When God and Cancer Meet - Control
I’m telling you guys, I cant put this book down. Every page draws me in deeper, and reminds me of things I already know to be true, but have forgotten:
Think about it.
If God knows everything, the cancer diagnosis did not surprise Him.
If God sees everything, He saw the bad news coming.
If God has power over everything, He could have stopped it.But He didn’t
There are so many hidden meanings in those words. He could have, but He didn’t. What that says to me is that He is in control, in every aspect of the universe, He is in control.
He is in control.
Errant cancer cells are not.
Toxic medicine is not.
White- Coated doctors are not.
Herbs and vitamins are not.
You are not.
I am not.
Wow. One of the toughest things that I have had to come to terms with is my lack of control through this cancer battle. I have had to put my life in my surgeons hands, my radiation oncologist hands and now my chemotherapy oncologist hands. I literally have no control, although I still fight valiantly to take it back because I think I can do it “better”, more “efficiently”.
But more importantly (and less easily) I have had to turn over all control to the person that never lost control, He never left His throne. My cancer didn’t take Him by surprise and He didn’t make a mistake. It is the sin of man that caused bad things to happen in this world. Not God. We (all of us, starting with adam and Eve) make the choice to trust Him completely or turn from Him completely.
There is no middle ground, no gray area.
We often act shocked when bad things happen to those we love. We picture God acting as surprised as we are by our current situation. But He is not.
My circumstances do not take God by surprise. Your circumstances do not take God by surprise. He is right where he has always been, on His throne.
All He requires of us is for us to depend on him, completely… without fear or trepidation. To rest in the palms of His hand, and to depend on him in our deepest darkest times, just like we praise Him in our glorious times.
God is Sovereign. His ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts.
People often say that God doesn’t change, that He is the same “Yesterday, Today and Forever” (Hebrews 13:8). I wholeheartedly agree- His character doesn’t change. But His ways sometimes do.
Just flip through the bible and you’ll see that sometimes He intervenes with a miracle; sometimes He doesn’t.
God is the same.
The same God of love.
The same God of mercy.
The same God of justice.
The same God of holiness.
The same God who can do things as differently in our lives as He wants.
This next quote took the breath right out of my chest. I had to sit and think about a few minutes before it really sank in:
He cannot act contrary to His character, but He doesn’t have to act in accordance with our plans or in the same way in each of our lives.
Wow. He cannot act contrary to His character. He does not have to act in accordance with our plans.
So many times we demand things from God. We only need Him when something serious comes up, but during the good times we are content, putting Him up on the shelf, but keeping sight of Him “just in case”…
I don’t want to be one of those “Just in casers”. I want to trust Him in the good times and in the bad. I want to praise Him for my blessings along with my hurts and fears.
I owe Him that much. I love Him that much.
I trust Him that much.
I’ve told you all this so that trusting me,
you will be unshakable and assured, deeply at peace.
In this godless world you will
continue to experience difficulties.
But take heart! I’ve conquered the world.
John 16:33 (The Message)
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When God and Cancer meet…
I received the book When God and Cancer Meet yesterday in the mail from a reader, and I haven’t been able to put it down since… (Thanks Lisa!)
I want to write about some similarities in her thoughts and mine.
For three hours I lay in the room thinking about what it is going to be like to chemotherapy pour through my veins. I had a little conversation with myself as I tried to control my weeping
Get a grip on your self, my head told my heart. What are you so afraid of? You were sick night and day for six months with all three of your pregancies. Mouth sores? You have had them before? Needles? You’re not afraid of them. Losing your hair? It’ll grow back. Don’t be so vain. But my heart didn’t buy it. I just cried harder as I stroked the hair that I so desperately wanted to keep.
Yes, thats what I am afraid of, I admitted. I don’t want to look sick for my children and my husband.
I had every.single.one. of those feelings and fears. I sat in the hospital bed, all alone for an extended amount of time after the surgeon came and told me that it was cancerous, and that the biopsy of the tumor was worse than he expected. I heard the words “I’m so sorry Mrs. George” for the second time in my life, first being when I was told my daughter wouldn’t be born alive. I was in shock, unable to dial the phone because I couldn’t remember the numbers to my parents or my husband, so I just held the phone in my hands and pushed all the numbers while crying. I couldnt ask for help because I couldn’t talk. So there I was, literally all alone with the reality that I had cancer.
I was sobbing like a baby when my parents and husband arrived, and I couldn’t tell them what the surgeon had told me. It was the loneliest point of my life, alone with my fears and unable to express them.
The look on my husbands face, I will never forget that look. All he could do was hold me and cry. I am sure that fear was etched all over my face, because I knew what was going through my mind and heart, and not being able to express that verbally came out in other ways.
My odds weren’t good.
Later in the the first chapter, she writes..
When I was diagnosed I was told that I had, at best, a fifty fifty chance of surviving. It seemed to me as if someone was going to flip a coin:heads I live, tails I die. It drove me crazy thinking about it.
And then, an even better truth hit me: God wasn’t playing roulette with cancer.
He didnt have His fingers crossed.
He wasnt going to wish me luck.
He wasn’t taking bets on my future.
He didnt need good odds to heal me.You need to know and believe that cancer is not an automatic death sentence….Doctors do their best at predicting cure rates and odds of survival, but these predictions are just educated guesses.
I’m reminded of the scripture in 1 Peter 5:10 that I wrote about a few days ago…
Keep a cool head. Stay alert. The Devil is poised to pounce, and would like nothing better than to catch you napping. Keep your guard up. You’re not the only ones plunged into these hard times. It’s the same with Christians all over the world. So keep a firm grip on the faith. The suffering won’t last forever. It won’t be long before this generous God who has great plans for us in Christ—eternal and glorious plans they are!—will have you put together and on your feet for good.
He gets the last word; yes, he does.
1 Peter 5:10
I have no fewer days left on this earth than I did before cancer entered my life. I trust that, I believe that, but it is human nature for one to question their future when given such grim statistics regarding prognosis. It is human nature to question anything and everything that you felt secure and solid, not only with the diagnosis of cancer, but anything that shakes your world to its core.
But we, as Christians, have something more. We have peace. When the world falls down around us, like it did in that hospital bed back in Mayo for me, we have the promise of peace. When you think that you can’t face another day, He is still there. When you feel alone in your grief and worries. He is there.
Trust that.
It is a peace that makes no sense.
It is a peace that cannot be explained.
It is a peace that goes beyond our human mind.
It is a peace that only God can give.
It is a peace I hope you’ll feel today.
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