A cancer diagnosis has led Counties evangelist, Ivor Cooper, to see he’s a ‘work in progress’ as he asks: “Lord, what do you want me do with the time I have left?”

Ivor was first diagnosed with cancer in 2015. He had an operation to remove a tumour and a kidney. Although he recovered well and carried on working, he says:

“I was warned at the time that this particular cancer can return in various ways. One of the ways is the brain and about two years later I noticed things with my face and head weren’t right.”

Ivor with his wife Angela

Ivor received the news that he had tumours on the brain and since then, he has had two operations on his brain and four cyberknife non-invasive surgeries which involve high precision radio surgical treatment.  Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

“Sometimes I can carry on pretty well afterwards, but over the last two years, the consequences have been more significant. Particularly the one, at the beginning of this year, as it took quite a bit of my brain away and I do know that has happened. My speed of recollection and my memory is not what it used to be.”

“Also, the operation last February removed some of my sight which has been particularly frustrating. I am now unable to read or see things clearly. I can’t read my Bible any longer which has been very frustrating. So, I am having to learn a new way to live with limited eyesight which is my biggest frustration.” 

In the midst of it all, though, Ivor still retains his infectious sense of humour. “I often speak rubbish – people often say I’ve been doing that for years,” he laughs. And he still holds fast to his faith and shows an enormous sense of humility when he explains what the illness has meant for his relationship with God and how he understands suffering.

Ivor preaching in India before his diagnosis

“I haven’t got any answers here yet. I still find this whole thing a work in progress – not just with me but with people in general. And why God allows certain things. But I have never said: ‘Oh God, why has this happened to me?’ Because why shouldn’t it happen to me? It could happen to anyone.”

“I haven’t got any answers here yet. I still find this whole thing a work in progress – not just with me but with people in general. And why God allows certain things. But I have never said: ‘Oh God, why has this happened to me?’ Because why shouldn’t it happen to me? It could happen to anyone.”

Ivor goes on to say that he has always had, what he calls, a ‘pretty static’ personality which is emotionally consistent and not filled with either elation or depression. “I am just consistent,” he adds and throughout his illness he has remained this way.

However, Ivor does admit that having cancer has made him reflect much more on the way he views himself and where his validation comes from.

He says he thought he would get to his mid-sixties and still have lots of work to do but now that this has radically changed, he finds himself saying: “Lord, what do you want me do with what I have left?”

Ivor sharing Jesus’ love in India before his diagnosis

He admits he hasn’t worked it out. “I am not sure what the Lord has for me. I could now just sit back and do nothing and stay in bed with cancer. But I don’t want to waste whatever time I have left. So that phase ‘work in progress’ is very much what I am.”

Ivor is reminded of a good friend who has Parkinson’s disease who said to him: 

“You have to realise that because I might think: ‘I have finished with me,’ the Lord hasn’t.”

Ivor is unflinchingly honest when he admits that so much of his validation as a Christian came from what he did:

“I know it shouldn’t have been, but it was my ministry that kept my Christianity vibrant and alive. Busyness was the important thing – what I did. The fuller the prayer letter I wrote, detailing the things I was doing, the more validated I felt. I realise now that even though I can’t do that anymore, the Lord loves me just the same. God’s consistency to me and care for me is exactly the same and it’s not dependent on what I do for Him.”

He admits it is a difficult lesson for many Christians to learn. He adds:

“Many of us in the evangelical world, tend to put so much emphasis on what they are ‘doing’ for the Lord and how busy we are for God. But that’s not the criteria God wants. To get over that is hard. So, that’s why I say I am still learning with this, and it probably won’t be, till I die”.

Anger with God is not something Ivor says he thinks he has ever felt; although he says he totally understands those in his situation who do. Instead, he has taken great comfort from the Psalms. He recalls Victor Jack telling him that, “there is a Psalm for every human condition”. He believes there is a great deal of truth in that because often, Ivor says, he has read a Psalm and it has spoken into his particular situation, at that time.

Encouragement has also come from being reminded of people, and situations that may have happened decades ago. They may have seemed insignificant at the time, yet Ivor has discovered they really made an impact.

“That’s encouraging, because in this situation you can think, ‘my life’s been wasted’ but when you hear about people’s lives being turned around you thank God for hearing that news because sometimes it can be decades before you know about the benefit something you were part of had upon someone else’s life”.

Ivor also says that having cancer has enabled him to speak from a position of experience that he wouldn’t otherwise have had. It’s allowed him to have some deep conversations with people around the issues of suffering: “Why has the Lord allowed this?” “Why do bad things happen to good, ordinary people?”

Cancer has also changed Ivor’s relationship with God because he says frankly: “It’s just you and Him. Not the work you have been involved in and Him. If I need to talk to the Lord, it’s for today not what I am ‘doing’ for today”.

Ivor in India

“Perhaps these are some of the lessons I have to learn. Deepening my relationship with Him is what I can do with whatever years I have left. This is part of the work in progress – that He just wants me to concentrate on Him a little bit more than I ever used to. Maybe that’s the answer.”

He ends: “There’s a hurting world that I like talking with people about and trying to make sense of it. But in the end, God still loves us even though He allows bad things to happen. Fundamentally, God is good, and I still believe that despite everything that’s happening in the world.”