Is there a word that strikes as much fear in our hearts as the “C” word?

Cancer is such a scary reality. Cancer is so prevalent. Every one reading this knows someone who has, or has had or has had themselves this wretched disease. Every year 2 million Americans are diagnosed with some form of cancer. Multiply that across the globe.

As a pastor I have presided over too many funerals of those whose life has been cut short by cancer. 20 years old. 40 year olds. 50 year olds. It is a curse that will not follow us into eternity. But today, it is a reality.

True, cancer research and treatment has come so far in recent years. Yet, it remains a nemesis that none of us want to mess with. Then there is the fear element that messes with us. The enemy loves to use cancer to strike deep fear into our hearts.

Even if we are “cured,” it costs us deeply. 

Sometimes it costs us in organs or limbs or breasts. Days and weeks in a chair as chemo is pumped into the body. Loss abounds. Hair. Appetite. Strength. Dignity. Any sense of control. A life we once knew as normal.

How many have you lost to this dread? I have lost grandparents. I have lost Uncles and Aunts. I have lost friends. You? You can name them, with tears in your eyes, as I have in mine as I type this. 

Where is our Lord in this situation? He knows. He sees. But is he impotent in the face of such an onslaught of destruction? He is not. 

So I have a wonder. 

What if He is so powerful, more so, so loving, that he is up to something far more spectacular than we can imagine? Nothing is outside his redemptive creativity. Nothing. Not cancer. Not death itself. 

What if, like any hardship we face – chronic depression, divorce, abuse, neglect, car accident, anything – he is up to something so wondrous it would be easy to miss it in the fog of pain and confusion. 

Consider Jesus. 

Jesus’ body was torn, shattered, carved up. Yet, he knew the Father was always with him. Yes, in the pit of the darkness he cried out “why” he was not delivered from such an agony. But the Trinity was not torn asunder. The three-in-one was never not a reality. Not for a moment. In their oneness one of them died a human’s death. An awful death. But as is true for us, so too for Jesus: nothing can separate us from the love of the Father, not even death (See Romans 8).

In Jesus’ suffering life was afforded us. Love was lived out to its full. I have life because Jesus laid his down. In the midst of the most awful event in human history, we are saved. 

What if in the midst of the hardest events of our personal lives, God works beauty, wonder, healing, strength, wholeness and full redemption? 

As our bodies are ravaged by such a horrid disease, we are never, no not ever, separated from the God who envelops us in his life and love and care and compassion. In fact, the Spirit is all the more upon the suffering one. In our suffering we join the One who has suffered, who was torn asunder. 

Do you see it? We join him in his sufferings. And as such, we are immersed all the more in his love.

Cancer is not the sole domain of Satan to torment us.  Nor is any other hardship. Jesus is our Shepherd. He abides us through every shadowy valley.  He is in the midst of any hardship with us. He is pouring out his love and compassion upon us. And he is shaping the human soul in ways that are nigh a mystery. Only he can take the horrid of cancer and make a beautiful soul amidst it all. There is opportunity here. Opportunity to be taken deeper into Christ and the Father’s love and the Spirit’s grace. Ask him to show you. He will.

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My wife was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. We are now in the Way to wherever he will take us. We have never been here before. God have mercy. I trust him. His love is so tender and kind.