by Verla Chatsis
Although I am a member of Ahtahkakoop Cree Nation in north-central Saskatchewan, I didn’t grow up there. My mother, Noreen, was from Ahtahkakoop, and my father, Donald, from Poundmaker Cree Nation.
We never lived on a reserve because my father was disenfranchised when he was a teenager – so we were non-status Indians, with my mother losing her treaty rights when she married my dad.
At the time my parents met, my dad was in the Army, stationed in Chilliwack, BC, where my sister and I were born. After my dad was eventually discharged from the army, he worked in a copper mine for a few years in the BC interior – my brother was born during that time.
In the early 1970s my family moved to Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. My dad worked at the Rabbit Lake uranium mine until he retired, and mom stayed home to care for us kids.
I Started to Feel Lost, Losing My Focus
We were raised in a Catholic home and I had a surface knowledge about Jesus, but I didn’t know Him personally. My life certainly wasn’t surrendered to God. I went to university in Saskatoon and, while there, my parents’ marriage split up. That deeply affected all of us and I started to feel lost, losing my focus on school work, and I failed almost half my classes in my second year. Like many university students, I was going to parties and bars and smoking weed, but this only made me feel more hopeless. But God was at work even then.
I remember very clearly the day an idea popped into my head, “What about pharmacy?” It seemed like a really good idea because I did like chemistry and biology. It turned out to be an excellent career for me, but even choosing a career back then didn’t fill my emptiness, and I started to read a little New Testament that I had. I didn’t understand a lot of it, but I felt something drawing me in – I knew that God wanted me.
However, I wasn’t ready to give in to God because I knew I would have to give up the way I was living – all the things that I thought were fun. Then one night at home, after an exhausting week of skiing and partying in the mountains, I was in bed but couldn’t sleep. All of a sudden I felt an evil presence, and I knew that it wanted to harm me. It was laughing at me because there was nothing I could do about it. I was completely petrified. I turned on my lamp.
I Was Hoping That This “Holy” Building Would Help Me Feel Okay
I knew that I needed to pray, but I didn’t know what to pray, so I just started praying the Lord’s Prayer. The evil presence left, but I was still really scared. The next day I went to church because my niece was getting baptized. I was sitting in the church, really feeling the need for help, but it just felt like the place was empty. There was nothing there that was going to help me. I was hoping that this “holy” building would help me feel okay.
I think now that that was one of the worst times in my life, feeling absolutely powerless and it seemed that there was no one on this earth who could help me.
The following week I had a feeling that I should call my aunt, and she invited me to come for a visit. After I told her my story about the demonic presence, she told me how she had become a born again Christian, and how she was experiencing peace through Christ. I knew then that Jesus was the answer, that He would help me!
My aunt was a new believer, and didn’t know how to lead me to Christ, but she brought her friend with her over to my house. I prayed the Sinner’s Prayer, but I’m pretty convinced that I had already got saved on the way back home from my aunt’s because I was just begging Jesus to come into my life!
I don’t know if I thought at that time like some people do – that if God really loves us, then nothing bad would ever happen to us – because that’s not how the next years of my life unfolded.
Years before, one of my aunts was only about 30 years old when she died of breast cancer; her doctor didn’t think it could be cancer because my aunt was so young, so she was not treated right away. After her death, we adopted my aunt’s teenage daughter and life for our family went on.
My Mom and One of Her Sisters Were Carriers of a Specific Gene
Then my mom got breast cancer while in her mid-40s. She had a radical mastectomy and chemotherapy, and the treatment stopped the cancer – we were so happy that she lived.
The cancer centre in Saskatoon did genetic testing on my family and they found that my mom and one of her sisters were carriers of a specific gene – which meant that they had a much higher risk of getting breast and ovarian cancer. When I found this out, I thought, “Well, I probably have that gene, too, so what will I do if I get cancer?” I was in Girl Guides when I was younger, so their motto “Be Prepared” was my motto for the future.
My sisters and I coaxed our doctors to start giving us mammograms at an early age, and I even decided on the type of surgery that I would have if I did get breast cancer.
The years passed, and my younger sister found out that she had breast cancer when she was 37. She was living in Ottawa when she started her cancer treatments, then her job took her to Switzerland, where the treatments continued. I thought it would be a great idea for me to spend Christmas with her there, so I flew to Geneva.
When I came back home to Edmonton I found a lump on my breast, but I thought, “Oh, it will probably go away.” All my pre-planning went out the window – I was in serious denial.
