Ponderings

Devotionals, prayer & insights from my Bible reading

Dear Cancer: I hate you.

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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.

Defining our destiny (Prayer Devotional for the week of September 9, 2012)

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I used to have grandiose ideas about what I might be destined to accomplish in life, but as I have matured, my thoughts about destiny have also shifted somewhat. Honestly, I’m not sure if the changes are all for the better. There’s something to be said for youthful innocence, vigor and the unwavering belief that you can improve the world. I’d still like to make a difference, but at this point in life, my thinking is more on the micro scale than the macro scale.

Maybe destiny isn’t always something we are born to do, like being raised by a royal family as heir to the throne. What if destiny is something we develop along the way?

Perhaps it was destiny that orphaned children have been on my heart ever since I was a little girl. Or, maybe it was destiny that my 6th grade English teacher (doing as good teachers do) spoke words of confidence into my fragile self-esteem and encouraged me to write. Perhaps it is moments like those that create our destiny and mold it over time.

The Right Honourable The Baroness [Margaret] Thatcher, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and arguably a person of great accomplishment is credited with this remark: “Watch your thoughts for they become words. Watch your words for they become actions. Watch your actions for they become habits. Watch your habits, for they become your character. And watch your character, for it becomes your destiny! What we think we become.”

It is natural to lose some of our childish innocence as we grow older, but if we allow our thoughts to guide our words … actions … habits … character and, ultimately, our destiny, then we would be wise to pay attention to the musings of our minds.

Job 8:13-15 warns us: “Such is the destiny of all who forget God; so perishes the hope of the godless. What they trust in is fragile; what they rely on is a spider’s web. They lean on the web, but it gives way; they cling to it, but it does not hold” (NIV). Are we focusing our thoughts on God-centered ideals, or are we falling prey to the enemy’s influences?