Cancerous Hope

I used to worry about cancer in the darkness and quietness of night. Hearing the word itself was enough to send my thoughts whirling in the direction of a thousand unknowns. Now, walking alongside it, it’s more like we’re holding hands and walking cautiously through a thick forest trying to find its home and mine before we’re consumed by utter blackness. We’re peering through the trees, straining to see the light above and before us, moving forward down this path. We’re visiting and carrying on and telling our stories of pain and of accomplishment, skipping contentedly in each other’s company, all the while glancing at each other in bewilderment and wondering what the other is really thinking. We’re learning to greet cancer as Paul did his thorn in the flesh, as a friend and an asset. Because cancer is a way we can reach so many weary souls for Jesus. Cancer is becoming ever more persistently hope and life and joy and grace to us in this mess of a life we’re living. And it is making itself known to us as a gift that we have been given by the Lord to manage well so that people will look to Him and Him alone and worship, not because of what life He has chosen for us, but because of what death He chose to suffer on our behalf. Cancer is changing us. It’s wrecking us and ridding us of our comforts and our normals. It’s shifting our outlook and demanding that we abandon our preconceived notions about who God is and who we are in Him, and just look to Christ and wait for Him to tell us who He really is. And He is doing that. He is showing us in every mangled moment that He is God and He is here and He is using this chaos for His kingdom. 

We are, quite simply, grateful to be a part of His story.