A pregnant Jen Wang’s intense suffering was put down to severe morning sickness at first, until an aggressive cancer was discovered to have spread from her colon.

Constrained by a specific instruction from God – “Do not lay a hand on this child” – she refused to abort her baby in favour of radical treatment.

Obedience meant living with excruciating pain that never left her, but she was to find that her journey was supernaturally paved with grace when she most needed it. 

Read the first part of Jen’s story here. 

When there’s pain, time goes by slowly. Every day I would sit or lie on the bed, shuffling about to try and get comfortable. I was heavily dosed with pain medication which, at best, took the edge off my many pains.

I had pregnancy pain, urinal pain and tumour pains. Sometimes it was hard to focus on what I was thinking or saying because of the excruciating pain.

I would visit the toilet many times a day. I had nausea continually and was vomiting and had diarrhoea. Each day I was glad to be alive but at times the horror of the suffering was very discouraging.

I wanted to sleep the pain away, yet I was anxious to spend each waking moment with my son and family.

It was a time when I experienced many mixed emotions. Every day taught me patience and perseverance.

I fed on God’s Word with great hunger and felt His comfort reign over my suffering. It was only through His authoritative Word that I found the strength to breathe and endure the many medical procedures performed on my weakened body.

Words of life

One of my pastors sent me two messages from God. The first was:

Show me, Lord, my life’s end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting my life is. You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before You. Everyone is but a breath, even those who seem secure. (Psalm 39:4-5, NIV)

It was a sobering message, and I could relate with the Psalmist; death was crouching at my door.

The second message surprised me. 

I waited patiently for the Lord; He turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear the Lord and put their trust in Him. (Psalm 40:1-3, NIV)

Could God be hinting that I would possibly live long enough to tell my tale?

I kept it safely in my heart and prayed to Him for faith in His word.

My nurse’s testimony

God then sent an encourager – a nurse. She was an Indian national who had come to Singapore to work. It was here that she heard the Gospel and accepted Christ.

In her village back home, her father was a priest of another faith. Upon her conversion, the entire village ostracised her and her family. Already downcast, she was at that point diagnosed with stage 3 ovarian cancer.

Her scans showed a huge tumour in her abdomen. She was in Singapore alone, and because of strained relations, her contacts in India did not offer their support.

Fortunately, her church members in Singapore rallied around her and kept praying for her.

Before mapping out a treatment strategy, the doctor put her through another scan. It showed that the tumour had completely disappeared – before they could even start chemotherapy or offer surgery!

It was the most puzzling thing and could only be acknowledged as a miracle by doctors. She told me with a smile: “Don’t worry; even if Satan wants to hurt you, he needs permission from God!

“After what God has done for me, I just sing His praises and share!”

Remarkably, after this incident, her family started to put their trust in Christ and many of the villagers in her hometown too.

“Even my own father left his faith to follow Jesus,” she said.

“About 70 people in my village are now Christians.”

Whoa. She was demonstrating to me how pure and powerful faith could be!

I was filled with hope and the Holy Spirit filled my heart with great joy.

Nurses, family and friends were bewildered but delighted at my positive disposition, not knowing it was God’s joy that was my strength! (Nehemiah 8:10)

Unstinting support

Chemotherapy was physically taxing. The side effects, like nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, mouth sores and neuropathy, wore on my body.

Emotionally, it was also tough. But I had lots of support, and that was half my battle won. My husband, parents, parents-in-law, siblings and sibling in-laws were rock solid in their care and support.

They were my caregivers and cheerleaders. They did not give up on me. They prayed and cried and prayed more and soon, crying turned to laughter.

God really lifted our spirits with His hope and infused us with good cheer.

My family members looked after my son, Joshua, who was 2½ when I was in hospital. They brought him to visit so I could touch him and sing to him and just feast my eyes on him.

Friends gave practical help, brought food, talked and joked with me. Those chuckles gave me strength.

My pastors and friends from Bartley Christian Church also gave me and my family great encouragement. Strangers from all over Singapore and other countries were moved to pray for me and Jill. It was incredibly touching.

My family and friends prayed over me every day. We talked about everything, reminiscing about times past. I laughed a lot. Yes! You can still guffaw when you have cancer!

Rock Flower is born

Soon, time managed to creep along till I was 32 weeks pregnant.

One day, I was running a fever and had to have blood transfusions.

My gynaecologist prepared for delivery through Caesarean section as my doctors wanted me to be awake to witness Jill’s birth.

The surgical staff and nursing staff prayed over me. What a tremendous surrender in faith!

It was a momentous half hour. When the nurses placed my baby on me, I was undone.

She was so beautiful and perfect. She was, to me, a living, breathing promise and testimony of God’s faithfulness to me and my loved ones.

The medical team were tearing and cheering. For my husband and me, it was a holy moment that we will always remember.