I Still Thought it Was Probably Nothing
But I did end up getting a mammogram, as the breast centre called me for an appointment – they had never done this before. As I was sitting in the waiting room, I was praying, “God, if there’s something there, let them find it.” When I met with the doctor she said, “There’s something there.” I had a biopsy right away and then I had to wait for the results.
I still thought it was probably nothing, and went back to work. I didn’t tell anyone about it, but my friend convinced me to tell my parents. I’m glad I did because they came to be with me when I got the news that, yes, it was cancer.
I had lumpectomy surgery in February, and later chemotherapy, and radiation treatments months later. After the breast cancer surgery, I was praying with friends and I felt that I had to surrender my desire for marriage to the Lord, like Abraham offering up his son, Isaac. Even though I was in my late 30s, marriage and a family was something I was still hoping for.
It was not easy, but I prayed and gave these desires to Jesus. Then my surgeon sent me for an abdominal ultrasound, as she knew my family history. This was definitely God at work, as they found a mass on my ovary. I thought it was just an ovarian cyst, nothing serious. I was still in denial.
The Lord Gives and the Lord Takes Away
I had surgery for the ovarian growth in April, two months after my breast surgery, and I wouldn’t know if the growth was cancerous until after the operation. When I woke up, I knew that the surgery had taken too long. My doctor came to tell me that it was cancer, so they had done a total hysterectomy and checked to see if it had spread. Somehow I really felt it was important that I praised God at that time, so I said, “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
It was truly a God thing because I didn’t have it in myself to say that. I especially wanted my parents to know that I still trusted God through this. But these words from Job in the Bible were a word to myself, and I came to understand their importance in the years ahead.
It was a statement of faith, and I realize now that you have to choose to believe God even at times when things are falling apart around you. I so appreciated the prayer groups and close friends who supported me during this time with food, prayers, and fellowship.
One day, as I was walking in Mill Creek Ravine in Edmonton, I felt very clearly that Jesus was walking with me. I could feel His presence. He wasn’t saying anything – He was just walking with me and He was comforting me.
That was the beginning of a deeper walk with God, understanding that Jesus says – as in Psalm 23 – that He walks with us through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and that is what He did. After those treatments my cancer disappeared, but the most difficult time came a couple years later.
It Was Grief Upon Grief in a Very Short Period of Time
In 2002, they found a tumor in the other breast. Radiation treatment was sufficient but, adding to my challenges, my father had a stroke and died, and my youngest sister was diagnosed with cancer. About 14 months after my dad died, my mother eventually succumbed to ovarian cancer. It was grief upon grief in a very short period of time. The good news, though, was that my mom had returned to the Lord.
Deep inside I was angry and wrestled with God about the unfairness of my health and family circumstances. Like Job, I justified myself, thinking, “I’ve lived a good life. What did I do to deserve this?” It really revealed my bad theology – my wrong thinking that if God really loved us, nothing bad would ever happen to us. I was taken back to the Scriptures where Jesus said that in this world we will have trouble, but “Take heart, for I have overcome the world.” Jesus told us that we would undergo trials and persecution and all these things. But He has overcome it!
I turned to the Bible because it is our source of truth and our foundation for who God is, and who we are. I came to realize that God is a good God, that He is the “father of lights in whom there is no shadow of turning.” He is good and gives us good gifts. Even though my circumstances may be bad, God is good. When we become angry and allow bitterness to come in, we cut ourselves off from feeling God’s love.
It wasn’t until I repented of my bitterness and surrendered everything again to the Lord that I was able to sense His love again – but His love had been there all the time. I was happy as a single adult – life was full, and my single sister and I enjoyed travelling a lot.
I Believe That We Can Have Peace and Joy
Then, through a mutual friend, I met Randy Friesen, who had lost his wife to cancer. We had similar interests and started corresponding by email, then began dating. We were married in 2017 and I moved back to Prince Albert, the same city where I had lived over 30 years before.
Randy is my supportive husband. He is a blessing in my life, and I think I’m a blessing to him. He has four children, so I have four children now, and a grandson – God is so good! What I had surrendered to God, He has fulfilled, but in a different way than I had thought. I have been able to share with other people who are going through the cancer journey, and I try to encourage them.
There may not always be happiness, but I believe that we can have joy and peace. We can have joy because we know that the Lord is walking with us through things. We can have joy because Jesus is a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, and so He knows exactly what we’re going through.
Adapted from our Tribal Trails video interviews with Verla.
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