Today I come to you with another Morning Mercy that is personal. Yesterday we received the news that Dorothy has breast cancer. This will be her third bout with that dreadful disease. We have been living with the possibility that this would be our news. Now it has come to pass and we are preparing to face it. I invite you to join with us in this battle. First, let me say that God did not give Dorothy this disease. The Bible makes it clear in its first book that “God saw that it was good”. That is about the creation of all that is. But the very next verse says,”Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness”. We will need to read further into the story to discover that the evil in the world comes, not from God, the Father; but from humanity. When you are waiting to see your doctor, in that little waiting room, with no reading material that is worth examining, study the pictures on the wall of whatever portion of your anatomy you are there to see about. You will recognize that our bodies are an amazing creation. They are so complex. But they usually work well, at least for a time. The analogy breaks down here to some degree. Sometimes, there is the sadness that a little new born body did not work correctly at the beginning. But if you are reading this, most of your body has worked pretty well. At least well enough to get you this far in life. Along the way our bodies come into contact with all sorts of bad stuff. They come out of the air. They come from the food we eat. Sometimes we are hurt, or killed, by something that was made for good, but has been used wrongly. There are no easy answers for these things. We will probably never know what caused Dorothy to get cancer. The same is true for any of you who have it now, or have had it. We are all in the human family,and we stand to receive blessings and sometimes curses, from life. I am saying all of this to say that Dorothy and I do not believe that God gave her cancer as some kind of punishment for sin. It is part of the human condition. We sometimes hear it said that “life is not fair”. Well, its not. But God never said that it was meant to be fair. Sometimes the unfairness of life puts us in a position that we may do things that we could never have accomplished if life had been fair. Consider Helen Keller. It was not fair that she was born blind and deaf. Yet, by some miraculous way, she learned to communicate. She has added so much to the lives of others who were misfortunate enough to have been born with the same disadvantages. And, if you want to think about fairness, consider the cross. It was not fair that Jesus had to die on the cross. But God has turned that unfairness around, and the cross is the way of salvation. I need to say a word about another emotion which we may face when we come up against the unfairness of it all. That word is anger. Do I ever feel anger about unfairness, or in this case, do I feel anger about Dorothy having this dread disease? Yes, I’m sometimes angry. And, yes, I feel some anger toward God for allowing this to happen to her. But God is big enough to handle my anger. And God will not cast me out of His Kingdom because I may feel anger toward him. And I must work through anger which I may feel about this situation, or anger about any other issue of life about which I have no control. So, when you feel anger toward God about anything. Forgive yourself. After all, you aren’t perfect. And ask God to help you get a better grip on your feelings. And remember, one person having cancer, even if that person is one you love with all your heart, that fact does not equal all other unfairness in the world. Remember the holocaust. We have a right to be angry about that most despicable event in all of the tragedies of history. Think about the horrors being faced by innocent people, and so many children, right now in the Mid-east. I’m angry about these things. But so is God. And I want to be on God’s side of His anger, instead of on my side of it. I have one more thing to say about this sadness in our life, and in the lives of all you who also love Dorothy. That thing is this. There is something you can do for her. I heard a sermon yesterday via video which helps say it best. The preacher used as text Philippians 3: 13-14. Verse 13 says “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” But, said the preacher, “I have a hard time with that. I found that I can’t do all things through Christ.” But then, there is the next verse. Here Paul expresses thanks to the good Christians in the church at Philippi. He says,”In any case, it was kind of you to share my distress.” You see, he had the community of faith beside him. Sometimes whatever we are facing may be more than we can handle alone. That’s where the church comes in. You are the people who help us bear our burdens. It is through the prayers, the kindness, the love of the church sisters and brothers that we are able to “do all things” in Christ. So you, dear friends of the Morning Mercies community join with our family in praying and loving one of God’s choice people, my wife, Dorothy. I will keep you posted from time to time as we pass through the various stages of recovery. Thanksgiving and deep appreciation for you and for your concern. This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active.
Posted on: Tue, 21 Oct 2014 14:59:01 +0000
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