the blue for you. You didn't have a history of seizures. No warning signs, just nothing. Bam. Here it is. Although, and although I can tell you a little preview on my way to a speaking, engage. I was, you know, of how you do when you travel. If you have a car trip, you have your CDs packed on the side beside you. You had your coffee, your snacks, everything's ready to go for your road trip. And I, that, that was me. I was driving by myself. I had about a five hour drive and I started and I said, Father, thank you for this opportu. For allowing me to do this, just this wonderful time with these women at this retreat, and just as clearly as I'm talking to you, I felt in my spirit, how are you serving me, Robin, If you're doing what you wanna do anyway, Do you trust me? This just, this was in March, and I said, I'd like to say that. I said, Oh father, of course. But I said, I don't know. And so I drove for five hours wrestling with God. Why can't you just watch my back? I tell people how wonderful you are and you keep me safe, and we'll call it a day. Can we do that? Now, here I am, a Christian speaker, bartering with God, and he kept saying over and over, Do you trust me? Do you trust me? And by the time I got to my venue, Selling me. Of course I did and I completely forgot about it. That was in March. In April, when I'm laying in this hospital bed, the doctor shows me the pictures of this tumor and I start to cry and we start to pray. I asked him if he would pray for me, and my husband was there, and I thank God for his mercy and his provision, and my husband said, Father, give me back my wife. That's all he had. He prayed in his heart and I leaned back and I just tried to take in the peace of that moment and I heard God speak to my heart again. Do you trust me? At that point, I knew that I was in my father's hand and he was working a purpose in my life that was specific for me, and he was in control. Made it a sweet 10 days, a hard 10 days, but a sweet 10 days. Well, that is a huge. Message and a wake up call. What ha how was it looking back from that time when the doctor says, Do you have 10 days and you, Are you thinking about those things that happened beforehand or did that come later as you were reflecting later? Well, I refl, I wrote during those 10 days, cause I knew, this was when God said, Do you trust me? I knew he had a plan and I needed to write it down. I needed to write. Everything. So that's what I did. I wrote down my morning prayer or a prayer of uncertainty because I wasn't sure. I knew I was praying to God. I just wasn't sure what his plans were. So I was trying to gather wisdom anywhere that I could. And in those 10 days, I was blessed with confusion. I had confusion laid out right in front of. It was here. This is what you're facing. And God in his mercy was so kind and he allowed me just to, you know, sometimes we try to skirt around things. No, I didn't have time. I was on a time period where I only had moments to deal with this. So I went straight ahead. I call it the swan dive and the lab of Jesus. I went right into it and I went face first into confusion to try to find out why I was confused. Later on, I discovered that everybody deals with tragedy. Mine was a brain tumor, but people have either dealt with it or dealing with it now, or will deal with it in the. You know, I think we all need to know that God is there right with us. In the midst of that tragedy, I walked through confusion and then I went through doubt and I said, Father, I don't know, and went after doubt. It was focus. I knew I had to focus. God had a plan. I knew the truth. I wasn't feeling it so much, but I knew if I could focus, focus on that. And after the focusing, I was able to trust. And after that trust, it was so amazing how this unfolded. I was able to face heartache. I looked at what he was leading me through, walking beside with me hand in hand. And I was sad. I had a. Here, did he want me to come home? I was, my time on Earth gonna be over and then I had to surrender all of that Ev every day I did another step. And through surrendering built my faith. And in that faith Spring gratitude. And from that gratitude spring peace in. I understood Grace. what you've described to me. I've heard people maybe go on a journey similar to that, but oftentimes we're talking years of processing things and self discovery and spiritual growth, and that you had a very condensed time. You were in the middle of a vibrant ministry career. Then all of a sudden, your whole world comes to a grinding screeching halt, and you are. 24 7. Face to face with, Yeah. With your mortality or your immortality and eternity and your relationship with God. What was it do you think, in your background or what was going on in your life at that time that made a difference between. Being bitter or angry or searching and being so open to God's moving in your life, or did you have some of that real anger? Did you go through bitterness and anger too? I didn't have time. It's crazy. I didn't have time to be angry. I had seen God move in my life. So magnificently years earlier because I had made some really bad choices in my life and he just pulled me from the gates of hell. And I've always focused on that when times are bad, you know, they say to write things down when you're in a valley because our lives are valleys in hilltops. That's what we are. And if when we're in the valley, we have to know that there will be another hilltop. So I tried to keep that in my mind. I just, I didn't have the time to fret. I knew God loved me, and I don't know why that always stuck with me. Even in the toughest times, I knew God loved me. I wasn't sure that I loved him. There were times that I wasn't sure that I loved him, but I always knew that he loved. and I hung onto that and I focused on that and I said, then that's what I said, A lap, a swan dive in the lap of Jesus. I didn't have time. I needed to know, this was where the rubber was meeting the road. I didn't have the luxury to say wonderful, kind, beautiful words, melodic prayers. I just had to say, Oh, father. Oh father, oh father. Come, you know, stay with me. I'm, I don't know. I don't know. Did I do something wrong? I know you're with me. Did I mess up? I, you know, talk to me because I don't have time. I need to know that what you say is real. You know, if you reach out for God, he will find you where you are. And he pulled closer to me than a brother in my waking moments. He would enter my thought. Always give me scripture that I had thought of in years to bring me comfort and peace in direction. I heard you say that during your