It’s uncanny, the things that cause grief to bubble up in my heart. In a split-second, I can feel the familiar lump filling my throat and the watery blur creeping out from behind my eyelids. Sometimes I catch my breath and force myself to close my eyes and just breathe. Slowly inhale, slowly exhale. It helps, a little.

A few months ago, a colleague friend had exploratory surgery to rule out thyroid cancer. Thankfully, it was good news. Good news and cancer don’t seem to go together in the same sentence very often. That jerk named Cancer has pestered people I care about for years, and every new diagnosis, every update on chemo treatment, feels like slowly ripping off a Band-Aid — it’s agonizing.

• My mom’s best friend – and my “second mom” – died from cancer not very long after my brother’s accident. (I say not very long, but it was months later. That whole next year was a haze, anyway.)
• A dear aunt of mine had just died from cancer a year or so before my brother died.

See how everything centers around before & after he died? It reminds me of the way we chart time by kids’ ages, only more morbid. But, I digress.

• A friend from high school is fighting liver cancer right now. She is strong in faith and a light to those who know her, and yet my heart breaks for her & her family.
• A neighbor is in her last days of fighting cancer that has ravaged her body to the point that she needs oxygen to breathe and cannot walk.
• Another friend is still in treatment, but the @$&!*# tumor has grown, rather than shrunk.
• A graduate student is finished with treatment but not yet in remission.
• Another colleague has quit lung cancer treatment and is enjoying time with her family while she is still able.

I struggle with praying for healing. I know with all my heart that our gracious God is a God of miracles, that he still heals in mind-blowing ways that boggle doctors’ understanding. And yet, I don’t understand why sometimes healing comes through death. It is hard to serve in a leadership role for others looking for spiritual guidance when you have such heavy questions, yourself. I can’t give answers. My own earnest prayers for healing have not moved mountains, much less eradicated tumors and brought the dying back to life.

I can only point people to the One who listens, even when our questions don’t have clear and concise solutions. This life sometimes feels like a Shakespearean tragedy, but have heart, friends, because the final chapter reminds us that redemption is near:

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Revelation 21:3-4, NIV).

Come quickly, Lord Jesus.