One Christian's Perspective on Trials and Other Aspects of American Life

Archive for January, 2018

God’s Purposes

Five months into this cancer journey, what have I learned? Does God have a grand plan for this in my life or in the life of someone else? The one thing I want to be certain of is that, if there are significant things I should be learning or that God is going for, I don’t miss them and waste this experience. Having a cancer diagnosis stops you in your tracks, and suddenly everything in your life focuses on this fight. It simplifies your life in that nothing else is as important. Faith in the God who is in charge of it all seems at the same time logical and illogical. Trusting a God who would allow this may not make much sense, and yet knowing that you’re going to need supernatural strength and guidance beyond anything you can muster up yourself is the only option you have.

I have been reminded yet again of something the Lord has taught me through the years I’ve battled Crohn’s Disease. It’s the very simple truth that “Why?” is the wrong question to ask. God does what He does because His ways are higher than ours, His thoughts than our thoughts (Isaiah 55:14). John Piper has written: “Since God is never caught off guard, His permissions are always purposeful. If He chooses to permit something, He does so for a reason–an infinitely wise reason” (The Fall of Satan and the Victory of Christ, desiringgod.org). Maybe God lets us have a glimpse of His purposes, or maybe we’ll have to wait until we see Him face to face.

For many years, 2 Corinthians 12:9 has been a favorite verse of mine. Paul asked God to remove an affliction that he had been given in order to keep him from being too proud of what God had shown him. God’s answer was this: “‘My grace is enough; it’s all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness.’ Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ’s strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride.” I must admit, I’m still working on appreciating “the gift” and taking my limitations in stride! I guess that’s why I need His strength to do that!

Maybe the most important–and most significant–lesson gained through this experience is the reminder of the unlimited, extravagant, matchless love of God that breaks through even the most difficult moments. When I’m faced with the realities of the changes in my life, with those areas that will never be the same, God has met me in those places where I need the comfort of a loving Father. His eternal purposes may be known only to Him, but He never forgets our human frailty and the need for comfort in the middle of life’s hardest times. He is there, with His arms open wide, ready to lavish His unfailing love upon us. I’ll let Him take care of whatever eternal purposes He has in mind, as long as I can have His strong arms there to hold me when I become overwhelmed by my circumstances and need to know that I am never alone in them.

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The Unpredictability of Cancer

Cancer is completely unpredictable. Anyone who has had any connection to someone with cancer-and that’s just about everyone!-knows that. Because of the serious nature of cancer, decisions about treatment are usually made with a sense of urgency. People who never knew anything about the many varieties of cancer suddenly have to learn about them and made decisions about treatment. Sometimes there is only one option, and the radical nature of it can leave the patient and their families shell-shocked and wishing they could run away and not have to deal with it! Sometimes treatment is very successful and cancer is a thing of the past for the patient. Then there are times treatment doesn’t work; the cancer was too far advanced, the patient’s response wasn’t what the doctors hoped for, or a myriad of other complications render the treatment unsuccessful.

I think the most frustrating outcome of cancer treatment has to be success, a period of remission, and then recurrence of cancer, often in a more aggressive form and in other sites than the original cancer. You think you’ve beaten it, and it comes back. That’s probably the cruelest blow of all to a cancer patient and their family. The elation of having beaten cancer once and then the heartbreak of having your hopes dashed by its return is devastating to everyone involved. The roller coaster of emotions begins all over again and you have to-again-learn about treatment options and make quick decisions that will disrupt your life-yet again.

I am by no means an expert on cancer, nor do I understand every aspect of the disease. After having been a cancer patient now for 5 months, I do know more about it from firsthand experience. The only treatment offered to us was surgery. This is different than some forms of cancer when chemotherapy is indicated along with surgery and radiation, or chemotherapy alone, or radiation before surgery. Having been through three surgeries now, in three different sites but for the same type of cancer, I am now recovering from the most recent one on my hand. We have decided against radiation treatment, mainly because the experts were evenly split as to whether it was necessary or not. Instead, I will be closely observed and undergo follow-up scans for the next year. No method of observation is 100% accurate, as two of  my cancer sites were undetected by a PET scan because they were too small to “light up”. In addition, a “wild card” for me is Crohn’s Disease. We have yet to meet with my GI doctor, who wants me to go back on  immunosuppressant drugs to prevent a Crohn’s recurrence. Since the only risk factor I possessed for squamous cell carcinoma in the first place was a suppressed immune system, I’m reluctant to begin taking them again.

All of these moving pieces of my health care tend to be confusing and difficult to navigate. There are no guarantees in something as unpredictable as the course of physical illness, regardless of the method of treatment. As I was thinking about the question the past few days, a verse in my daily Bible reading leaped off the page at me (as God so often provides in a timely fashion!). Matthew 6:34 in The Message is translated this way: “Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.” OK.  The one guarantee I DO have is that God is already in the future, and He knows MY future. That’s what He wants me to know, and I can trust Him in that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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