conversations with God and he drew very close to you, that you also question, did I mess up somewhere? So did you had some self-reflection and things like that going on, wondering, is this judgment I'm facing? No, that, that was part of the early days, the confusion. I thought I was on track doing what I needed to do. I had made so many changes in my life. I had done what I needed to. I what, Did I miss something? Did I miss something? Because I don't know, when I think of sin sometimes that I find in my past that I hadn't thought about, Oh, how did I miss that? And so I repent of that sin the moment I remember it. I thought, well, maybe there's something in my past. Because we always think that, We always think it's about us, right? We always think, Okay, I could have done this differently. I could have controlled this. I messed up. Well, it wasn't that. But once I, once I got that out of my head and I was able to deal with that doubt and shoot into focus when I shot into focus, then I could work better and I moved on. Okay, so. 10 days, 10 days goes by, or however much time goes by, what happens? I mean, obviously you are a functioning person. You know, here on the Radical Abundance Podcast, Robin, you look great,. Well, it wa I had a five Yeah, I brought breakfast up to BR to my husband, breakfast in bed because he would do that for me always. And I didn't know if I was ever gonna be able to serve him again. So I brought him breakfast in bed and we sat and we prayed and we cried because we just didn't know, but we were. We knew he, we had been washed with God's grace, just soaked in it. And we knew God had a plan and we were loving God more than we had ever loved God before. And we knew we were steeped in that. Nobody, we still cried, you know? But then I went into surgery and came out and I hurt from my toes to my tip of my head. I was in so much pain after I woke up. They were concerned with my speech. They didn't know if I was going to be able to talk. That was the area that the brain that it was affecting, and they didn't know if my motor, my fine motor ability would be able to come back. My memory is some of the areas that were touched, and I am not as a hundred percent I am in my nineties. Maybe I'm like to think, but I'm where God wants me and where God is using me the best. And your speaking and your writing continues and probably even has grown, maybe. Is that true? It has and taken a new direction. Can you believe that? It's amazing. I took seven years to write. I can . Yeah. I, yeah. I took seven years to write the book, God's Best During Your Worst because I wanted to let people understand that I have credibility in dealing with grief. It's not that I have a corner on it, it's just I know about it and I used this book and I pull from scripture, I pull from writers like Spurgeon or Andy Stanley or Jody Ericsson, Todd, I, Michael J. Fox. I cite these people that have worked in, lived through tragedy because everyone wants to know how to do. And typically you wanna know right then. So it's an easy read. It's a fun read. It's a focus onto the reader Read. It's a good, it's a good book. But I've also gone into fiction. I just love, I love friendship and I love grace and mercy because God's grace and mercy are, are what we all strive for. We might not know. At the time, but we all strive for God's grace and mercy and it's waiting for us all. Well, I'm going to put your contact details in the show notes so that people can find your website, find your books, both your fiction books and your non-fiction books and be able to learn more about you. And all of that will be in the show notes. Like I said, now, right now, if someone is listening to this show and they're saying, Well, Robin, yeah, God was there in the midst of a brain tumor, that's a big deal. My challenge is just something small, you know? We always want to compare our hardships with someone else's. What would you say to someone like that? Yeah, I'd say pain is pain. You know, it can't compare pain because just because you feel it. I feel it too, and we feel pain differently, and it's still pain, but there's nothing that you've ever done. That you've said that you've thought that will hold you away from Jesus. God loves you and His grace was for you, for me, through this tragedy. Mm-hmm., he doesn't want anybody to perish. He doesn't want, He wants to help and, Be a part of everyone's lives and I think this was a wonderful time for me to see that there's nobody alive that can talk me out of the strength of Jesus, the power in his hands, and I will always be thankful for that. Now, what about the person who's listening today who has gone through a really challenging time and has not had the experience that you have had, where you can look back and say, I see what you did there. God, you know, I see the journey that we've been on. You know, sometimes there's tragedies that happen in life. We look back and we still are left saying, Why? Why? So what would you say in that situation? I would say don't put a period where it's meant to have a comma there. Life is not over until it's over. We are where there's breath, there's hope, and we should remember that our days numbered. If there is a promise that's coming, it's still coming. God's word is still true., Maybe not. Maybe you don't see it today, but it's still true. And I love how you answered in writerly terms, there don't put a period where there should be a comma that's very appropriate. And also I think sometimes there's some side story going on that we really don't know anything about that can oftentimes happen and we may not know, even during this life, we may not know. Right. And coming down to trusting God and surrendering. Sort wondering. That is not easy. I'm not even going to pretend that's easy.. Well, if it's not easy, blessing of those 10 days. I didn't have a choice. I didn't have the time to argue. You know, I did my first couple of days of wrestling with God, with my confusion and doubt, but I was looking at a, I was flipping those pages over on the calendar. I didn't have time I needed to know now, so it was a blessing. Well, Robin, I cannot believe our time has just flown by. Thank you so much for sharing your story with me today. And do you have any last words for the radical abundance audience? Just know that God loves you. You know it's out there for you. Embrace it. You might understand it, and then you dig deeper and you'll get more. So always dig deep into God's love. Dig deeper. Amen. Robin, thank you so much for joining us on Radical Abundance, and I wish you a radically abundant day. Thank you.