'Cancer' is the word no-one wants to hear from the mouth of a physician. Just by its very sound, 'cancer', there conjures up images of struggle and tears, treatments and surgeries, successes and setbacks, and, sometimes, agony and death. 'Cancer'.
It is odd how sometimes things happen. Last night we received the news that a very good friend has a tumor, probably cancer, surgery might be an option, chemo is not, and now we wait for a consult. This morning I received a call from another friend who has been awaiting news on a biopsy taken last week and it was shared with me that the tumor was benign and, of what was present at the site, all had been removed.
Tears at night, joy in the morning. One facing mortality, another given a new lease on life. One not keeping food down, another ready to go out and celebrate.
It doesn't make sense, O God! We are so fearsomely and wonderfully created in the palm of Your hand, by the breath of Your being! How is it that Your creation, so imaginatively blessed, is also so frighteningly fragile? How is it that for one there is weeping at twilight, while for another the dawn brings laughter? I get the 'Life's not fair!' thing, but it is the absolute equity of the 'not fair thing' that nearly paralyzes hope itself and mutes the words of faith that my soul longs to speak in Your ear. And, if it is not cancer, then it is Alzheimer's, or COPD, or kidney failure, or a heart attack, or any of a multitude of other human maladies. Yet, most sadly, were it not that loved ones so close were in the eye of the storm, I probably would not have noticed, have so deeply felt, so dearly cried out, so passionately sought Your response . . . until that moment when some physician somewhere spoke one of those words with my name attached . . . and my cries for others would become cries for myself. O God, hear the cries of a little boy upon Your lap looking to dry his tears in the embrace of Your love . . . . AND ANSWER ME! Answer us all! Speak in terms that overshadow the deafness of our isolation and pierce through the coldness of our exiled living. Tear apart the curtain of the Temple from top to bottom, just one more time, that my soul would find its rest in the surety of Your will being done . . . in spite of our human weaknesses. Roll that stone away from the tomb all over again that my eyes might see afresh the wisdom of trusting You through the night-time of our grief, that the dawning of the day would be birthed in the joy of women running with Good News to share. O God, O God, O God, blessed be Thy name in all the earth! And blessed are those moments that usher us into Your presence with longing in our hearts and trust in our souls. Here, O God, I begin to ponder more deeply, maybe even understand more poignantly, "Not my will, but Thine be done" upon the lips of Jesus. As He speaks, so I try to live. Forgive my unbelief.
The challenge of cancer, I think, like challenges named by so many other names, is not to try so hard to find the answers to the eternal questions of 'why' and 'how'. Rather, the challenge is to trust the questions themselves to the understanding of God who, in Christ, walks through the shadows of the valley with us, inviting us to experience the cacophony of morning's first light seen through the eyes of the One who throws open the doors of the grave. So, my prayers will find their root on this summer's afternoon . . . . just as soon as the tears cease their flowing and the pangs of heartache ease their tugging.
On the journey with you,
Your servant in Christ,
Pastor Don
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