Baby Rock Flower was taken to the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care) to fight for her life. At 32 weeks, she was born two months premature and had to be assisted by machines to breathe, eat and stabilise her body temperature.

Fighting to live: Jill was born two months premature and rushed into the NICU.

She was so small and fragile, but we could see she was feisty. She had been through a lot in my womb, but God was with her. It was evident. I could feel His protection and presence with her tiny being.

There in the NICU, surely it was God who strengthened her body through the loving care of the nurses and doctors.

Torn apart

On September 7, just two weeks after giving birth to Jill, I was hospitalised for another cycle of chemotherapy.

I stayed in my ward for two nights alone without company. Past midnight on Friday into Saturday morning, I felt a radiating pain in my stomach. It made me splutter and gasp, and the nurses contacted my oncologist.

He rushed back to the hospital to check on me, felt my stomach and looked worried. He ordered a CT scan immediately. It confirmed his hunch that my colon had perforated! My tumour had ruptured and I needed to have emergency surgery.

I knew from my own research that it was very grim. People die from perforations within hours.

My colon surgeon flew back to Singapore to scrub in. I was rushed into the operating theatre in the same chaotic way as I had seen in the movies.

I was crying bitterly, thinking this could be the very last time I would see my loved ones.

At this point, a group of intercessors from my church arrived. They happened to be coming to visit me. Upon the sight of me being rushed into surgery, they immediately laid hands and prayed aloud over me.

Whilst I was in the operating theatre, my then-Senior Pastor, William Lee, led my family in prayer and sang praises to the Lord. No one knew if I would come out alive. Yet, Ps William chose Psalm 103:1-5 (NIV) to minister to my family, which in retrospect was prophetic:

Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise His holy name. Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all His benefits – who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

God overrules

Meanwhile, the surgeons were trying to try to save my life from the spillage within. The agenda was not to attempt any intervention on my other tumours.

But God had other plans.

The doctors proceeded to resect approximately 50cm of my colon. The spillage proved to be minor as part of my small intestines had conveniently blocked the perforation. Then, my colon surgeon had a thought to just look at the other tumour in my peritoneum. He went on to surgically peel it off from the nerves; it peeled right off!

Needing to get other expertise for the rest of the tumour, which was attached to my artery and ureter, he called my vascular surgeon – who just happened to be in the next OT doing a procedure!

What were the odds?

My vascular surgeon managed to peel the tumour off my blood vessels, when previously it had been encrusted around my common iliac, psoas muscle and ureter.

They then called in the urologist. Seeing that the cancer had already eaten up most of my ureter and bridged onto my kidney, he felt it best for the organs infected with cancer to be removed. After obtaining permission from my family, he proceeded to remove my right kidney.

After seven hours of surgery, I was wheeled out at 4am on September 11, 2016.

How could it be but for the grace of a miracle-performing God? Remember: I was deemed inoperable and not a good candidate for a resection because of how gummed down the tumours were the last time I was opened.

The doctors were so happy with the outcome.

My family was jubilant, and filled with awe and reverence at God’s dramatic rescue.

Faithful, that’s my God

In His time, through His way, God has made all things work together for my good (Romans 8:28).

He used many people to touch my life. He sent messengers. He sent doctors who went over and beyond the call of duty to look after me. His Church, the body of Christ, stood by me and lifted me up in unceasing prayer and petition.

He gave me my parents, siblings, parents-in-law and siblings-in-law to love and uphold me through thick and thin.

He gave me a strong and wise husband to lean on and cry to.

To the Gohs, “thriving” is a forever promise.

He gave me children, both my firstborn and my unborn, who gave me the fight to live.

He gave me His commands and His Word that anchored and instructed me through the pit of pain and suffering.

All through my physical suffering and anguish, I hid in the shelter of His wings. I knew His everlasting love and compassion first-hand. He never left me; He never forsakes His child.

Here and now

Fast forward to the year 2023 and baby Rock Flower, whom my husband and I named Jill Evangeline, has turned 7 years old.

I have been in remission since 2018. Physically, I am still building up my body, but I am free from stabbing pains and living joyously with a shorter-than-most colon and one kidney!

Through this, I have developed a sensitivity and compassion for those who are going through illness, and God has given me a ministry to reach out to those who are going through battles of physical ailments, to deliver to them the Gospel of salvation.

I have resolved to live out Psalm 40:1-3 that the Lord encouraged me through Ps William while I was in the valley of suffering.

I turned 41 in 2023. Since the day I believed and was born into God’s family, I have walked with the Lord for 35 years and counting, and His mercies are still new every morning. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together (Colossians 1:17).

One day I will face physical death; we all will as the physical body is transient. Yet it is well with my soul – because I know Jesus as my Lord and Saviour, and trust in His promise to me that in Him I shall have eternal life.

“I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

Read Part 1 of Jen Wang’s remarkable story here.

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