We lost another friend to cancer this week. We watched another valiant fight. We prayed again for healing and the healing came, but not on this side of the grave. We saw another family lose a parent. Again. This is getting old.
When I reflect on my younger years, I remember my parents' friends but I honestly don't remember any of them dying. I can recall the first time I saw someone with cancer. She was a sweet little old lady who lived on a farm and grew the sweetest corn I've ever tasted. (I was in that area last summer and came back with a dozen ears! I've made a note to go back this year.) She loved our family and was such a gracious hostess. I remember going with my Dad to visit her in the last days of her life, and I can still envision how she looked. Frail. Ashy. Stomach distended. Not long after that visit I'm sure my Dad officiated her funeral. Beth was my first friend to die at cancer's hand, but unfortunately not my last.
One of my good friends from college called me earlier this summer to tell me that her brother's cancer had progressed and he was in his last days. Like I've done before, I sent her the list that my husband compiled several years ago -- the things you do when you're diagnosed with metastatic cancer. He's walked too many families down this path so he knows the drill. He knows it well.
And I hate it. I hate it with a passion. I hate the emotional ups and downs. I hate the wrestling with your faith. I hate having to pray for wisdom about treatment options. I hate having to pray for healing and strength. I hate the side effects of chemo and radiation. I hate that God allows people to walk this path, and that some of them have to walk it multiple times. I HATE IT.
But it's become a fact of life. While the National Cancer Institute reports an overall drop in cancer incidence and death rates, that's little comfort to our friends whose loved ones didn't survive. They are left to pick up the pieces of their lives and move on. And they do, but that path isn't easy and very often the struggle with their faith continues.
I wonder why God allows the existence of something as heinous as cancer. Oh, I can quote plenty of scripture about why He allows adversity and how He can (and does!) work in the midst of it, but cancer is TERRIBLE. What it does to a body is despicable and what it does to a family is gut-wrenching. And those last days of life are indescribable... and that last gasp of breath...
Gone. Free from the bonds of the diseased prison that held them and released into the arena of the afterlife. Then what? God's Word tells us there are only two places -- with Him or without Him. And I choose WITH HIM because...
When I breathe my last breath I will be escorted into spacious glory of Jesus my Savior. Nobody really knows what will happen in those next few minutes (are there minutes in eternity?) but what we know for sure is recorded in 2 Corinthians 5 - to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. After we exhale our last breath on earth, we breathe our first in the presence of Jesus. Free. Whole. Delivered from the enemy of death.
Listen to David's comforting words: He reached down from on high and took hold of me; He drew me out of deep waters. He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes, who were too strong for me. They confronted me in the day of my disaster, but the Lord was my support. He brought me out into a spacious place; He rescued me because He delighted in me. (Psalm 18:16-19)
God delights in us when we delight in Jesus, Who conquered death and has prepared a place for those who love Him and live for Him. His grace and mercy are free gifts, gifts that last forever.
My prayers remain with the Kings & the Shroeders, and now with the Rooneys.
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