“Let me take on her pain!”: The cry of a father’s heart when his daughter had cancer

When Lynn Chia, 44, broke the news to her father that she had cancer, his emotional response shook her.  
 
“Let me take on her sickness and her pain!” cried out her 79-year-old father to a God he did not yet know. 
 
Lynn had never known her father (who wants only to be known as Mr Chia) to be emotionally expressive. He was a traditional Asian father who worked hard to provide for his family but had given them little attention or time. 
 
So when he unravelled with grief, Lynn was stunned and deeply moved.

The father’s heart

Mr Chia lost his own father when he was seven years old.

The eldest in a family of five, he was pulled out of school at 11 by his mother to help support his younger siblings. She took him to a coffee shop one day and asked the owner for an advance on his pay.

“My son is here to work for you,” she told the coffeeshop owner. Mr Chia started working that day and never went back to school.

At 18 years old, he struck out on his own, leaving his hometown in Malaysia to seek employment in Singapore. He started in a construction company, took English classes, and eventually built his own construction company.

He met his wife in Singapore, got married and had three children, of which Lynn is the eldest.  
 
Mr Chia took on the role of a father the best way he knew how – by providing everything the family needed. A man of few words, he showed his love with gifts. When Lynn got her driving license while she was in the university, he promptly bought her a used car. 

He was a “functional dad”, Lynn recounted, the kind who would leave the table after he finished his meals. There was hardly any conversation or small talk around the day-to-day life of his children.  
 
“Growing up, we never had any lack, but my dad was seldom around,” said Lynn, adding that her father was not the easiest person to get along with.

“He wanted things done his way, and he wanted them done now. We often had to walk on eggshells around him. We learnt to read his mood.”

When Lynn found out about her cancer diagnosis, she was devastated. But unexpected comfort came in the salvation of her father.

However, Lynn recalled a treasured moment of tenderness with her volatile father.

When she failed to qualify for the school of her choice after her ‘O’ level examinations, her father came into the room as she was crying and gathered his weeping daughter in his arms.  
 
“That was a moment I felt he was there, that he was present on a day I experienced the first failure in my life,” she said.
 
But Lynn yearned for more – a father who was involved in her life, who spent time with her and affirmed her.

That longing surfaced at a prayer meeting one day with the reflection question: Who do you need to forgive?

“The first word that came to mind was ‘Dad’ – for not being the father I wanted,” Lynn recalled. “I had to forgive Dad for not being like that.

In a video testimony to her home church Covenant Evangelical Free Church (CEFC), Lynn shared a vow she had made to herself: “I never wanted to marry someone like my dad.”

When God convicted her of judging her father, she repented.

God subsequently revealed to Lynn that her father could not offer the kind of love she longed for because he had never received it himself. 
 
“My dad didn’t have a father and he was just parenting the way life taught him,” she realised. “Providing basic needs for his family is his way of loving.”
 
That fresh perspective of her father gave Lynn a new and deep compassion for him.
 
This would turn out to be God’s preparation for what was to come.

From crisis to Christ

When Lynn found a lump in her breast last September during a random self-check, it turned out to be an 8cm cancer tumour. The cancer had progressed to stage three and required immediate chemotherapy.

When Lynn broke the news to her family, her father’s response upended everything she thought she knew about him.  
 
Following a moment of silence, he broke down and wailed.

“Jesus, put the pain on me! My daughter has suffered enough. I am old, let me take over the cancer,” the 79-year-old father pleaded to a God he did not yet know personally.

Mr Chia (front centre) got baptised at 80 years old last Christmas. “That was the good God brought out of this crisis,” Lynn said.

Lynn, at 44 years old, was finally left with no doubt of the depth of her father’s love. The man who did not know how to give his time was ready to give his life for her.

“At that moment, I was overwhelmed by his love,” she recounted. “My dad, whom I had always thought was aloof, wanted to die on my behalf.”
 
At that very moment, Lynn also grasped her heavenly Father’s love for her.
 
“If my earthly father could love me so much, how much more my heavenly Father?” she realised.

Although she had been sharing the Gospel with her father shortly after she turned to Christ 16 years ago, he was never interested.

“He was a self-made man, so he did not think he needed God,” Lynn said. 

Mr Chia would go for outreach events with his wife, who also worshipped at CEFC, but always stopped short of handing over his life to Jesus.
 
At a hospital many years ago, he allowed Lynn to pray for him, but challenged her: “See? I didn’t get well even when you prayed.”

Lynn’s cancer diagnosis, however, drew Mr Chia to CEFC every Sunday, desperately seeking prayers for his daughter. He sat through the sermons and headed down to the altar without fail – sometimes by himself, sometimes with his wife – to ask for prayer for Lynn.
 
“I was devastated for Lynn,” Mr Chia told Salt&Light. “I wanted healing for my daughter and whatever it took, if there was anything I could do, I would do it.
 
“I thought to myself that Jesus is the One who can heal her. So I went to church to pray for her.”
 
When the Chinese congregation at CEFC launched the Hello small group for exploring the Christian faith, Lynn took the chance to invite her father. Lynn believes the weekly sermons at church primed his heart to agree.

Despite the ongoing chemotherapy, Lynn drove to her parents’ home weekly for six weeks to attend the small group with her father via Zoom.

During the Hello season, the Chinese pastor of CEFC actively engaged Mr Chia in conversation and often visited him.
 
At the end of the six sessions, the pastor asked Mr Chia if he would like to be baptised on Christmas. He said yes.

On Christmas Eve, 12 years after he issued the challenge to his daughter from his own hospital bed, Mr Chia gave his life to Jesus. 
 
“I feel more at peace now,” Mr Chia shared during his baptism. “There were many times I wanted to flare up but I feel a prompting to calm down. I also try to read the Bible more; I have many things to learn. And I don’t feel like betting on horses anymore!”

He makes all things new

The shift in Mr Chia’s behaviour did not go unnoticed by his family.
 
“He used to have a lot of outbursts of anger when things didn’t go his way. But he’s more mellow now,” said Lynn.
 
Their relationship has become “very sweet”,  she added. When she shaved her head because of hair loss arising from her chemotherapy, Mr Chia –  along with Lynn’s husband and her brother Junhao – shaved his, too, in solidarity with her.

The relationship between Lynn and her father has become “very sweet”.

Throughout her cancer treatment, Mr Chia came over to Lynn’s home often to check on her and to drive her daughter, Faith, to and from school during her chemotherapy sessions.

“He stepped in where we could not manage, to pack meals, drive my daughter around,” Lynn said. “He was so eager to help.”

Six months of chemotherapy has beaten Lynn’s cancer into remission but Mr Chia continues to visit. Lynn builds on the relationship by visiting her parents and sometimes intentionally calling on her father to help with her daughter.
 
Though she would not wish her cancer experience on anyone, Lynn believes her suffering was worth it because it brought her father to Jesus. “This was the good that God brought out of the crisis,” she said. 
 
Her brother, Junhao, agreed. “If my dad didn’t have Jesus, he’d probably be seeking help from different idols,” Junhao told Salt&Light.

“But in that desperate situation, he turned to Jesus and got us to pray every time we gathered. I saw my dad using his position as a father to rally his family in prayer.
 
“Today we can proclaim Joshua 24:15: Our household shall serve the Lord.”

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